Natural Rights Theories

Robert Nozick is the most discussed libertarian philosopher of these days. The paper examines the question of whether he supported forced taxation. The normative basis of Nozick’s position, the neo-Lockean theory of natural human rights are analyzed. On the basis of this theory, his argument in favor of the moral justification of the minimal state is reconstructed. While this reconstruction leaves it ambiguous whether such the state should be funded by taxation, six arguments are offered in favor of such tax (...) funding. These arguments are based on the same normative premises as Nozick’s own argument and can therefore be supported by contemporary Nozickians even if Nozick himself rejected taxation. These arguments are shown to help overcome some of the critical objections faced by Nozick’s theory and neo-Lockeanism as a whole. However, accepting these arguments entails accepting not only the tax financing of the minimal state, but also the expansion of the functions of this state to provide citizens with a social minimum in the form of an unconditional basic income or some other form of redistribution. (shrink)

Distributive justice is one of the central questions of contemporary moral and political philosophy. Discussions on this topic are often presented as a confrontation between two groups of thinkers: libertarians and luck egalitarians. The former emphasize the dependence of the existing distribution on the individual choice and personal responsibility of people, and therefore are skeptical about various redistribution programs. The latter, on the contrary, emphasize the influence of morally arbitrary luck on the economic situation of people, and therefore welcome redistributive (...) measures to compensate for this brute luck. Left-libertarian claims to reconcile these two types of moral considerations. The classical left-libertarian point of view seeks to offset the influence of brute luck through an egalitarian distribution of the benefits of owning natural resources that are independent of anyone’s choice and responsibility. However, this position does not sufficiently take into account the influence of other factors of brute luck and, in particular, genetic endowments on the distribution of economic wealth. This article discusses three approaches that allow left-libertarians to take into account the factor of genetic luck in interpersonal distribution. First, it is Hillel Steiner’s proposal to attribute genetic information to natural resources, the benefits of which are subject to egalitarian redistribution. Second, it is the concept of equal opportunity for welfare by Peter Vallentyne, Michael Otsuka and Eric Roark. Thirdly, it is the universal dominance criterion of Philippe Van Parijs and Kasper Ossenblok. The first two approaches face a number of moral and practical difficulties, but the third approach is able to overcome them. Thus, the universal dominance criterion is the most promising way to reconcile left-libertarianism and justice in the distribution of genetic endowments. (shrink)

Many libertarians assume that there is a close relation between an individual’s self-ownership and her freedom. That relation needs questioning. In this article it is argued that, even in a pre-property state, self-ownership is insufficient to protect freedom. Therefore, libertarians who believe in self-ownership should either offer a defense of freedom that is independent from their defense of self-ownership, make it explicit that they hold freedom as second to self-ownership (and defend that position), or reconsider the moral basis of their (...) political views. (shrink)

Libertarianism is a theory of justice that places significant moral weight on exclusive property rights. On this basis, many libertarian philosophers, from Robert Nozick to Michael Huemer, criticize any form of income redistribution. Ironically, some libertarians, following Philippe Van Parijs, Matt Zwolinski, and Charles Murray, have supported the introduction of an unconditional basic income. This essay seeks to prove that this support is not just a political compromise. By contrast, libertarian justice advocates have a strong moral basis for supporting income (...) redistribution in the form of unconditional cash payments. This essay explores one such reason, the Lockean proviso. The Lockean proviso is a moral requirement for the appropriation of unowned resources to leave “enough and as good” for others. There are many interpretations of the Lockean proviso, but the most ambitious are the egalitarian proviso and the sufficiency proviso. Each of them, but for different reasons, requires the introduction of a basic income. The egalitarian proviso establishes the equal rights of all people to natural resources, and therefore requires that all benefits from the ownership of natural resources be shared egalitarianly — in the form of unconditional equal payments. The sufficiency proviso establishes some threshold of sufficiency, and then imposes a restriction on exclusive property rights so that they can’t prevent redistribution in order to raise all people to the threshold of sufficiency. However, while both provisos require a basic income, they diverge on three important dimensions in assessing this basic income: applicability, taxable base, and amount of cash payments. (shrink)

In this chapter I seek to provide a theoretical defense of workplace democracy that is independent from and outside the lineage of Marxist and communist theory. Common to the council movements, anarcho- syndicalism and many other forms of libertarian socialism was the idea “that workers’ self- management was central.” Yet the idea of workers’ control has not been subject to the same theoretical development as Marx’s theory, not to mention capitalist economic theory. This chapter aims to contribute at a theoretical (...) level by providing a justification and defense of self- managed workplaces that is independent of the particular historical tradition of the council movements. There is a clear and definitive case for workplace democracy based on first principles that descends to modern times through the Reformation and Enlightenment in the abolitionist, democratic and feminist movements. By the twentieth century, the arguments had been scattered and lost – like the bones of some ancient beast scattered in a desert – partly due to misconceptions, mental blocks and misinterpretations embodied in Marxism, liberalism and economic theory. When one has worked through some of these intellectual roadblocks, then one may be better able to reassemble the case for workplace democracy from well- known first principles developed in the abolitionist, democratic and feminist movements. (shrink)

In contemporary bioethics, the autonomy of the patient has assumed considerable importance. Progressing from a more limited notion of informed consent, shared decision making calls upon patients to voice the desires and preferences of their authentic self, engaging in choice among alternatives as a way to exercise deeply held values. One influential opinion in Jewish bioethics holds that Jewish law, in contradistinction to secular bioethics, limits the patient's exercise of autonomy only in those instances in which treatment choices are sensitive (...) to preferences. Here, we analyze a discussion in the Mishna, a foundational text of rabbinic Judaism, regarding patient autonomy in the setting of religiously mandated fasting, and commentaries in the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds, finding both a more expansive notion of such autonomy and a potential metaphysical grounding for it in the importance of patient self-knowledge. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I investigate the implications of libertarian morality in relation to the problem of climate change. This problem is explicated in the first chapter, where preliminary clarifications are also made. In the second chapter, I briefly explain the characteristics of libertarianism relevant to the subsequent study, including the central non-aggression principle. In chapter three, I examine whether our individual emissions of greenhouse gases, which together give rise to climate change, meet this principle. I do this based on the (...) assumption that we are the legitimate owners of the resources we use in those activities. In the fourth chapter, I question this assumption and scrutinize libertarianism’s restrictions on appropriations of climate-relevant resources, which leads me to distinguish between some different versions of the libertarian view. Toward the end of the chapter, I also examine libertarianism’s answer to the political question regarding how emission rights should be distributed. The fifth chapter investigates libertarianism’s verdicts for mere risks of infringement, as stemming from people’s emissions and acts of appropriations. In chapter six, I investigate the libertarian right to self-defense against both the effects of climate change and other people’s climate-relevant activities. In chapter seven, I discuss two intergenerational issues related to climate change: what libertarianism says concerning future generations and how libertarianism might deal with the problem of historical emissions. The eighth chapter explores the implications of libertarianism regarding collective moral wrongdoing in connection to climate change. In chapter nine, I take a look at the libertarian room for governmental responses for tackling climate change. The tenth and final chapter is a summary. The overall conclusion of the dissertation is that libertarianism recommends that we reduce our emissions and decrease our extraction of natural resources such as forests and fossil fuels. Furthermore, governments are permitted to undertake some quite substantial actions in order to fight the causes of climate change. I end with some bottom-up reflections on what these conclusions might say about the plausibility of libertarianism. I claim that although libertarianism after all manages to explain some of our moral intuitions regarding climate change, it is questionable whether libertarianism’s explanation is better than those offered by alternative moral theories. (shrink)

Hans-Hermann Hoppe contends that the fact that a person has the capacity to argue entails that she has the moral right of exclusive control over her own body. Critics of Hoppe’s argument do not appear to have pinpointed its flaws. I expose the logical structure of Hoppe’s argument, distinguishing its pragmatic-contradiction and its mutual-recognition components. I provide three counterexamples to show that Hoppe’s mutual-recognition argument is invalid and I argue that the truth that appears to motivate the argument is simply (...) a banality. I show that Hoppe’s pragmatic-contradiction argument is invalid, has a false premise and fails to link up with his mutual-recognition argument in the way that he requires to reach his conclusion. I conclude by outlining three perils of pragmatic-contradiction arguments, the weakness of mutual-recognition arguments, and the implausibility of attempts to derive a universal moral status from a specialised activity such as argumentation. (shrink)

This article makes a moral argument for universal access to health care and for the legitimate function of government to guarantee that access. Constructed as a reply to the libertarian argument against universal access, this article utilizes the moral and political theory of John Locke, favored by libertarianism, to develop a Lockean argument for a view contrary to the libertarian philosophy. In particular, the argument here shows how libertarianism’s neglect of a crucial element of the natural-law tradition, to which Locke (...) adhered, not only undercuts the libertarian objection to universal access to health care but also underwrites an alternative argument in favor of such. (shrink)

Krzysztof Trzcinski, 'Citizenship in Europe: The History of the Idea and Institution' - this is an interdisciplinary book as the concept of citizenship is one of the key terms of the social sciences and raises questions of a legal, political, historical, philosophical, and sociological nature. The main subjects of this work are the origins and evolution of the idea and institution of citizenship in Western Europe. Doctrinal and institutional models of citizenship presented in this monograph are of different historical origins (...) (beginning with ancient times and ending with the 20th century). This work shows that in different historical periods, the concept of citizenship underwent shifts in semantic substance and that the idea of citizenship is in permanent flux. Hence, the essence of citizenship is continually being enriched with new elements (or, at times, impoverished by the loss of other elements). According to specific conditions of a socio-political, economic, and cultural nature, the concept of citizenship has been redefined in the historical perspective. At various historical periods, the term 'citizen' referred to a broader or narrower spectrum of society. Criteria for membership in the body of citizens also evolved. Over the centuries, many models of citizenship emerged in Europe. Some of them were institutional in form. In contrast, others were the fruit of philosophers' social and political thinking at different times. The basic models emerged in ancient Athens and Rome. Later models of citizenship usually took over many traits, particular to initial models (such as the right to life). However, at the same time, they usually eliminated some of their elements (such as the enslavement of certain members of society) while simultaneously creating and adding new ones (such as electoral rights for women). In this manner, new models emerged, which were an offshoot of classical models. These models contributed to the formation of the contemporary institution of citizenship, which brings together different elements of various historical models. This book contributes to research into the evolution of the state (including research into the formation of the nation-state in Europe), as the institution of citizenship is inherently and functionally tied to the state. This work also contributes to research into the evolution of supranational European Union citizenship. The institutional development of the idea of EU citizenship could - along with the unavoidable transformation of all community structures or even the very idea of integration itself - lead to a fundamental change in the contemporary concept of state citizenship. This work could also prove helpful in research into the phenomenon of immigration in Europe, especially into the interdependence between obtaining the citizenship of the host state and the effective integration of immigrants. (shrink)

In Rites of Privacy and the Privacy Trade Neill constructs an original theory of natural rights and human dignity to ground our right to privacy, arguing that privacy and autonomy are innate natural properties metaphorically represented on the moral level and socially bestowed. She develops her position by drawing on works in history, sociology, metaphor, law, and the moral psychology of Lawrence Kohlberg. The resulting theory provides surprising answers to controversial and pressing questions regarding, for instance, our right to privacy (...) for medical records in various contexts and in relation to various authority structures, including government. Neill demonstrates that, while we have some entitlement to protection of privacy, entitlement does not have the moral scope suggested by currently entrenched legal and social norms. She cautions against some of the privacy privileges we currently enjoy - referring specifically to claims such as those against insurance companies to prevent access to medical records - and suggests that if they are to be continued, respect for privacy is not the reason. (shrink)