First off, voluntarism is not necessarily the same thing as volunteerism. Voluntarism, in a nutshell, is any action by an individual not induced by coercion. In other words, nobody made you do it. You do it because you choose to of your own Free Will.
Now, voluntarism is HUGE in the libertarian philosophy because it indicates not only that people have the Right to do as they choose with their lives but responsibility for those choices is implicit. You can’t have the right without accepting the responsibility.
Believe it or not, this is where the old saw about “Ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking the law.” comes from. Though when applied to laws of man, it becomes very ambiguous and sketchy. Thinking about it from a Natural or God’s Law point of view, everything we do has a consequence. If we do something, anything, that will result in something else happening because of it. By choosing to do something, even if ignorant of the consequences or that there even are consequences doesn’t mean that those consequences won’t happen or apply.
For example, if we climb a tree, we may have the right to do so. By doing it, we must accept that there is a very good chance of falling and of getting scratched up or otherwise injured as we do so. Once getting to the top of the tree, we choose to jump down. There again, we have the right to do so, but we have a very good chance of getting hurt, maybe even mortally injured as a result. We may not have thought about those consequences before we decided to do it, but our ignorance of those consequences will not prevent them from happening. SO, when we choose to do something, anything, we automatically accept the responsibility and consequences of that decision and the consequences of doing so.
We can’t escape natural laws. There is nothing voluntary about it. The laws of Man though are another situation entirely. In the first post I wrote that no individual, group or government has the authority to interfere with any individual’s Rights of Free Will. As we form societies and towns, states and nations, it is important to keep that in mind. Men can make laws to rule over themselves and others by agreement. However, because the consequences are not universally applied such as Natural and God’s Laws are, they are prone to error and so must be accounted for when a suspected violator claims innocence.
Again, this has been taken into account in the U.S. Founding Documents in that when it comes to the law, people are supposed to be presumed innocent until “proven” guilty and the burden of proof is entirely on the accuser. This is exactly to account for human error in how the law of man is imposed on others.
How is the above tied to voluntarism? Because people must agree to abide by the laws of men. Whether you agree with the laws of Nature or God or not doesn’t matter, they will still be in effect. You don’t have to just accept the laws of man unless you choose to. If you don’t like the rules or laws in a given community, then you are (or should be) free to go somewhere else more agreeable to you. Why? Because where you live and how you live is up to you. Free Will and Voluntary.
God’s gift of Free Will pervades just about every aspect of our lives. It is more than just a gift though. It is also a burden and a directive. Having the ability to make your own life decisions is awesome and also intimidating. Having the responsibility for those decisions is inherent in that ability. We also have an obligation to use those life experiences to learn and improve ourselves or be doomed to suffer through ignorance over and over again with no rescue from ourselves.
When we insist on our God given Free Will and the Right of Voluntarism inherent in it, we must learn to accept and live with the consequences of our decisions. Make a “good” choice and reap what seem to be positive consequences. God will from others, financial reward, love, friendship, an personal sense of satisfaction among others. Or, make what turns out to be a “bad” choice and similarly face the consequences thereof. Anger and animosity from other people. Loss of income or property. Being harmed or perhaps even death. These are ours automatically. We made the choice, we reap the consequences.
La Vida Libertarian 