Libertarians II

This chapter continues the evaluation of ideas about property amongst libertarians. I explore a number of key ideational moves through which libertarians seek to save their views from the ambiguities in Nozick’s account. These ideas include claims about a natural right to appropriate, the absence of limits upon individual acquisition of property, and a particular understanding of the consequences of ‘owning ourselves’, of ‘mixing one’s labour’, and of seeing property as an ‘action’. I offer a substantial critique of all these defences of unlimited acquisition. I consider the rather different libertarianism defended in John Tomasi’s Free Market Fairness before moving on to the distinctive position developed by so-called ‘left libertarians’. Key libertarians ‘on the right’ are Edward Feser, Lloyd P. Gerson, John Sanders, Jan Narveson, David Schmidtz, A.John Simmons, and Bas van der Vossen. My key ‘left libertarians’ are Hillel Steiner, Michael Otsuka, and Phillippe Van Parijs.

Moral Objectivity and Property: The Justice of Liberal Socialism

This paper restates the thesis of ‘The Requirements of Justice and Liberal Socialism’where itwas argued that liberal socialism best meets Rawlsian requirements of justice. The recent responses to this article by Jan Narveson, Jeppe von Platz, and Alan Thomas merit examination and comment. This reply shows that if Rawlsian justice is to be met, then non-personal property must be subject to public control. If just outcomes merit the public control of non-personal property and this control is not utilized, then justice has been subordinated to the objectively less important institution of private property.

The Hobbesian Hypothesis in Contemporary Political Theory

This chapter argues that “the Hobbesian hypothesis” (the claim that the Lockean proviso is fulfilled: everyone is better off in a state society with a private property system than they could reasonably expect to be in any society without either of those institutions) plays a large role in contemporary justifications of the state and/or the property rights system. The search turns up few attempts to justify existing states or property rights systems without some version of the hypothesis. Theorists asserting it as an obvious truth in need of little or no supporting evidence include David Gauthier, Jean Hampton, James Buchanan, Gregory S. Kavka, George Klosko, Dudley Knowles, Christopher Heath Wellman, Robert Nozick, Jan Narveson, and many others. Critics include Alan Ryan, Carole Pateman, Charles Mills, Patricia Williams, and others. Yet all this disagreement has produce very little debate or interest in an empirical investigation of the hypothesis.

Libertarianism on the Brink

I 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.

A Response to Jan Narveson: Why Libertarians Are and Are Not Like Turnips

I show how Jan Narveson’s critique fails to unseat my central argument that harm cuts both ways in our assumed idealized conflict situations, such that sometimes the poor harm the rich and sometimes the rich harm the poor. I further show how this supports my overall argument that libertarianism has gone over the brink into the waiting arms of welfare liberals and socialists. I also reject the; other reasons that Narveson provides for not recognizing the welfare rights of distant peoples and future generations which are independent of my argument about harm.