Natural Rights Libertarian

It is fair to say that Nozick’s adaptation of Locke’s famous proviso regarding the just original appropriation of property serves as the linchpin of his “entitlement theory” of justice. By conditioning just acquisition on the satisfaction of certain criteria, Locke sought to show that the system of property rights he envisioned would not worsen the situation of non-appropriators. In an earlier post I explain that Nozick interpreted Locke’s construct to include a “historical shadow” following property from owner to owner, and show that this enables him to resolve what might otherwise be fatal objections to his view regarding the stringency of property rights.

The key insight is that Locke’s proviso regarding the original appropriation of property is grounded in the concern that such acquisition not violate any other party’s natural right of self-preservation.  Given this perspective, we need not resort to a particular, hypothetical welfare baselines to judge whether a system of capitalist property rights is worsening the plight of others.  Ultimately, any such baseline is arbitrary.  Rather, we should look to the proviso itself for guidance. Continue Reading »

An objection to libertarianism that comes up with surprising frequency is the question of roads and other infrastructure. Specifically, that without the use of state coercion, these vital projects won’t get built, and we’ll all suffer immensely. It’s a critique that is easy to dismiss: Okay, the state will supply military defense, law enforcement, and roads; deal?

But that’s a bit too quick. If a libertarian polity can only supply infrastructure by violating its own core principles, that’s a serious problem. Fortunately, this is not so. I briefly address this critique at the end of Chapter 4 of my Nozick’s Libertarian Project, which is excerpted below. In retrospect, I probably should have referenced here not only the potential “moral catastrophe” limitation of property rights (based on value pluralism), but also the restrictions imposed by Nozick’s adaptation of the Lockean proviso. Continue Reading »

Nozick devotes Part III of Anarchy, State, and Utopia to developing his conception of a “framework of utopias,” which would provide persons, qua rational agents, with the widest domain for the exercise of their agency. This ideal contemplates that people, freed from the shackles of state coercion, will create and live in a virtually unlimited number of distinct communities, each with rules and institutions that reflect its particular values. These would include highly illiberal ones.

Such an arrangement permits persons to choose the environment they believe offers them the greatest opportunity for personal growth and flourishing. In addition to preventing inter-community aggression, the minimum state would exist to safeguard the right of exit, when a particular community no longer meets an agent’s needs. Although there are a variety of perhaps insurmountable obstacles to implementation, it is a philosophically attractive ideal, which I have previously discussed.

However, one obvious objection to Nozick’s framework revolves around the potential mistreatment of minor children, specifically the possibility that parents in isolated communities grossly neglect their education.[1]  Such deprivation would not only leave children completely uninformed about alternative available lifestyles, but totally unprepared to function outside their birth community, thereby robbing them of the very freedom this framework is intended to promote. Nozick clearly recognizes this dilemma when he observes: “In some way it must be ensured that they [young children] are informed of the range of alternatives in the world” (ASU, 330), but forthrightly admits that this is one of many details he is leaving unresolved.    Continue Reading »

I have written about immigration in a number of places, including a section of Chapter 10 of my Libertarian Philosophy in the Real World, and in a number of blog posts. In light of what I have learned in my many subsequent discussions/debates of this subject, I am in the process of consolidating my thoughts in a systematic way for publication in a philosophy journal. Thus, while I have some half-baked ideas on other topics that I may eventually share, I am taking a few weeks off to finish this paper.

UPDATE (5/24/18): I have been fortunate in getting my friend, Danny Frederick, to co-author this paper with me, thereby exponentially improving it. We have finished our draft, and have begin the process of journal submission. Stay tuned for further developments.

There are many terms in our political discourse that have become so corrupted in practice as to make it virtually impossible to hold a rational discussion of the ideas they purport to reference. While these words may have once had a widely accepted and thus useful meaning, they are now typically employed not as accurate descriptors, but purely for polemical purposes. These include “right-wing,” “neoliberalism,” “racism,” and the one discussed below, “nationalism.” Continue Reading »

As recent events in Ukraine, the Korean peninsula, Iran, and Syria demonstrate, we live in a turbulent and violent world. Since the end of WWII, it has been under American hegemony,[1] counterbalanced for several decades by the Soviet Union. However, in the almost three decades since the “evil empire’s” collapse, the US has been the world’s only superpower.

This global dominance faces new challenges. A newly assertive Russia is leveraging its ability and willingness to employ military force, as seen in Crimea, Eastern Ukraine, and Syria, to seek influence. Moreover, China is achieving the economic scale and military capacity to project power beyond its region, and has defied international law with its “building project” in the South China Sea. Continue Reading »

In a previous post on zoning, I wrote that one reason why libertarianism is such a hard sell is that we have no political experience with any set of institutional arrangements other than the nanny/regulatory/welfare state. Accordingly, it is difficult for voters to imagine how a polity built on laissez faire principles would address the various social problems that may arise in a modern society.

I go on to argue there that for a variety of reasons, including the continuing viability of the tort of nuisance, “there is no reason to believe that the repeal of zoning would have disastrous consequences. In fact, there are at least as good grounds for supposing that there would be net benefits.” However, since zoning has been the norm from the 1950s onward, most of us are unfamiliar with any other approach. Houston is now the lone major holdout.[1]

In my view this unfortunate ignorance regarding potential voluntary/free market solutions to social problems obstructs our political vision in many important areas of public policy. As described in Libertarian Philosophy in the Real World, these include protection against unsafe and dangerous products (chapter 5), “free banking” (chapter 6), poverty relief (chapter 7), public education (chapter 8), and health care (chapter 9). Accordingly, it may be useful to highlight one remaining and important private sector initiative that has not yet been regulated to death or displaced by the state. I am referring here to Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs modeled after it. Continue Reading »

One of the hallmarks of libertarianism is its antipathy to the coercion of innocent persons. Because the state enjoys a monopoly on force, libertarians uniformly hold that compulsion by its officials is by far the most dangerous threat because there is no realistic possibility of escape, other than exit. So, for example, if the state passes a law that prohibits you, a competent adult, from consuming certain substances or condemns your property in order to build a new sports stadium, there is nothing to be done.[i]

In contrast, coercion by private parties is generally less threatening, because there are almost always alternatives open to the victim. For example, in a capitalist economy an employer that requires his workers to join and attend his church would lose most of them to competitors who impose no such insulting and burdensome condition. While libertarians would generally oppose state intervention to regulate such a mandate, it would still be reprehensible.[ii]

Thus, even though libertarians typically reject the use of legislation to redress (non-violent, non-fraudulent) wrongdoing in the private sector, it is still worth calling it out. The purpose of this post is to explore whether academic publishing uses practices that are morally objectionable in this way. To set the stage, I will briefly describe the peer review process typically followed in academic publishing.  Continue Reading »

Richard Thaler’s very recent Nobel prize in economics will likely not be celebrated much in libertarian circles. We’re not big fans of paternalism, even of the “soft” variety. I briefly explain why in my Libertarian Philosophy in the Real World (chapter 4). A near-final draft of this section is reproduced below. Continue Reading »