Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations for Rawls’s texts
- Introduction
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- 109 Law of Peoples
- 110 Law, system of
- 111 Least-advantaged position
- 112 Legitimacy
- 113 Legitimate expectations
- 114 Leibniz, G. W.
- 115 Leisure
- 116 Lexical priority: liberty, opportunity, wealth
- 117 Liberal conception of justice
- 118 Liberal people
- 119 Liberalism as comprehensive doctrine
- 120 Liberalism, comprehensive vs. political
- 121 Libertarianism
- 122 Liberty, equal worth of
- 123 Liberty of conscience
- 124 Locke, John
- 125 Love
- 126 Luck egalitarianism
- M
- N
- O
- P
- R
- S
- T
- U
- W
- Bibliography
- Index
121 - Libertarianism
from L
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2015
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations for Rawls’s texts
- Introduction
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- 109 Law of Peoples
- 110 Law, system of
- 111 Least-advantaged position
- 112 Legitimacy
- 113 Legitimate expectations
- 114 Leibniz, G. W.
- 115 Leisure
- 116 Lexical priority: liberty, opportunity, wealth
- 117 Liberal conception of justice
- 118 Liberal people
- 119 Liberalism as comprehensive doctrine
- 120 Liberalism, comprehensive vs. political
- 121 Libertarianism
- 122 Liberty, equal worth of
- 123 Liberty of conscience
- 124 Locke, John
- 125 Love
- 126 Luck egalitarianism
- M
- N
- O
- P
- R
- S
- T
- U
- W
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Libertarianism is the view that agents initially morally fully own themselves and have certain moral powers to acquire property rights in external things. It can be understood as a basic moral principle or as a derivative one. For example, it can be advocated as a natural rights doctrine (e.g. Nozick 1974) or defended on the basis of rule consequentialism (e.g. Epstein 1998; Shapiro 2007) or rule contractarianism (e.g. Narveson 1988; Lomasky 1987). For concreteness, I shall here interpret libertarianism as a natural rights doctrine. For a full discussion of libertarianism, see Vallentyne (2010). For critical discussion of Nozick’s version of libertarianism, see Vallentyne (2011).
Although it has a long history (e.g. at least back to Locke 1960 [1689]), libertarianism was not widely discussed by political philosophers prior to Nozick (1974). Rawls, for example, does not explicitly discuss it at all in TJ and only briefly discusses it in PL (262–265). Nonetheless, Rawls’s discussion of the entitlement to one’s natural endowment is highly relevant to libertarianism’s assertion of self-ownership, and we shall focus on that issue.
Philosophers, unfortunately, use “justice” to mean several different things. Rawls used this term to mean, roughly, the moral permissibility (rightness) of basic structures, or social institutions creating profound and unavoidable effects on individuals’ lives (TJ 3–6, 93–98). By contrast, Nozick (1974, e.g. 52), and libertarians generally, tend to use “justice” to mean, roughly, infringes no one’s rights. Thus, it’s not clear that they are addressing the same topic.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Rawls Lexicon , pp. 452 - 456Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014
- 4
- Cited by