Category Archives: Blog

Almost from the moment that Anarchy, State, and Utopia was published, its critics, particularly the individual anarchists, have attacked Nozick’s proffered moral justification for the coercion employed by (even) the minimal state, i.e. one devoted almost exclusively to the protection of its citizens from foreign and domestic predators.  From the anarchist perspective, the fatal flaw in the minimal state is that it forces unwilling parties to forgo the enforcement of their own rights, and to entrust this function to a central authority. For the reasons set forth in Chapter 4 of my Nozick’s Libertarian Project (“NLP”), I concur with these objections.

In this same chapter I offer an alternative defense of the minimal state, based on what I call the “libertarian principle of fairness” (NLP, 96), i.e. “that if the benefits and burdens of cooperating with the state in a program necessary to secure our rational agency are fairly distributed, then all rational agents are morally obligated to participate.”  Most basically, with respect to those functions of the state that establish the preconditions for the exercise of our moral agency, it is simply unfair for some members of a community to reap the benefits of the efforts of others while refusing to contribute themselves. I apply this principle to the coercive funding of national defense here: http://naturalrightslibertarian.com/2011/02/can-the-minimal-state-be-justified/.

In his essay titled “Nozickian Arguments for the More-Than-Minimal State” in the recently published The Cambridge Companion to Nozick’s “Anarchy, State, and Utopia,” Bader and Meadowcroft eds. (“CCN”), Eric Mack (a respected and widely-published libertarian philosopher) takes on this same subject. This post will analyze Professor Mack’s strategy, and will compare it in certain respects to my own humble efforts. Continue Reading »

In the language of political philosophy  “moral cosmopolitanism” is the view that the interests of all persons, wherever located, are entitled to equal weight, and thus we have no justification for favoring the economic or other interests of our fellow citizens: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmopolitanism/.  There are versions of this doctrine, “moderate cosmopolitanism,” that allow for some local favoritism.  It is easy to see how this perspective can be derived from utilitarianism, which requires the agent to impartially weigh the happiness of all persons. Continue Reading »

The public airwaves are filled these days with cries of anguish and stinging criticism of the two major political parties’ failure to break the existing deadlock regarding tax rates, federal spending, entitlement reform, and related issues. This essay will argue that such denunciations are, for the most part, misplaced, and based on a failure to appreciate the reasons for this stalemate. Of course, there is nothing inherently praiseworthy about gridlock, but there are times, like the present, when it is unobjectionable if not actually commendable. Continue Reading »

This post is prompted by the recent insightful and timely essay by Niall Ferguson, a distinguished historian and public intellectual, on the massive public debt being run up by Western democracies in order to sustain their entitlement programs, see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9338997/Reith-Lecture-Were-mortgaging-the-future-of-the-younger-generation.html. I have on a number of prior occasions remarked that our state largely functions as one giant machine for the redistribution of resources, generally from ordinary citizens and taxpayers to financially powerful and politically well-connected groups, or to those constituencies who have weight just by virtue of their numbers. Hence, our addiction to bailouts; entitlement programs; subsidies; corporate tax loopholes and credits; protective trade policies; licensure laws; our labor code; and coercive measures of every imaginable type, designed to enrich certain citizens at the expense of others.  Continue Reading »

Even while acknowledging the prevalence of great historical wrongs that may cloud existing land titles, libertarian theorists have nevertheless felt compelled to provide an account of how natural resources, particularly land, may be justly acquired in the first instance. See my earlier discussion here: http://naturalrightslibertarian.com/2011/08/the-widespread-fraud-objection-to-the-lockenozick-account-of-original-appropriation/. The absence of a plausible theory of just initial appropriation would invite the claim by egalitarians that since natural assets could not, even theoretically, have been acquired in a morally legitimate fashion, the value they represent should be redistributed in the name of social justice. The classic libertarian justification for original appropriation follows Locke in holding that land may be converted from common use to individual ownership by transforming it through labor, typically by homesteading. See ASU, 174-82. Continue Reading »

As one prominent editorial writer has recently observed, we are a nation “obsessed” with inequality: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2012/04/18/the_inequality_obsession_277904.html. Countless academic studies have been conducted in order to determine whether, over the last several decades, the United States has become more or less equal in terms of our incomes and wealth, and how we compare in this regard to other developed countries. Our politicians make constant, sometimes subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle, appeals for the government to, as President Obama put it, “spread the wealth around.” And, it must be said, a substantial portion of voters seem amenable to this demand. Continue Reading »

Politicians and media commentators generally assume that “democracy” is an intrinsic good, i.e. something that is always to be desired, and valuable for its own sake. So, they say things like, “wouldn’t it be great if the protestors prevail and Egypt becomes a democracy.” Well, no. If Egypt becomes a representative democracy this will be great for political Islam and very bad for independent-minded women, gays, Christians and any other group that does not completely conform to the dictates of traditional Islam.  Continue Reading »

Natural rights libertarianism and egalitarianism are often seen as representing the polar opposites of political theory. However, while this idea captures an important truth regarding these two ideals, it also may, as discussed below, obscure a critical feature of libertarian thinking. Specifically, I am referring to the fact that libertarians are absolutely indifferent to the distribution of holdings between individuals, provided that such holdings emerge from a morally unobjectionable process. Continue Reading »

   January 23rd marks the tenth anniversary of Robert Nozick’s tragically premature death of stomach cancer at the age of 63. Few, if any, 20th century academic philosophers have had as consequential an impact on the world beyond the ivory tower.  It is worth, I believe, reflecting  for a moment or two regarding this remarkable life of ideas. Continue Reading »

In previous posts I have challenged the idea that there are doctrinaire libertarian positions favoring an isolationist foreign policy and disfavoring the recognition of intellectual property rights. I am now going to engage in a comparable exercise with respect to immigration, critiquing the notion that an “open borders” immigration policy is implied by basic libertarian principles governing property rights. I will use as my jumping off point Michael Huemer’s excellent recent essay on this subject, “Is There a Right to Immigrate?” Continue Reading »