"Libertarians typically argue that particular obligations, at least under normal circumstances, must be created by consent; they cannot be unilaterally imposed by others"
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Palmer’s line is a quiet grenade tossed into everyday moral talk, where we constantly treat duties as if they’re ambient features of the world: you owe your parents, you owe your country, you owe your community. By insisting that “particular obligations” must be “created by consent,” he’s narrowing the category of legitimate “you owe me” claims to those we’ve actually signed onto, explicitly or implicitly. It’s a lawyerly move dressed up as moral philosophy: obligation as contract, not atmosphere.
The phrasing “typically argue” matters. Palmer isn’t announcing a personal creed so much as sketching a family resemblance within libertarian thought, presenting it as a default rule rather than an absolutist slogan. That caveat “at least under normal circumstances” is the escape hatch that makes the view livable. It concedes the hard cases - emergencies, clear harms, perhaps parental duties - without surrendering the main point: outside those edge conditions, coercion needs a permission slip.
The subtext is a critique of unilateral moral entrepreneurship: politicians, activists, even neighbors who convert their preferences into your burdens. “Cannot be unilaterally imposed by others” is less about manners than power. It frames many civic and social demands as acts of moral annexation, where someone drafts you into their project and calls it responsibility.
Contextually, this is libertarianism trying to sound less like “I don’t owe you” and more like a principled boundary-setting: consent as the moral technology that turns private choice into binding duty, and keeps everyone else from writing IOUs in your name.
The phrasing “typically argue” matters. Palmer isn’t announcing a personal creed so much as sketching a family resemblance within libertarian thought, presenting it as a default rule rather than an absolutist slogan. That caveat “at least under normal circumstances” is the escape hatch that makes the view livable. It concedes the hard cases - emergencies, clear harms, perhaps parental duties - without surrendering the main point: outside those edge conditions, coercion needs a permission slip.
The subtext is a critique of unilateral moral entrepreneurship: politicians, activists, even neighbors who convert their preferences into your burdens. “Cannot be unilaterally imposed by others” is less about manners than power. It frames many civic and social demands as acts of moral annexation, where someone drafts you into their project and calls it responsibility.
Contextually, this is libertarianism trying to sound less like “I don’t owe you” and more like a principled boundary-setting: consent as the moral technology that turns private choice into binding duty, and keeps everyone else from writing IOUs in your name.
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| Topic | Freedom |
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