Equal Moral Agency Does Not Require Equality of Outcome

(NOTE: This article first appeared in Moral Libertarian Horizon #4, and has been slightly edited to better convey what I mean.)

Ever since I published my articles and books about Moral Libertarianism and the principle of Equal Moral Agency for all individuals, I have repeatedly encountered a critique from the far-left: that rich people surely have much more moral agency than regular working individuals, so someone serious about Equal Moral Agency must hence oppose the market economy or something like that. Let me break this down: firstly, I do agree that the way society is set up now sometimes allows rich people to coerce poorer people in some ways, and this should change; but secondly, it doesn't imply that we need to move away from the market economy to adequately solve this problem.

Let me first clarify what I mean by Equal Moral Agency. It's essentially the same as the equal freedom of religion that underpinned classical liberalism in the 18th and 19th century, but expanded to include moral beliefs that are not necessarily religious. Basically, everyone should be free to practice their own moral beliefs, including but not limited to religion, as long as this would not unfairly limit another's rights to do so. Now, this does not imply the right to have an equal impact on the rest of the population. Indeed, there could be no such right, because even in a perfectly free and fair market of ideas, some ideas are going to be much more persuasive than others, and hence adopted by more people. Therefore, the principle of Equal Moral Agency is to be interpreted as a personal right within oneself, the way freedom of religion is interpreted. The fact that a rich businessman has much more tools at his disposal to proselytize his religion has never been interpreted as a lack of freedom of religion. Therefore, I believe Equal Moral Agency doesn't necessarily require equality of resources.

On the other hand, Equal Moral Agency necessarily requires that the rich must not be able to coerce the poor into giving up their moral agency. This 'coercion' would include the carrot as well as the stick, because in either case the ill effects on morality are the same, i.e. letting an imperfect human being have proportionally too much moral agency and inadequate balances and checks on their behaviour. (Also, if you apply the idea of opportunity costs, carrots are just sticks worded in reverse, so carrots and sticks are really not that different anyway.) In our modern world, such coercion could include restricting the acceptable speech of others, compelling others to take certain stances, or making certain beliefs so taboo that one dare not voice it lest they lose their job or worse. These things are of course much easier to do for those with lots of money. Therefore, I believe a case can be made for some sort of regulation, to prevent this coercion from happening.

Moreover, while Equal Moral Agency is a personal right, it does not mean there are no public sphere requirements of equal treatment. To illustrate this, we should again think about how freedom of religion is applied. For example, a public square that allows the preaching of one religion but not another would surely be seen to violate freedom of religion. In our modern world, digital platforms have essentially become our public squares. Consistently, a digital platform that allows the promotion of one religion but not another would rightly face a public outcry. Therefore, censorship of certain points of view on digital platforms could indeed be justifiably seen as an affront to the spirit of Equal Moral Agency. On a related note, a large part of the Moral Libertarian ideal is a free and fair market of ideas, so Moral Libertarians should naturally support less censorship and more free speech under all circumstances.

Furthermore, while Equal Moral Agency does not appear to call for equality on the basis of race, gender, sexuality and so on, in practice, a lack of equal treatment and equal opportunity in these areas could lead to the erosion of Equal Moral Agency. For example, in a society where racial minorities or LGBT individuals have a particularly hard time finding a job, some of them could become more willing to give up their moral agency (in terms of free speech, for example) in exchange for fulfilling basic material needs. This in turn inevitably leads to a downward race where other people become expected to give up their moral agency too (after all, if members of so-and-so minority can do it, and you're not racist or homophobic or whatever, then why can't you do that too?). I believe this gives justification to anti-discrimination laws, like the Civil Rights Act in America.

Of course, one can argue that a cashless society where private property and wage labour is banned would do away with the aforementioned problems entirely. However, every solution has its pros and cons, and the two should be balanced to get us as close to Equal Moral Agency as possible. While a market-less society would solve the problem of discrimination in private employment by eliminating private employment altogether, anti-discrimination regulations could achieve the same in a market economy. However, a completely planned economy places a lot of power in the state or the collective (i.e. whoever gets to plan the economy), which inevitably comes with other losses of freedom, e.g. the freedom to start a small business, to turn your passion into useful products, without the permission of the state or the collective. This, in turn, actually means that a market-less society is likely to be further away from the ideal of Equal Moral Agency than where we are now.

In conclusion, Equal Moral Agency, similar to the idea of freedom of religion which it is based upon, does not mean one has an equal right to impact the rest of society as another. Hence, there is no need for equality of the amount of resources at one's disposal. There could be a need to regulate certain aspects of society so that the rich and powerful cannot coerce other people to agree with their moral stances. However, I believe to suggest that we should move to something like a completely planned economic system as the solution would be entirely missing the point, because a completely planned economic system would almost by definition be further away from having Equal Moral Agency compared to where we are now.