Category Archives: Blog

The Charlie Hebdo murders exposed a lot of ambivalence on the part of our leaders and public intellectuals regarding free expression. For example, the Pope all but apologized for this horrific crime, offering us the homey analogy that were even a dear friend to utter “a swear word against my mother, he’s going to get a punch in the nose. That’s normal.”[1] I guess it’s time to forget all about that silly “turn the other cheek” business.

Another prominent commentator condemned the murders unconditionally, but suggested that we, as a society, should ask ourselves, “Whether pens are swords or tools, are we using them well?”[ 2]. But, why should we ask that? When an aspiring Tolstoy turns out painfully bad fiction, should we question whether he is using prose in a responsible fashion? What’s suspect about bad painting, prose and poetry? Answer: nothing.   Continue Reading »

I find it revealing that the political controversy over the recently released Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s (majority) Report on the C.I.A.’s abuse of terrorism suspects focuses so heavily on the question of whether the alleged torture “worked,” that is to say, whether it produced valuable, life-saving information that could not be obtained by other means.[1] The nature of this debate suggests that the participants implicitly understand that the voting public would support torture if the benefits are significant enough. In contrast, most philosophers, including (especially?) libertarian types, appear to have a different view. Continue Reading »

My book, Nozick’s Libertarian Project: An Elaboration and Defense, was very recently reviewed by Danny Frederick in the philosophy journal Reason Papers: http://reasonpapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/rp_361_12.pdf. At this point, I simply wish to thank Danny for the care and attention he invested in closely reading NLP, and for his fair and honest review and critique. Within a couple of weeks I hope to produce a substantive response, which I will publish here. Continue Reading »

I start with the premise that in the recent (and ongoing?) military engagement between Israel and Hamas, the leaders of the former are acting, at least in relative terms, justly, while the leaders of the latter are not. Meaning specifically, that (again, at least relatively) Israel’s leaders are fighting for a just cause and using morally permissible means.  Those interested in my reasoning on these matters may consult these blog threads on the popular Bleeding Heart Libertarians website: http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2014/07/hang-tough-israel/; http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2014/07/israel-tough-enough/; and http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2014/07/fernando-tesns-hang-tough-israel-a-response/.   Continue Reading »

The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, 573 U.S. ____ (2014), has provoked a firestorm of criticism from those who apparently regard it as an affront to all human decency that closely-held corporations cannot be forced by the state to pay for health insurance that covers abortifacients, when the prescription and use of such drugs violate the corporate owner’s sincere religious beliefs and moral convictions. Those who object to the decision in Burwell are prone to invoking the plain fact that “corporations aren’t people,” as if this is somehow relevant to the morality of the policy under debate. As shown below, it is not. Continue Reading »

It is often claimed that the libertarian conception of property rights is so stringent as to make it impossible for holders of this view to formulate plausible rules for regulating environmental pollution. In a recent essay, Matt Zwolinski summarizes the problem as follows:

On the libertarian view, property rights can be justifiably overridden only in very unusual situations and only by the very weightiest of competing moral concerns, if at all. Libertarians hold, for instance, that a person’s property right in his justly acquired wealth is so strong that it would be impermissible to steal (or tax) even a nickel from him, no matter how great a social benefit we could produce by doing so. But this seems to commit libertarians to the extremely demanding view that it is equally wrong to impose a nickel’s worth of damage on one’s neighbor through pollution. In the same way that the libertarian’s property absolutism leads her unable to recognize any morally significant difference between excessive and acceptable levels of taxation, so too is she unable to distinguish between relatively serious and relatively trivial forms of pollution. (footnotes omitted).[1]

In reviewing Nozick’s treatment of this issue, Professor Zwolinski notes an apparent contradiction between his conception of rights as side constraints, and his willingness to endorse the use of cost-benefit analysis (“CBA”) for purposes of determining what forms of pollution should be permitted. According to Zwolinski, “Nozick’s position seems to abandon the intuitive idea with which he began that individuals are ‘inviolable,’ and replace it with the idea violating individual rights is perfectly fine, so long as you are willing to pay the price.” (footnote omitted). Zwolinski, 13-4. Continue Reading »

Robert Nozick’s classic defense of natural rights libertarianism, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, was published forty years ago. Given the strong, continuing academic and popular interest in this work, the publisher’s decision to bring out a new edition to commemorate this milestone is hardly surprisingly. However, what is a bit startling is its choice of Thomas Nagel to contribute a Foreword to it.   Continue Reading »

Is there anything intrinsically valuable about an equal, or at least more equal, distribution of wealth or other resources among members of a given community? In other words, are there any circumstances where it would be just to reduce the holdings of some persons simply to reduce the disparity between what they have and what others do? What has come to be known as the “leveling down” argument answers these questions in the negative. Continue Reading »