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Frank S. Meyer

In Defense of Freedom and Related Essays

by Frank S. Meyer (Author)

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When it first appeared in 1962, In Defense of Freedom was hailed by Richard M. Weaver as “a brilliant defense of the primacy of the person” and an effective “indictment of statism and bureaucratism.” Meyer examines the tension between the freedom of the person and the power of social institutions. In his view, both the dominant Liberalism and the “New Conservatism” of the American tradition place undue emphasis on the claims of social order at the expense of the individual person and liberty.

Frank S. Meyer (1909–1972) was a senior editor of National Review.

William C. Dennis is a Senior Fellow, Atlas Economic Research Foundation, and a consultant in philanthropy.

ISBN-10

0865971404
ISBN-13

978-0865971400
Publisher

Liberty Fund
Publication date

June 30, 1996
Language

English
Dimensions

5.75 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches
Print length

261 pages
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Liberty Fund (June 30, 1996)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 261 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0865971404
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0865971400
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.9 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.75 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,278,929 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,014 in Philosophy (Books)
- #3,609 in Political Philosophy (Books)
- #19,424 in Law (Books)

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4.6 20 ratings

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Sentinel

A "must read" for lovers of liberty

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 9, 2015

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This is another "must read" book for every American. In an effort to understand what is western civilization in general and the American experiment in particular you have to understand what conservatism, and by extension Americanism, is and how it conflicts with leftism. This book describes the two lines of conservatism (libertarian and traditionalist) and how they are not at odds with each other but in fact are two halves of the same whole and how only together will we be able to restore original American liberty and honest government.

Helpful

Does Libertarian Belief in Individual Liberty Conflict with Conservative Belief in Transcendent Moral Order?

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 21, 2012

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This book is a collection of essays from conservative social theorist Frank Meyer, including the entirety of his most famous book "In Defense of Freedom." Unlike other conservatives of the time (Russell Kirk and Robert Nisbet are the two primary targets), Meyer is both a believer in a transcendent moral order AND a defender of individual liberty. Where thinkers like Kirk defend the former (and see the dangers of totalitarianism in its socialistic variants), they are skeptical of individual liberty and small government, preferring that the state be invoked to defend virtue among the citizenry.

Meyer believes that true conservatism demands both a belief in a transcendant moral order AND individual liberty and, further, that these two are complimentary, not contradictory, beliefs. Meyer's argument runs roughly as follows: the moral end of each individual should be to live a virtuous life. To live a virtuous life, of course, first demands that one recognize objective moral criteria for what virtue is and how people should behave. But it also demands that people be free to choose how to behave, as a key part of being virtuous is being the type of person who chooses to be virtuous even when they could choose otherwise. To believe in individual liberty without belief in a transcendent moral order, says Meyer, leads to hedonsistic chaos (the Hobbesian state of nature?) where the people become vulnerable to a Leviathan government who, alone, provide order to the chaos. But believing in a moral order without accompanying it with individual liberty means that it becomes too tempting to coerce people into being 'virtuous' (the scare-quotes indicating that, for Meyer, one cannot be coerced into being virtuous any more than one can be coerced into sincerely liking jazz). Either way, the road becomes open for tyranny. The only way to have a virtuous citizenry, then, is - maybe paradoxically, but Meyer thinks not - allow the citizens freedom NOT to be virtuous if they so choose.

As one who falls on the libertarian side of things, I find Meyer's libertarian conservatism a really refreshing antidote to Nisbet's communitarianism ( The Quest for Community: A Study in the Ethics of Order and Freedom (Background: Essential Texts for the Conservative Mind) ). Like Meyer, I recognize common ground with Nisbet when arguing against government expansions of power, but see an equal danger when he seemingly would allow for quite coercive community relations (illiberal communities, as it were).

But I depart a little bit from Meyer in thinking that there is not an inherent contradiciton or tension in the ideas of a transcendent moral order and individual liberty; after all, while Meyer says these are both aspects of conservatism, he was writing at a time where neither libertarians nor conservatives believed him. the question I hoped Meyer would answer - he didn't - was "If one really believes that there are objective standards for right behavior, then won't it be a bit uncaring to NOT interfere with individuals choices when they decide to choose wrongly?" Meyer rightly notes that part of being virtuous is one's freely choosing to be virtuous, but another part of why we should behave virtuously is, frankly, to bring about the good consequences that come from acting with honesty, trust, courage, etc. And if consequences are also important, then isn't there something to be said - for those who believe there IS a right and wrong way to be virtuous - to compel folks to be virtuous, if only to bring about those good effects? (I also suspect that most Kirkian conservatives would be more pessimistic than Meyer about the likelihood of people acting virtuous voluntarily, and hence, might argue that if people en masse decide to tell easy lies rather than hard truths, that at some point, government needs to step in.)

In short, I think Meyer's essays to a good job telling us that liberty and belief in a transcendent moral order are not contradictory, and only a halfway good job arguing why. He doesn't speak to the critics by answering the really hard objections that I am sure libertarian and conservative critics would have for him. And while, as a colleciton of essays, this book has a good amount of repitition, I still come away thinking that Meyer just could have done a better job speaking to the skeptic, not by explaining his position again, but by actually getting into defenses against the really hard objections.

18 people found this helpful

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Matthew J. Summers

Liberty is a Prerequisite for Morality

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 11, 2009

Without the freedom to choose what is moral, morality cannot exist.

Meyer calls for a fusion between social conservatives and libertarians, arguing that the morality praised by the social conservative may only be exercised when one is free to choose it.

In this sense, the libertarian and the conservative are only emphasizing two aspects of one greater morality: freedom and responsibility. He shows how, although emphasizing different priorities, they ultimately fight for the same thing against a common enemy: the collectivist liberal. The collectivist liberal presents a threat to the foundations of both morality and freedom.

This is one of my favorite books. It was my favorite book of 2007 and only got bumped to second place by one of Murray Rothbard's works. I highly recommend it.

10 people found this helpful

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Mark on Amzon

I agree with the author, but his writing takes an unnecessarily long route to the point

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 15, 2013

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...unnecessarily long as in going from Tampa to Miami by way of Seattle.

The author uses far too many words to make very simple points. Before tiring of wading through the morass of tweed-jacket prose, it seemed to me that the author's point is that neither an unrestricted government nor an amoral libertarian society will work. Instead, he seems to favor limited government and conservative society. In other words, I think he would disagree with Rick Santorum's platform, but also disagree with much of what is written at Reason magazine. If that's his point, I agree with him, but he could have made that point much faster and more directly. The text is several decades old, but so is Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson, which is much more succinct and moves along quickly from point to point.

3 people found this helpful

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