Author:
Title:
Escape from Leviathan : Libertarianism without justificationism: rationality, liberty, welfare, and anarchy reconciled. --
Classification:
320.011 L642e
Publisher:
Buckingham, Inglaterra : The University of Buckingham Press, c2012.
Description:
xii, 246 p. ; 23 cm.
ISBN:
9781908684080
Subjects:
Contents:
1. Introduction. -- 2. Rationality. -- 3. Liberty. -- 4. Welfare. -- 5. Anarchy. -- Bibliography. -- Index pp. 241-246
Summary:
The most relevant and plausible conceptions of economic rationality,
interpersonal liberty, human welfare, and private-property anarchy do
not conflict in theory or practice. Using philosophy and social science, Escape From Leviatan defends this bold, non-normative, thesis from contrary positions in the
scholarly literature. Writers considered include David Friedman, John
Gray, R. M. Hare, Robert Nozick, Karl Popper, John Rawls, Murray
Rothbard, Alan Ryan, Amartya Sen, and Bernard Williams. The rationality assumptions of neoclassical and Austrian School
economics are reconciled and related to liberty and welfare. A new
pre-propertarian theory of interpersonal liberty as the absence of
(initiated or proactively) imposed cost is argued to be libertarian. Human welfare is defended as the satisfaction of unimpossed wants.
Practical anarchy is simply unconstrained private property. Related
topics include free will, weakness of will, the nature of moralizing,
intellectual property, and restitution and retribution.
Critical-rationalist epistemology (theories can only be criticized and
tested, not justified or supported) is applied throughout. This is a
ground-breaking work that is also an excellent introduction to
libertarianism and social thought.
