While regarding Gregory M. Browne as mainly on target in his Rand-inspired treatment of reference and necessity, as well as in his rejection of the analyticsynthetic dichotomy, Long argues, first, that Browne is mistaken in rejecting some other vital distinctions, such as the a priori / a posteriori distinction; second, that Browne is nevertheless implicitly committed, under different terminology, to these very distinctions that he purportedly rejects; and third, that Browne's treatment of kinds and definitions leads him to misdescribe and (...) misprescribe ordinary language use, and also to embrace unnecessary semantic incommensurability. (shrink)

An earlier, abbreviated version was presented as remarks for the inaugural symposium of the Molinari Society, at the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division meeting, on 27 December 2004. Replies and comments on matters of style, content, and argument in this essay are welcome.

Natural rights theorists such as John Locke and Robert Nozick provide arguments for limited government that are grounded on the individual's possession of natural rights to life, liberty, and property. Resting on natural rights, such arguments can be no more persuasive than the underlying arguments for the existence of such rights, which are notoriously weak. In this article, John Hasnas offers an alternative conception of natural rights, “empirical natural rights,” that are not beset by the objections typically raised against traditional (...) natural rights. Empirical natural rights are rights that evolve in the state of nature rather than those that individuals are antecedently endowed with in that state. Professor Hasnas argues that empirical natural rights are true natural rights, that is, pre-political rights with natural grounds that can be possessed in the state of nature, and that, when taken together, they form a close approximation of the Lockean rights to life, liberty, and property. He furthers argues that empirical natural rights are normatively well-grounded because respecting them is productive of social peace, which possesses instrumental moral value regardless of one's conception inherent value. Professor Hasnas thus offers his conception of rights as solved problems as an alternative and potentially more secure footing for the traditional natural rights arguments for limited government associated with Locke and Nozick. Footnotesa I wish to thank my fellow contributors to this volume, Ellen Frankel Paul, and Ann C. Tunstall of SciLucent, LLC, for their exceedingly helpful comments on an earlier draft of this essay, and Annette Hasnas for the keen insight she provided into how human beings behave in the state of nature. (shrink)

Despite her admiration for the economic theories of Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand rejects Mises's central concept of "praxeology," the science of human action. Yet the features of Misesian praxeology that Rand finds most objectionable— its aprioristic methodology, its value-subjectivism, and its claims about motivational psychology— can be reinterpreted in ways that make them congenial to Rand's philosophical principles while still preserving the essential points that Mises wishes to make.

Mack critically surveys a range of arguments characteristic of Randian writings in ethics (including Craig Biddle's Loving Life). He focuses on "the Shuffle," a set of argumentative moves in which there is illicit shifting back and forth between causal and conceptual understandings and defenses of claims of the form: Man's survival requires man's behaving in manner X (e.g., being rational, being productive). Mack concludes that much Randian argumentation is deeply flawed and urges admirers to discriminate between Rand's genuine individualist ethical (...) crusade and her line-by-line argumentation, which includes a much too strict identification of man's good with man's survival. (shrink)

The widespread assumption among academic philosophers that no truth can be simultaneously necessary and factual, founded on the analytic-synthetic dichotomy, was challenged from outside the profession by Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff in the 1960s, and from within the profession by Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam in the 1970s. Gregory M. Browne's book Necessary Factual Truth represents a long-overdue attempt to synthesize the Rand-Peikoff and Kripke-Putnam approaches into an integrated theory. While Browne's project is partially successful, it gives up one (...) of the chief attractions of these approaches: the ability to preserve continuity of reference across radical theoretical change. (shrink)

This provocative book outlines a powerful and original theory of liberty structured by the liberal conception of justice and the rule of law. Drawing on insights from philosophy, political theory, economics, and law, he shows how this new conception of liberty can confront, and solve, the central societal problems of knowledge, interest, and power.

JEL Classification: B41, B53, B31, B2, P48, A12 Abstract: Wittgenstein’s rule-following paradox has important implications for two aspects of Austrian theory. First, it makes it possible to reconcile the Misesian, Rothbardian, and hermeneutical approaches to methodology; second, it provides a way of defending a stateless legal order against the charge that such an order lacks, yet needs, a final arbiter.

Panarchy suggests that an optimal framework for the emergence of the best states is that of free competition between states. In Panarchy, people and states negotiate the relationships between them, as sellers and buyers and formalize them in explicit social contracts. Different states may offer varying levels of services in areas such as health, education, and social security for different prices. Low costs for consumer mobility from state to state are necessary for competition. These can be optimized by non-territorial states (...) that offer services to citizens instead of rule a territory and compete over customers in a political market. The right of such states to coerce their clients differentiates them from mere protective associations, and is founded on explicit social contracts (law codes) rather than on monopoly over territory-- sovereignty. First, I explicate the unique properties of Panarchy, non-territorial states and explicit social contracts. Then, following the theories of Douglass North (1986) and Albert Hirschman (1970) I explain why Panarchy appears to be an appropriate framework for avoiding political monopolies and increasing political competitiveness and efficiency through cheap exit mechanisms. Then, I consider possible challenges to Panarchy: Panarchy may be utopian if the state is a natural monopoly; Panarchy does not advocate any political utopia but it may reify the utopian element to the meta-political level, to the preconditions for the emergence of the best states. If non-territorial states are inconsistent with human nature, they may be utopian. I also consider possible ethical objections to Panarchy. I argue that: The territorial sovereign state is not a natural monopoly. A free market in non-territorial states does not have to assume a coercive monopoly regulatory “super-state.” The territoriality of the state is not natural. Though there are valid ethical criticisms of Panarchy, from a utilitarian perspective, they are outweighed by ethical arguments that support it. Finally, I argue that several recent technological innovations have rendered the sovereign nation-state increasingly obsolete, while facilitating and reducing the costs of establishing Panarchy and running non-territorial states. (shrink)

Capitalism is the best. It's free enterprise. Barter. Gimbels, if I get really rank with the clerk, 'Well I don't like this', how I can resolve it? If it really gets ridiculous, I go, 'Frig it, man, I walk.' What can this guy do at Gimbels, even if he was the president of Gimbels? He can always reject me from that store, but I can always go to Macy's. He can't really hurt me. Communism is like one big phone company. (...) Government control, man. And if I get too rank with that phone company, where can I go? I'll end up like a schmuck with a dixie cup on a thread. (shrink)

Responsibility is often thought of as primarily a legal concept. Even when it is moral responsibility that is at issue, it is assumed that it is above all in moralities based on law-centered patterns and models that responsibility takes center stage, so that responsibility is a legal concept at its core, and is applicable to the realm of private morality only by extension and analogy.