Editing Land ethic (section)

==Libertarian-based land ethic==

Another philosophical approach often used to guide actions when making (or not making) changes to the land is [[libertarianism]]. Roughly, libertarianism is the ethical view that agents own themselves and have particular moral rights, including the right to acquire the property.<ref>[http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2010/entries/libertarianism/ Vallentyne, Peter, "Libertarianism", ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (Fall 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)]</ref> In a looser sense, libertarianism is commonly identified with the belief that each individual person has a right to a maximum amount of freedom or liberty when this freedom does not interfere with other people's freedom. A well-known libertarian theorist is [[John Hospers]]. For right-libertarians, property rights are natural rights. Thus, it would be acceptable for the above farmer to plant on a slope as long as this action does not limit the freedom of his or her neighbors.

This view is closely connected to utilitarianism. Libertarians often use utilitarian arguments to support their own arguments. For example, in 1968, [[Garrett Hardin]] applied this philosophy to land issues when he argued that the only solution to the "[[Tragedy of the Commons]]" was to place soil and water resources into the hands of private citizens.<ref>Harden, Garrett. (1968) "The Tragedy of the Commons." ''Science'', 162, 1243-1248</ref> Hardin supplied utilitarian justifications to support his argument. However, it can be argued that this leaves libertarian-based land ethics open to the above critique lodged against economic-based approaches. Even excepting this, the libertarian view has been challenged by the critique that numerous people making self-interested decisions often cause large ecological disasters, such as the [[Dust Bowl]] disaster.<ref name="Thompson, Paul 2010">Thompson, Paul. (2010) "Land." ''Life Science Ethics.'' ed. Gary L. Comstock. Raleigh: Springer Publishing.</ref> Even so, libertarianism is a philosophical view commonly held within the United States and, especially, held by U.S. ranchers and farmers.{{Dubious |Libertarian based |reason= Libertarianism is generally agreed to be a philosophy of the individual and the morality of ownership.  The Land Ethic, as described by Aldo Leopold, is a philosophy of community and interdependence.  These two ideas remain mutually exclusive despite the dogmatic attempt by the former to redefine the latter.  |date=June 2013}}