Alexander McCobin makes a case for a moral justification of liberty as a grounding for all other justifications. According to McCobin, no society has ever achieved the ideal of full liberty. Increasing government regulation, economic policies, and political tendencies, however, currently present dangerous threats to existing individual freedom. In order to preserve this ideal, he proposes a justification that not only unifies all libertarian thought, but is also more persuasive than any other explanation. A moral justification, unlike the historical and economic justifications, is self-justifying.

McCobin argues that the correct moral argument for liberty must be an uncontroversial premise that everyone can agree to. For him, the strongest moral argument is as follows: Individuals have an innate ability to provide value in the world through the use of reason. Moreover, humans assign value to the consequences of their actions, beyond questions of survival. Liberty should not be viewed as an element on its own, but rather as a tool - the ideal means - for individuals to exercise their rational capacity. In this line of thought, the moral justification of liberty is the most stable basis for all other justifications.