scholarly journals Contractarian Libertarianism of Jan Narveson. Is It Still Libertarianism?

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paweł Nowakowski
Keyword(s):  
Jan Narveson

Property, Rights, and Freedom

1994 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald F. Gaus
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Economic System ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Basic Liberty ◽  
John Gray ◽  
Jan Narveson ◽  
Constitutional Tradition ◽  
The Guardian ◽  
Instrumental View

William Perm summarized the Magna Carta thus: “First, It asserts Englishmen to be free; that's Liberty. Secondly, they that have free-holds, that's Property.” Since at least the seventeenth century, liberals have not only understood liberty and property to be fundamental, but to be somehow intimately related or interwoven. Here, however, consensus ends; liberals present an array of competing accounts of the relation between liberty and property. Many, for instance, defend an essentially instrumental view, typically seeing private property as justified because it is necessary to maintain or protect other, more basic, liberty rights. Important to our constitutional tradition has been the idea that “[t]he right to property is the guardian of every other right, and to deprive a people of this, is in fact to deprive them of their liberty.” Along similar lines, it has been argued that only an economic system based on private property disperses power and resources, ensuring that private people in civil society have the resources to oppose the state and give effect to basic liberties. Alternatively, it is sometimes claimed that only those with property develop the independent characters that are necessary to preserve a regime of liberty. But not only have liberals insisted that, property is a means of preserving liberty, they have often conceived of it as an embodiment of liberty, or as a type of liberty, or indeed as identical to liberty. This latter view is popular among contemporary libertarians or classical liberals. Jan Narveson, for instance, bluntly asserts that “Liberty is Property,” while John Gray insists that “[t]he connection between property and the basic liberties is constitutive and not just instrumental.”

Are Liberty and Equality Compatible? by Jan Narveson and James P. Sterba.

Mind ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 121 (484) ◽  
pp. 1106-1110
Author(s):  
N. Holtug
Keyword(s):  
Jan Narveson

A Defense of Pacifism

1972 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Regan
Keyword(s):  
Moral Belief ◽  
Jan Narveson ◽  
Strong Objection ◽  
Do So

The title of this paper is misleading. I do not intend to defend pacifism against those who would contend that it is false. In point of fact, I agree that pacifism is false, and profoundly so, if any moral belief is. Yet pacifism’s critics sometimes believe it is false for inadequate reasons, and it is important to make the inadequacy of these reasons apparent whenever possible. Otherwise pacifism’s apologists are apt to suppose that they have overcome their critic’s strongest objections, when, in fact, in exposing the inadequacy of the grounds of certain objections, they have succeeded only in meeting the weaker ones. What I intend to defend, then, is not the truth of pacifism, but the very different claim that pacifism is not necessarily false. This objection to pacifism, which, if sound, would silence the debate over its possible merits, and which, therefore, if sound, would be a strong objection indeed, is set forth by Jan Narveson in his paper on pacifism. I hope to show that this objection is unfounded, and I shall, accordingly, direct my argument principally against Narveson’s. And yet it is with a certain degree of reluctance that I do so, since Narveson, himself, suggests that “most people” whose opinion he has solicited would agree with me that pacifism, although false, is not necessarily so. One runs a risk, in such a situation, of pouring old wine into new bottles.

Libertarianism on the Brink

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamas P. Sterba
Keyword(s):  
Recent Meeting ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Jan Narveson

AbstractI argue that recent developments in my on-going debate with Jan Narveson have brought libertarianism to the brink where it is now able to cross over and join forces with welfare liberalism and even socialism. I summarize my debate with Narveson and then argue that a public concession Narveson made at recent meeting along with a new argument he advanced in response to that public concession have now brought libertarianism to this momentous brink where it can now be seen to cross over into the welcoming arms of welfare liberals and socialists.

This Is Ethical Theory * By JAN NARVESON

Analysis ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 397-399
Author(s):  
C. McKinnon
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Jan Narveson
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