The essence of libertarianism is the view that coercive political institutions, such as the state, are justified only insofar as they function to protect each person’s liberty to pursue their own goals and well-being in their own way. Libertarians accordingly argue that any attempt to enforce top-down concepts of social justice or economic equality are fundamentally misconceived.
In this book, leading expert Eric Mack provides a rigorous and clear account of the philosophical principles of libertarianism. He offers accounts of three distinctive schools of libertarian thought, which he labels the natural rights approach, the cooperation to mutual advantage approach, and the indirect consequentialist approach. After examining the historical roots of these approaches in the thought of figures such as John Locke and David Hume, he provides illuminating accounts of the foundational arguments and the theories of economic justice offered by Robert Nozick and F.A. Hayek. He then examines a range of other debates, such as those surrounding the nature of the minimal state and those between critics and defenders of libertarianism.
This book will be essential reading for anyone interested in political philosophy, political ideologies and the nature of liberty and state authority, from students and scholars to general readers.
A terrific introduction to libertarianism for anyone interested in understanding it Philosophical and popular interest in libertarianism has been growing steadily in the last twenty years or so. This excellent book on Libertarianism thus appears at the right time to meet both philosophical and popular interest. Eric Mack provides the historical background to libertarian theory, and discusses its various forms in the contemporary philosophical, political, and economic literature. The central idea of libertarianism is that the individual right to liberty is the most fundamental…
The author does a pretty good job explaining the tenets and arguments of libertarianism. I often consider myself a libertarian in practice (since the government is often incompetent) but not a libertarian in principle. This book did not convince me otherwise.The author outlines two foundations for libertarianism: (1) the natural rights theme and (2) the cooperation to mutual advantage theme (roughly equal to the indirect utilitarian theme).Here is why I was not…