The Non-Aggression Principle is the foundation of libertarianism. It forbids aggression, i.e., the initiation of force against others. While there are many different justifications for the NAP, the simplest argument is an appeal to commonsense morality: we should deal with other people through reason and persuasion rather than violence and coercion.
In his article “The Irrelevance of Responsibility,” Roderick Long presents an Aristotelian Golden Mean justification of the NAP. He argues that a flourishing human life requires striking a balance between the subhuman and the superhuman. Since reason is the essential human trait, a truly human life requires relating to others through persuasion. Dealing with others through force is subhuman; but refusing to use force against aggressors is superhuman. Thus the NAP—using force only in defense—represents a Golden Mean between the extremes of subhuman aggression and superhuman pacifism.
What follows is an excerpt from Long’s article (p. 119, 121-124).
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(1) Every person has the right not to be treated as a mere means to the ends of others. …
Man is a naturally political animal; and he who is without a polis by nature (and not through chance) is either base or superhuman. … He who is unable to share (in a political community), or who through self-sufficiency has no need to, is no part of the polis—thus, either a beast or a god.
The Aristotelian virtues, too, can be seen as a mean between the subhuman vice of overvaluing, and the superhuman vice of undervaluing, our vulnerable embodiedness. To err on the side of the beasts is to be excessively concerned with our animal nature, our physical desires and physical security; this is the error of the common people, whom Aristotle regards as all too prone to take pleasure and material advantage as their primary goals, and to neglect the possibility of higher values that may require us to sacrifice comfort or even continued existence. To err on the side of the gods, by contrast, is to treat human beings as disembodied intellects for whom the animal nature is irrelevant; this is the error of philosophers like Socrates who see knowledge and virtue as sufficient for happiness, and dismiss external goods as unnecessary, aiming for a transcendent self-sufficiency that is not an option for embodied beings like us.
For he who flees and fears everything, and endures nothing, becomes a coward; and he who fears nothing whatsoever and approaches everything becomes rash. And likewise he who indulges in every pleasure and holds back from none is undisciplined, while he who flees them all, as boors do, is an insensible sort.
Sober-mindedness and indiscipline are concerned with those pleasures that other animals also share in, which thus appear slavish and bestial. … Indiscipline seems to be justly reviled, since it belongs to us not as humans but as animals. … Those who fall short with regard to pleasures and take less enjoyment than they ought do not often arise; such insensibility is not human.
[Aristotle] used to say that some people are as stingy as if they were going to live forever, while others are as profligate as if they were going to perish the next day.
In short, one set of vices places too much value, and the other too little, on the animal side of human nature. How, then, can it be shown that principle (1) expresses an attitude appropriate to someone who is virtuous in Aristotle’s sense? That is, how can it be shown that (1) is the truly human attitude, that it neither falls short of, nor exceeds, what can properly be demanded of our humanity? Consider what Aristotle says about the political nature of human beings:
Now that man is more of a political animal than the bee and every other gregarious animal is clear. For nature, as we say, makes nothing in vain, and among the animals only man has logos [reason, speech]. So while mere voice is an indication of pain or pleasure, and hence is found in other animals (for their nature reaches as far as this: having the perception of pain and pleasure, and indicating these to one another), logos is for revealing the advantageous and the disadvantageous, and so also the right and the wrong. For this is peculiar to man, as opposed to the other animals: to be the sole possessor of the perception of good and evil, of right and wrong, and the others. And a community of these makes a household and a polis.
In other words, Aristotle identifies the distinctively human capacity for reason and speech as the basis of our being naturally political animals, for it enables us to pursue our goals through discussion with one another. Moreover, Aristotle famously regards logos, reason or speech, as the essential trait around which a flourishing human life must be organized. This, it seems, is why Aristotle regards it as an essential component of a truly human life to deal with others politically, i.e., through reason and discourse—i.e., as conversation partners. But such an idea creates a strong presumption against the use of force, and in favor of relying on persuasion as far possible. Aristotle indeed affirms that it is unjust to rule by force rather than persuasion, insisting that statesmen should be as dependent on the consent of their subjects as doctors and pilots are on the consent of their patients and passengers, respectively. I think, however, that Aristotle’s insight points in the direction of a more radical critique of force than he is likely to have recognized. To deal with others by force is to act in a subhuman manner, like a beast of prey; we live a more human life (and therefore, in Aristotelian terms, a better life) to the extent that our relations with other people embody reason and persuasion rather than coercion. Therefore, the need to avoid the bestial type of vice gives the virtuous agent reason to accept an obligation to respect other people as ends in themselves, rather than to treat them as mere means to her own ends. If this high-level human end places a constraint on the pursuit of lower-level, animal ends, so be it.
This, however, gives us only the B-component of principle (1)—the prohibition on using the rights-holder as a mere means. This, by itself, does not entail the C-component—the permissibility of the rights-holder’s (or her agent’s) compelling others to comply with this prohibition. I suggest that what legitimates the C-component is the need to avoid the corresponding godlike type of vice, the pure pacifist position that requires the virtuous agent to cling to cooperation even when the other party abandons cooperation and resorts to aggression. The saintlike commitment to turn the other cheek accords less respect to one’s own material needs than they deserve. Principle (1) can thus be seen a striking an appropriate balance—a Golden Mean—between subhuman aggression and superhuman pacifism.
