The Basics of Libertarianism

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Free Society ◽  
Mutual Respect ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Human Relationships

What is libertarianism? Libertarianism is a political philosophy. Libertarians believe respect for individual liberty is the central requirement of justice. They believe human relationships should be based on mutual consent. Libertarians advocate a free society of cooperation, tolerance, and mutual respect. Libertarianism holds that...

At the Origins of Neo-Liberalism: The Free Economy and the Strong State, 1930–1947

2010 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
BEN JACKSON
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
State Regulation ◽  
Free Society ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Public Controversy ◽  
Strong State ◽  
Middle Way ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Market Liberalism ◽  
The Welfare State

ABSTRACTIt is often suggested that the earliest theorists of neo-liberalism first entered public controversy in the 1930s and 1940s to dispel the illusion that the welfare state represented a stable middle way between capitalism and socialism. This article argues that this is an anachronistic account of the origins of neo-liberalism, since the earliest exponents of neo-liberal doctrine focused on socialist central planning rather than the welfare state as their chief adversary and even sought to accommodate certain elements of the welfare state agenda within their market liberalism. In their early work, neo-liberal theorists were suspicious of nineteenth-century liberalism and capitalism; emphasized the value commitments that they shared with progressive liberals and socialists; and endorsed significant state regulation and redistribution as essential to the maintenance of a free society. Neo-liberals of the 1930s and 1940s therefore believed that the legitimation of the market, and the individual liberty best secured by the market, had to be accomplished via an expansion of state capacity and a clear admission that earlier market liberals had been wrong to advocate laissez-faire.

The Market, Preferences, and Equality

1994 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin M. Macleod
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Ronald Dworkin ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Equitable Distribution ◽  
Political Morality ◽  
Mutual Advantage ◽  
Distribution Of Resources ◽  
Egalitarian Justice

The perfectly competitive market of economic theory often enters political philosophy because it can be represented as illuminating important values. Theorists who are enthusiastic about the heuristic potential of the market claim that we can learn much about individual liberty, the promotion of mutual advantage and efficiency in the distribution of goods by studying it. However, a principal limitation of the market for many theorists is its supposed insensitivity to the demands of egalitarian justice. According to the standard charge, markets—even idealised ones—are hostile to the achievement and maintenance of an equitable distribution of resources. It is striking, then, that a leading exponent of egalitarian justice like Ronald Dworkin should argue that there are very deep and systematic links between equality and the market. He contends that, contrary to the received view, “the best theory of equality supposes some actual or hypothetical market in justifying a particular distribution of goods and opportunities.” Moreover, the articulation of Dworkin’s influential egalitarian account of liberal political morality depends on acceptance of the market as an ally of equality. Thus Dworkin claims not only that the market plays a crucial role in the elaboration of a doctrine of distributive justice but also that it illuminates the distinctively liberal commitments to the protection of extensive individual liberty and to the requirement that the state must be neutral between different conceptions of the good. The aim of this paper is to raise some doubts about the soundness of one of the fundamental onnections Dworkin draws between the market and distributive justice.

scholarly journals What Is Wrong with a Rights-based Approach to Morality?

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Rajesh Kapoor
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Human Relationships ◽  
Constituent Element ◽  
Community Solidarity

There is a prominent streak of scholarship in moral and political philosophy which espouses the idea that morality is rights based. In this article, I argue that such an approach not only undermines but also operates against a range of other morally significant human relationships and attitudes such as community, solidarity, care, compassion and benevolence, which play an important role in our lives. The concept of rights is a product of historical circumstances, and it risks turning morality upside down if it encourages self-righteous claims. The notion of rights can be a constituent element of morality, but the entire moral phenomenon cannot be just rights based, and rights and duties need to remain balanced.

scholarly journals Learning of social studies in elementary school as a medium to strengthen multicultural education in the curriculum era 2013

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 00094
Author(s):  
Yulfia Nora
Keyword(s):  
Elementary Schools ◽  
Social Studies ◽  
Multicultural Education ◽  
Basic Education ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Human Potential ◽  
Mutual Respect ◽  
Human Relationships ◽  
Racial Ethnic ◽  
Ethnic And Linguistic Diversity

The writing of this article aims to describe the learning of social studies in elementary schools as a medium to strengthen multicultural education in the era of the curriculum 2013. Writing methods used are qualitative descriptions and literature studies. Social studiesis one of the subjects found in the basic education curriculum.Social studies essentially examines human relationships with the environment. The environment in question here is one of the ethnic, religious, racial, ethnic and linguistic diversity in Indonesian. Become, the context of social studies learning is multicultural education.Multicultural education is a process of developing human potential that values heterogeneity as a consequence of diversity based on the principle of equality, mutual respect, and mutual acceptance and understanding of the moral commitment to bring about social justice. But in fact, social studies learning has not been applied as a medium of multicultural education.Therefore, through the implementation of curriculum 2013 Social studies subjects as a medium to strengthen multicultural education.This is because the implementation of the 2013 curriculum is oriented towards the formation and development of learners' character in diversity.

Community cohesion, schooling and Prevent

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Holmwood ◽  
Therese O’Toole
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Trojan Horse ◽  
Shared Values ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
General Knowledge ◽  
Publicly Funded ◽  
Mutual Respect ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Community Cohesion ◽  
The Rule Of Law

This chapter evaluates how the debate on ‘British values’ and the security agenda associated with Prevent have been translated into policies for schools, and how those policies have been implemented. One of the immediate consequences of the publicity surrounding the Trojan Horse affair was that the Department for Education (DfE) reinforced the requirement on publicly funded schools in England to actively promote ‘shared values’, now called ‘fundamental British values’. The new guidance states that ‘schools should promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs’. It states further that schools should, 'enable students to acquire a broad general knowledge of and respect for public institutions and services in England'.

Introduction: the promotion of fundamental British values

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Carol Vincent
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Mutual Respect ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Research Project

This brief introduction introduces the research project, the Fundamental British values (FBV) requirement, and explains the government’s identification of the values as democracy, rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those of different faiths and beliefs. It also sets out the structure for the book.

Ruth

2019 ◽  
pp. 164-172
Author(s):  
Ellen F. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Risk Taking ◽  
Mutual Respect ◽  
Human Relationships ◽  
The Future ◽  
Vulnerable Persons

The book of Ruth stands in contrast to the story of Judges as an account of redemptive human relationships, marked not by violence but by ḥesed—mutual loyalty practiced among people who are all in some way vulnerable. Ruth in her own person embodies the classic biblical categories of the vulnerable: she is widow, orphan, and sojourner. But she is also the mother of the Davidic and messianic line, and so the story of Ruth the Moabite, in partnership with Naomi and Boaz, is emblematic. It indicates how vulnerable persons and groups may make a commitment to the practice of mutual respect, risk-taking, and protection—and through that practice, open up genuine hope for the future.

Locke’s Authoritarian Education

2021 ◽  
pp. 93-128
Author(s):  
Rita Koganzon
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Parental Authority ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Personal Authority ◽  
The Will ◽  
Epistemic Theory ◽  
Intellectual Independence

Locke’s pedagogy follows from his political and epistemic theory, counterposing an authoritarian pedagogy against limited formal parental authority. In light of his fears about the power of public opinion, Locke argued that personal authority in childhood was necessary for intellectual independence in adulthood, and the personal authority of parents was required to shield children against competing authorities in society. Locke’s account of human development reveals that the intervention of a unitary, personal authority to direct the will at the beginning is necessary for the will to be self-directing afterward. The inward-directed Lockean family forms a counterforce against the prevailing fashions outside. The private guidance of familial and pedagogical authority in childhood is a fence against the potential dangers of Locke’s political philosophy. His pedagogy argues that a state grounded in equality and individual liberty requires a hierarchical, authoritarian family to sustain itself.

The Neoliberal Turn: Libertarian Justice and Public Policy

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Billy Christmas
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Free Society ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
Moral Claims ◽  
Rule Out

AbstractIn this paper I criticize a growing movement within public policy circles that self-identifies as neoliberal. The issue I take up here is the sense in which the neoliberal label signals a turn away from libertarian political philosophy. The are many import ant figures in this movement, but my focus here will be on Will Wilkinson of the Niskanen Center, not least because he has most prolifically written against libertarian political philosophy. Neoliberals oppose the idea that the rights that libertarianism claims people have are useful guides for making the world a freer place because they forestall too much governmental/democratic political action that they purport to be necessary for increasing freedom. Wilkinson mistakenly takes libertarianism to be a set of ideal public policies for achieving a perfectly free society. If it were, he would be right to turn away from it. But placing rights to freedom at the center of their theory of justice does not commit libertarians to an all-or-nothing approach to political change. Consequences and strategy matter – particularly in a non-ideal world – without abandoning the idea that each individual has a right to freedom. In mistaking libertarian moral claims as a set of policy prescriptions, Wilkinson complains that idealistic policy prescriptions not only fail to take account of how those who disagree will respond to such policies if implemented, but also thereby undermines the justice of those policies in the first instance. Wilkinson proposes that change in the direction of freedom must go through the proper channels of actually-existing democratic legitimacy. It as this stage that Wilkinson’s project comes into direct conflict with libertarianism. Whilst libertarianism is not committed to any particular method of creating a free society under non-ideal conditions, and therefore does not rule out democratic political activism as one among many means of doing that, it cannot be committed to the permanence of democratic political authority, and this is what Wilkinson’s neoliberalism demands above all else. It turns out that Foucault’s characterization of neoliberalism long ago is still accurate to Wilkinson’s own view: that neoliberalism is not about creating a society of free individuals, it is about designing the state apparatus in ways that are inspired by the workings of free society – it is about legitimizing the chains, not breaking them. Neoliberalism is not a pragmatic alternative to libertarianism, but rather a gross misapplication of it.

BIOETHICS AND THE PROBLEM OF PLURALISM

2002 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald C. Ainslie
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
The State ◽  
Coercive Power ◽  
Free Society ◽  
Comprehensive Doctrine ◽  
Reasonable Pluralism ◽  
Theories Of Justice ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
The Right

The state that we inhabit plays a significant role in shaping our lives. For not only do its institutions constrain the kinds of lives we can lead, but it also claims the right to punish us if our choices take us beyond what it deems to be appropriate limits. Political philosophers have traditionally tried to justify the state's power by appealing to their preferred theories of justice, as articulated in complex and wide-ranging moral theories—utilitarianism, Kantianism, and the like. One of John Rawls's greatest contributions to political philosophy has been his recognition that this is the wrong way for this field to approach its task. He points to what he calls “the fact of reasonable pluralism,” which is the incontestable fact that in a free society people striving to lead their lives ethically will subscribe to conflicting moral and religious doctrines, many of which will be “reasonable” in the special sense of leaving their adherents willing to cooperate with those with whom they have moral disagreements. And this means that political philosophers can no longer rely on any particular “comprehensive” doctrine in their attempts to justify the state. For doing so would be unfair to those who subscribe to a conflicting reasonable doctrine; it would mean that the coercive power of the state would not be justified to them in terms they can accept, even while they were forced to abide by its terms.

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