Libertarianism, Property Rights, and the COVID-19 Pandemic Policies

The following paper presents a critique of libertarian arguments for the universal antipandemic restrictions (UAPR) imposed by governments with the advent of the COVID-19 epidemic. The purpose of the article is to formulate a libertarian case against such measures by demonstrating that UAPR contradict the libertarian nonaggression principle (NAP). After briefly reconstructing UAPR advocates’ reasoning, I commence with a preliminary overview of property rights as underpinnings of the NAP as well as the nature of rights as such. On that basis, current antipandemic regulations are challenged in a twofold manner. First of all, emphasized is the fact that they partly extend to individuals’ private property, which is evidently unacceptable from the libertarian standpoint. Second of all, it is demonstrated that the public domain represents a no-man’s-land, to which no one has a legitimate property title that would bestow upon him a right to use it without the risk of being infected. Finally, the undesirable logical and practical ramifications of the libertarian support for UAPR are considered.