Okay, now I’m confused. I’ve just arrived at the Winnershiek Hotel in historic downtown Decorah, Iowa to discover that Lisa says she “totally disagrees” with me even though I say I’m opposed to legalized prostitution. She then goes on to explain many of the reasons why she dislikes legalized prostitution, many of which I agree with.

And then Mark says I’m arguing for legal positivism because — for the sake of argument — I am willing to entertain a utilitarian rationale for legal prostitution, even though, again, I explicitly say my own position is opposed to legalized prostitution.

Perhaps I could have been more clear in what I was getting at. But having considerable experience arguing with Andrew Stuttaford and other minarchists I wanted to argue as close to his own terms as possible. I think I agree with Mark for the most part that it is perfectly legitimate and desirable for laws to reflect culture and tradition. But I think Mark would agree with me that this is not an absolutist position. There have been plenty of laws that have reflected culture and tradition which have, with the illumination of reason and conscience, proven to be unwise, unconstitutional or unjust. I think utilitarian arguments – like most libertarian arguments (which is not to say libertarianism = utilitarianism) – are always worth considering.

In short, the point of my original post was to say that even if I agreed with Andrew’s libertarian worldview, I would not agree that what Spitzer did is a “private matter.” Indeed, my point was that under Andrew’s ideal system, Spitzer’s behavior should be subject to at least as much, if not more, condemnation from society – precisely because it was legal.