A Libertarian Case for Compulsory Military Service?!

You have to admire the sheer gall of a man who defends compulsory national service on libertarian grounds. Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry does so in this month's Cato Unbound. What really got my attention was this bit: Libertarians think it’s legitimate for the state to use violence to take people’s money. If you don’t think taxation is …

Sen, Nozick, and “Breaking Bad”

A moral dilemma from the popular TV show "Breaking Bad" illustrates a critique Amartya Sen made of Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia and the reason why the refutation fails. In On Ethics and Economics, Sen makes the following critique of Nozick's libertarian philosophy (heavily paraphrased because the book has yet to be unpacked, and …

Matt Zwolinski on Property Rights

Matt Zwolinski of Bleeding Heart Libertarians has written an excellent series of posts on the libertarian justification of property rights. Here's the latest. The first and most important thing to note about both Locke and Nozick’s arguments is that, unlike utilitarian arguments, they are individualistic rather than collectivistic in nature. For the utilitarian, all that …

My Introduction to Political Philosophy Final Exam

Here are the essay questions from the final exam I gave in "Introduction to Political Philosophy" last semester. How would you answer these questions? 3.1 Rights to Property Answer one of these questions. 1. What is John Rawls’ “difference principle,” and how does he defend it? What are its implications for the welfare state? Is …

“Neoclassical Liberalism,” Property Rights, and Capitalism

Matt Zwolinski and John Tomasi have a thought-provoking piece entitled, "A Bleeding Heart History of Libertarianism," in the latest Cato Unbound. They criticize postwar libertarians (specifically mentioning Mises, Rand, and Rothbard) for seeing property rights as absolute and, in their view, regarding the welfare of the working poor as irrelevant to moral justifications for capitalism: …

Redistribution of Grades

Andrew Breitbart has posted a video (HT: Phil Arena) showing liberal, pro-income-redistribution students rejecting out of hand the concept of redistributing grade point averages (GPAs) from the best-performing students to those less fortunate, saying things like "It's not fair" and "I worked for my grades." Does their position constitute hypocrisy, and does this experiment show …

On Vegetarianism

If one believes that animals have some moral worth but lack rights, then consuming them without any real need might be worse than not eating them - or even morally wrong.

Poll I: I would live my life…

Property and Serfdom

The distinguishing characteristic of classical liberalism from other liberalisms is its view of property rights. On the classical liberal account, a distribution of property is just if it is a consequence of just transfer, where transfer is generally just if and only if voluntary or appropriately compensatory for wrongs. As Nozick noted, this unpatterned, "side …

A couple of reading suggestions given the Wilson-Jesus86 debate

1.  Matt Ridley.  The Origins of Virtue (and Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments) 2.  Robert Nozick.  "The Genealogy of Ethics" in his book Invariances.  I would enjoy hearing Sven's thoughts on these three pieces, not to mention anyone else tuning in to Pileus. Invariances is among the most difficult books I have ever read.  Fortunately, …

Silence and Leftist Professors

No, I'm not talking about silent leftist professors.  Indeed, most professors - myself included - have trouble staying silent whether they are on the left, right, or anyplace else (I'm not a big fan of the left-right spectrum, btw).  I'm talking about two separate but interesting posts by Thomas C. Reeves.  I don't really know who …