Table of Contents

Preface

PART ONE: Is Libertarianism Possible?

Prologue. The Knock at the Door

CHAPTER 1. Liberalism, Conservatism, Libertarianism

• A Preliminary Definition
  Liberal/Conservative
  Left, Center, Right
  Liberal Individualism as One Kind of Conservatism

CHAPTER 2. Liberty

• Another Preliminary Definition
  The Subject of Liberty
  Liberty and Autonomy
  The Nonatomic Individual
  What Is Liberty?
  Liberty: Freedom to Bring About
  Freedom From and Freedom To
  Utter Freedom
  Interferences: Where the Action Is

CHAPTER 3. Liberty: Negative versus Positive

• Negative and Positive Liberty: Freedom versus Power
  Lack of Desire: A Constraint?
  Lack of Reason: Another Constraint?
  Our Subject: Social Freedom
  A Note on Slavery
  Is “Positive Liberty” Liberty?

CHAPTER 4. Two Conceptions of Liberty as a Social Concern

• The Two Ideas
  What Constitutes Interference?
  Coercion
  Pressuring
  Interference versus Nonassistance

CHAPTER 5. Rights

• Rights Defined
  Rights and Duties: Definition or Mere Correlation?
  Rights without Duties? So-called “Liberty Rights”
  Duties without Rights? Rights, Duties, and Justice
  Duties to No One in Particular?
  Enforceability
  Enforcement and Force
  A Paradox: My Freedom Is Your Unfreedom?
  Rights Prima Facie or Rights Absolute?
  “Side Constraints”
  ‘General’ and ‘Particular’; ‘Natural’ and ‘Conventional’
  Negative versus Positive Rights
  Negative versus Positive Rights to Liberty
  Libertarianism and Negative Rights

CHAPTER 6. Liberty and Property

• How Liberty and Property Are Related
  Property Rights
  Property in Oneself
  From Liberty to Property in Things
  Property Rights and the “Freedom Entails Unfreedom” Paradox

CHAPTER 7. Initial Acquisition

• Getting Ownership Started
  Rights to Things Are Rights to Act
  Another “Libertarianism Restricts Liberty” Argument
  “Acquiring” Not an Act
  Arthur’s Argument: Acquisition as Harmful

CHAPTER 8. Property Rights Concluded

• Transfer
  Equality
  Capitalist Rights Not to Be Capitalists
  Resources and Generational Considerations

PART TWO: Foundations: Is Libertarianism Rational?

CHAPTER 9. Introduction

• On “Foundations”
  The Options

CHAPTER 10. Intuitions in Moral Philosophy

• Two Kinds of Intuitionism
  Metaphysical Intuitionism
  Mysteriousness
  Futility
  Disagreement
  Society-Dependence
  Generality
  Importance
  Methodological Intuitionism
  Disagreement, Again
  Reflective Equilibrium
  The Practicality of Morals
  Moral “Science”?

CHAPTER 11. Morality

• The Need for Clarity about Morality
  ‘Personal’ versus ‘Social’ Morality
  The Compleat Deontologist?
  Conventional versus Critical Morality

CHAPTER 12. Contractarianism

• The Idea of the “Contract” Approach to Foundations
  Universality?
  Hobbes
  The Prisoner’s Dilemma
  The Sovereign
  Is Cooperation Possible? The Prisoner’s Dilemma
  Gauthier’s View
  Morality, the Real World, and Prisoner’s Dilemma
  Being Able to Complain

CHAPTER 13. The Logic of Contractarianism

• The Basic Appeal
  The “Natural Law”
  A Note on Utilitarianism

CHAPTER 14. Contractarianism to Libertarianism?

• The Project
  A Challenge
  The Road from Contractarianism to Libertarianism
  Values
  A False Start: Autonomy Generalized
  Another False Start: An Argument from “Survival”
  The Central Argument
  The Right to Liberty, Properly Grounded
  The Crucial Question
  Can We Improve on the Libertarian Option?
  Efficiency versus Justice?
  The Gospel According to St. Pareto

PART THREE: Libertarianism and Reality: What Does Libertarianism Imply about Concrete Social Policy?

CHAPTER 15. Society and the Market

• The Free Market
  Market and Morals
  Two Views about Society and the Market
  Market Morality as a Public Good
  What Is Economic?
  Capitalism and Consumerism
  Information
  Perfect Competition
  A Question about Factor Rent

CHAPTER 16. The State

• The State, Government, Public, Associations, Us
  A Note on Democracy
  The Down Side of Democracy
  Political Authority
  Authority and Coordination
  The Right to Protection
  Protection and Nozick’s Argument for the State
  Law
  Enforcement and the Problem of Punishment
  Punishment: The Options
  Retribution
  The Deterrence/Protection Theory
  Restitution

CHAPTER 17. Redistribution

• Redistribution and the State
  A Tale of Two Scrooges
  Public Goods Arguments
  A Note on the “Minimal State”
  A Tale of Three Rules about Mutual Aid
  A Note on Symphony Orchestras

CHAPTER 18. Insurance Arguments and the Welfare State

• The Libertarian Reply
  Insurance and Charity
  Overwhelming Majorities and Administrative Overhead
  A Defense of Charity
  Duties of Charity
  The “Social Minimum”

CHAPTER 19. The Problem of Children

• The Problem
  Nonfundamental Rights
  Children’s Rights
  Abortion and Infanticide

CHAPTER 20. Freedom and Information

• Education: Should We Sell the Schools?
  The Orwin Thesis
  Knowledge
  Freedom of Speech and the Ideological Marketplace
  Pornography, Hate Literature, and the Like
  A Libertarian Postscript

CHAPTER 21. The Public and Its Spaces

• “Public Property”
  Zoning Laws
  Rules, Regulations, and Bureaucrats
  Sell the Streets?
  On Discrimination in Hiring
  Discrimination, Inefficiency, and the Market
  The Public Sector

CHAPTER 22. Defense and International Relations

• Libertarianism and War
  Foreign Policy toward Nonliberal States
  The Nonrevolutionist’s Evolutionist Handbook

Epilogue. Reflections on Libertarianism

• What Has Not Been Proven
  The Lure of Nationalism
  Privatization, Trivialization, and the Eternal Yuppie
  The Secular Problem of Evil
  Advice to Libertarian Political Parties
  Does It Matter?
  Concluding Note

NotesBibliographyIndex

About the Author

Jan Narveson is Professor of Philosophy at Waterloo University.

Reviews

“This book is an important examination of both contractarianism and libertarianism. And beyond its intriguing central theses and its pointed applications of libertarian premises to policy issues, it provides an extensive and valuable critical commentary on recent philosophical attacks on libertarian themes.” — Ethics“The Libertarian Idea is the eminently readable book of a man who knows what liberty is, knows what it isn’t, and cares deeply about the difference.” — Reason“This book is indeed a major contribution to the philosophical controversy over libertarianism. It ranks in importance with Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia and Rawls’s A Theory of Justice.” — Liberty“An original and well-rounded contribution [that] … should be of considerable general interest among political philosophers … [I]t is a thoroughly challenging and quite engaging book.” — Canadian Journal of Philosophy“Producers and consumers of theory of justice literature should read this book. It is a major work.” — Journal of Politics“[In] Narveson’s new, bold, and highly readable book … he aims, quite simply, to provide the secure foundations that libertarianism apparently lacks.” — Canadian Philosophical Review