Libertarianism is a set of related political philosophy that uphold liberty as the highest political end. This includes emphasis on the primacy of individual liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association. Libertarianism directly opposes authoritarianism.
Libertarianism is the moral view that agents initially fully own themselves and have certain moral powers to acquire property rights in external things (Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy). Libertarianism is sometimes identified with the principle that each agent has a right to maximum equal empirical negative liberty, where empirical negative liberty is the absence of forcible interference from other agents when attempts to do things. In a sense, Libertarianism is sometimes has to do with or equivalent to self-ownership.
This is to say that, the Libertarian approach entrusts absolute freedom to individuals to embark on whatever activity they so wish be it joining association; politically, socially, academically just to mention few regardless of any moral view or perception that exists. Here, the individual is somehow his own boss and does things that pleases him. This research puts to bear the relevancy of the libertarian approach pertaining to the indecent dressing of the female students of the University of Cape Coast.
Imaging not having control over anything you do and living your life as other people want you to live it. With viewing life from the Libertarian philosophy, libertarians will argue that each person should be able to live life as they want as long as they are not harming others. With the governments today, they create laws that protect people from themselves. This is hard for Libertarians to accept because in their opinions, each individual should have their own freedom. The core of Libertarianism is the fact that we own our bodies, our earnings, and this meaning the government has no right to take or limit any of these. Henry David Thoreau discusses in his “Civil Disobedience” many topics that are more informing on the topic of individual living rather than the community.
As Sandal states in his writing, Libertarianism starts with the idea that each individual has a right to himself or herself. With this being said, you are able to do whatever you want with yourself as long as you are not causing harm to other people. One thing about this philosophy is that, it does not promote good to everyone around you.
Socially, this creates problems between people because not everyone agrees on the same thing. The last component to discuss about the Libertarian philosophy is that you are responsible for anything and everything you personally do.
Broadly, there are two ethically justified variants of libertarianism: "consequentialist libertarianism" and "natural rights libertarianism" (or "deontological libertarianism"). Natural-rights libertarians maintain that natural rights exist, and from there argue that certain actions of the state violate these rights. It may include both right-libertarianism and left-libertarianism. Consequentialist libertarians argue that a free market and strong private property rights bring about beneficial consequences, such as wealth creation and efficiency, rather than subscribing to a theory of rights or justice. There are hybrid forms of libertarianism that combine deontological and consequentialist reasoning.
Contractarian libertarianism holds that any legitimate authority of government derives not from the consent of the governed, but from contract or mutual agreement, though this can be seen as reducible to consequentialism or deontologism depending on what grounds contracts are justified. Some libertarian socialists reject deontological and consequential approaches and use historical materialism to justify their political beliefs.
Indecent appearance has come to characterize the dress pattern of many students on the campuses of higher learning in Ghana. There is hardly any higher institution of learning in this country that is not faced with this nauseating problem. The way students on these campuses of learning particularly, the female ones, dress seductively leaves much to be desired. What the girls call skirts that they wear is just “one inch” longer than their pants. When they put on such dresses, they struggle to sit down, find difficulty in climbing machines, cross gutters as well as pick anything from the ground. Apart from the skimpy and tight fitting nature of these dresses, they are again transparent; revealing certain parts of the bodies that under normal dressing patterns ought to be hidden away from the glare of people.
Their dress patterns are most times anti-African, and are invented. They usually dress in a manner that does not show that they are responsible. The African culture and particularly that of Ghana encourage modesty in appearance as do the Christian and Islamic religions where the larger population of these youths claim to be worshipping God.
This un-African dress pattern among the youths of this generation has generated lots of concern and worry among the citizenry of the country. Religious institutions as well as institutions of learning are not resting on their oars to watch this immoral act being perpetuated, but they speak against it. For instance, Olori (2003) reported that at the University of Abuja were made that any dress won must cover intimate parts of the body, must not expose the breast, stomach, navel and bare chest.
But on this very campus students still dress indecently. it seems that the introduction of a dress code was misinterpreted by the students to mean they should dress indecently. This is because what became obvious with students in this University after the introduction of this dress code was the alarming and arrant ways that they began to dress indecently. One is not however surprised because what is typical of most Ghanaian administrators is always a wide gap between policy formulation and execution.

Indecent dressing even though is not accepted as the normality, is seen to be gaining ascendancy. One then wonders what becomes of the society tomorrow with the caliber of students that are being trained. If rules are made for people, they supposed to be adequately informed why such rules are made.
Due to Libertarianism students feel their rights and freedom are being curtailed or trampled upon and hence would go the extreme of fighting of such tramples without taking into consideration the harm they are causing to third parties.

The terms-decency and indecency-have so much to do with the morality of the individual person and as judged by others. A dress is therefore, said to be indecent when it has provocative or stimulating influence on almost all those that happen to view it on the user. It is according to Source Magazine on Line (2011), any outfit that shows too much skin. Egwim (2010) referred to indecent dressing in a more specific term as the attitude of someone, male or female that dresses to showoff parts of the body such as the breasts, buttocks or even the underwear particularly those of the ladies that need to be covered. This exposure is obviously a deliberate act to look sensuous, tantalizing and stimulating so as to draw the attention of the opposite sex and is more prevalent among singles in the University of Cape Coast.

While the issue of indecent dressing continues to be of great concern to the University and the society at large, many look on helplessly as the youth, particularly students in our tertiary educational institutions continue to flout all rules of decency in the name of modernity and fashion.
Some years back, some private universities in Accra introduced dress codes for their students with the aim of ensuring that they dress decently on campus. Some human right activists have also expressed concern that such dress codes infringe on the rights of the students.
Dresses are getting more abbreviated, tighter, more transparent, and generally more revealing. Necklines are getting lower, blouses are getting smaller and waistlines of trousers are getting lower by the day. In short, clothes worn by the female students of the University of Cape Coast are getting more daring with some bordering on the provocative. Clothes that would have raised eyebrows a few years ago are today seen as the norm in the University of Cape Coast.

Unfortunately, many of our young ladies have discarded the known traditional ways of dressing for the more liberal, but often less decent western style of dressing. There seems to be no shame at all about the revealing body parts in ways that cause embarrassment to the onlooker. It is not uncommon to see a lady’s waist beads or underpants freely showing above the waistline of her trouser as she walks by. There may be an added treat to the onlooker as the upper half of her breasts are openly displayed through the very low neckline of her blouse.
The sad aspect is that, many of such ladies walk by completely oblivious of the shock on the faces of some onlookers. While a number of people seem to have gotten used to these clothes due to regular exposure, many others are still at pains to overcome their embarrassment anytime they are faced with such uncomfortable spectacle.

While some levels of indecency could be overlooked, others are outright, vulgar and meet with adverse comments. It is sad to say that some parents actively condone the indecency by bringing these less-than-decent clothes for their children in a bid to satisfy their desire to be trendy. These worrisome clothes have gained so much acceptability at the University of Cape Coast that many traders find it profitable to import them for sale on the local market. To give a further boost to their patronage , there is a ready supply of cheaper versions of the more expensive ones worn by known celebrities of the western world with whom the youth are to be proud to be identified.
T-shirts with provocative and sexually suggestive inscriptions add to the range of indecent apparel that our university students embrace with relish. While addressing concerns about indecency in dressing, it will be helpful to identify some of the causes in order to address this socially disturbing phenomenon. One thing that readily comes to mind is the entertainment sector.
The numerous sponsored entertainment packages that target the youth seem to fuel this indecency in dressing. Designers are encouraged to showcase their clothes at such events and many of them go for the less-than-decent designs which seem to have wider acceptability among the target group. Moreover, some popular telenovela series shown on our television screens promote the indecency in no small way. Many of the characters in those series are excellent examples of what constitute indecency in dressing in the University of Cape Coast, as they proudly showcase their very revealing clothes. The unfortunate effect on our youth is their desire to identify with those characters.
Besides imitating their clothes, some go to the extent of walking and talking like them. To complete the picture, our local musicians have promotional video clips which feature beautiful young ladies in unacceptably abbreviated skirts and shirts, with body hugging blouses.

In their bid to appear trendy and gain acceptability among their peers, many of our youth tend to go in for these clothes and the result is the very disturbing spectacle that we see in our tertiary institutions like the University of Cape Coast.
This behavior is of a hydra-headed origin. It is not just a behavior that developed overnight, but an accumulated behavioral pattern that could be attributed to the home (neglect and or poor parenting), the effect of globalization arising from wrong values’ exportation and importation, a reflection of the high rate of moral decadence in the larger society (corruption and high rate of indiscipline among the leaders and the led), peer pressure and the desire to belong as well as fading values and demonization or demonic influence. Each of these points is discussed in details. Poor Parenting. Every child in a community whether good or bad has a home as well as parents. The influence of home environment on the development of children is not in any way doubtful (Omede and Odiba, 2000). The home is every child’s first window to the outside world. What the parents do with the child at this level in terms of training and orientation go a long way to determining what the child becomes tomorrow. Children live or die, thrive or wither, due to the decision of their parents (Gushee, 2004). It is from the parents that the child learns about values, beliefs and other forms of behavior acceptable to the community. The child is taught these through instructions, observations and practices from parents and other siblings particularly the senior ones. The implication of this is that parents must be seen to be morally exemplary.

The Society. The child leaves in a community and so he/she is influenced by what goes on in the community either directly or indirectly. The arrant display of moral decadence in the forms of corruption, indiscipline ,prostitution, bribery and other forms of vices in the community at the full glare of youths and children call for great concern. Not even parents, teachers, government officials and community leaders including the spiritual leaders have the moral rights to challenge, correct and discipline erring youths and children because their slates are not clean. No section of the society-from the leadership to the led can be exonerated from morality problems as noted Okigbo in Nwabuisi (2006:6) “…how else can we explain a situation which the prophet cheat his priest, the priest his congregation, the judge the accused, the teacher the students, the doctor the patient and the ruler his subjects.” The youths are learning fast from what is going on in the society around them.

Peer Pressure. Peer pressure is a force that gravitate friends together and most times for evil or negative tendencies. The desire to belong and the fear of rejection have led many youths into evil or immoral acts sometimes against their will. Some of them lack the strong will to say no to evil for fear of being isolated. And apart from isolationism, peer conformity could be the result of faulty foundational home training. A child with healthy home training should be able to so quickly resolve identity crises, distil between rights and wrongs no matter how the wrongs are colored and then maintaining his/her integrity and the good name of the family. It is obvious that a mango tree will not bear orange fruits. The pressure of peers will be inconsequential when there is healthy parental upbringing and the fear of God in the life of any youth.

Demonic Influence. This is a strong factor that accounts for the stimulating and provocative ways that some youths dress on campuses today. Some of these youths particularly, the female ones, are agents of the devil on a mission to lure many men into immorality and away from God. This matter is spiritual and we may tend to oppose it as academics. But if we must be sincere, we should know that many of these youths are in cults and occults and their operations are sometimes mystical, magical and devilish. Several of them that had been confronted with a higher spiritual power had kowtowed and confessed to their evils and the origin of such powers. It should really bother us how and why youths of this generation have become wild, rudderless and aggressively immoral.

Wrong use of the Internet. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has helped to revolutionize the community tremendously. It has via the use of Internet, Communication satellites, mobile phones etc, helped to bring people together distance, culture or language notwithstanding. Through the activities of home videos, satellites and other media agents, values (faulty or correct), fashions (modern, modest and immodest) are traded across cultures and nations. In as much as ICT is helpful, consequential to human, and societal developments, the rate of abuse and the un-regulatory ways they are used call for great concern. Most of the youths and children that are exposed to some of their contents that most times are negative so quickly fall vulnerable. The parents of these children and their senior siblings in Diasporas are the ones promoting indecent and immoral practices and they are relayed through videos, pornography, and music as well as advertisement and fashion parades. In as much as ICT is good and beneficial to humanity, the associative evils need to be checked and resisted.

Fading Value. Africa has a very rich culture that she needs to be proud of and preserve for posterity. But the unfortunate situation is that most cherished African values are fast fading due to non-patronage and modernization or acculturation. Today’s youths cannot tell very well what these values are. For instance, the beautiful hair braiding typical of African ladies are being traded for hair “roasting” in saloons, modern and dignifying dress patterns are giving ways to the skimpy, transparent and provocative dresses found all around today. Many of these youths that dress immodestly may not even know what is wrong with the way the dress because nothing suggests to them that is wrong. Their parents applaud them in those dresses, do not even ask how they came about those dresses and when they appear in public, they are cheered by their mates and friends and to make the matter worse, all around them, what they see on people is not reasonably different from what they wear. Their home videos, televisions and Internet providers do not differ either in the contents of what they relay as programs. How can these youths be different when the society has no good moral values as legacies to bequeath to them? It is odd for a vulture to look different in the midst of other vultures.

In this vein inasmuch as the libertarian approach spells out the freedom or liberty that an individual can exercise, it doesn’t give the ticket to the female students in the University of Cape Coast to dress indecently, this is due to the fact that as far as the libertarian approach gives one freedom, it also sets limits pertaining to the person exercising the libertarianism to not go as far as offending or causing harm to the third parties around. But this is not the case on the campus of the University of Cape Coast, female students dress haphazardly with whatsoever intensions not considering the harm they are causing to the other students around particularly the male students.
Imagine a female student dressing with her skirt as short as you can imagine and a complementing blouse with a lowered neckline leaving part of her breast exposed, this will obviously disrupt the attention of the male students as they would be faced with the temptation of concentrating on the lady whiles there is a lecture going on. At the end of the day the male student would have attended a lecture but would return with absolutely no knowledge of what the lecturer taught.
This also increases the level of sexual violence that occurs on the campus of the University of Cape Coast because the revealing nature of the dresses of the ladies stimulate the sexual urge of the men around and hence would be forced to satisfy that urge by doing all sort of unwholesome acts which can land them in the full grip of the law and punished as a result. There is the likelihood that ladies who dress indecently or provocatively could be prone to sexual harassment and rape. These forms of dresses presupposes that such ladies need attention and that they are irresponsible and so there are always irresponsible men to dialogue, lure or force them to bed for sex. A situation that could have been prevented had the ladies dress appropriately initially.

The female students themselves are not spared in the sense that most students in this form of dresses tend to have little or no serious time for their academic work.
Their concern is mostly how to look good and appear in the latest stuff. Several of them battle with carry over courses with the consequences of staying longer in the school than is normal to graduate, graduate with very weak grades and some may not even graduate at all having outlived their studentship in the University and not being able to pass some prescribed courses. Some of such get back into the society frustrated. They become confrontational and destructive. If they are not thugs, they are armed robbers, prostitutes, home or marriage breakers, drug traffickers or addicts.

In addition, male lecturers are not spared as they stand in front of the females with the horribly exposed body parts, and as males are tempted by what they see, the lecturer would be tempted to do what he would have otherwise stood against.
In short, as part of the harm the indecent dressing causes is the fact that it serve as a hindrance to the males be it a student or a lecturer which will in the long run have effect on academia.

Skimpy, transparent and or body exposing dresses are known in ancient Africa to be the dress pattern of prostitutes or whores. Most ladies found in such dresses are always negotiated for sex or social intimacy because they are most times thought to be without husbands. Apart from this notion, most campus ladies that dress this way engage in prostitution and commercial sex to be able to sponsor and sustain these forms of dresses. The cumulative effect of this is unwanted pregnancies, and the likelihood of contracting sexually transmitted diseases like HIV/AIDS and even death as a result.

One cannot take away the fact that indecent dressing exhibited by female students on the University of Cape Coast is a sin against God and Humanity. This is seen in the fact that as the ladies dress revealingly and captures the attention of men, the men would conceive some sort of sexual attraction in their minds and heart; this taken biblically makes them guilty of sin.

This haphazard and provocative dressing on this campus should be brought down or try to be nipped in the bud. The problem is not just in making the rules but in their enforcements. For these rules to be enforced, lecturers should be made to collaborate with the university management staff and their security personnel. Lecturers are to be empowered to prevent indecently dressed students from attending their lectures, refuse to attend to such students in their areas of needs. The administrative staff should disallow students from their offices while the security staff should serve as watchdogs. They should be allowed to open a record in their office for immodestly dressed students and forward such names particularly those who are not first offenders to the disciplinary committee of the college or university for appropriate sanction that the code must have spelt out.
Inasmuch as the libertarian approach is relevant to the female students of the university they should as well take into consideration the other people who are being offended in their course of exercising their liberal mode of dressing so as not causing any harm to them.

To draw the curtains to a close, the female students in the University of Cape Coast in their bid of expressing their freedom in their mode of dressing should consider the effects that it poses and hence reduce the rate of indecency or if possible put it to a halt to avoid the increase in the prevalent immoral acts and misconducts in the university.