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Hudson, William E. The Libertarian Illusion. Washington: CQ Press, 2008 (review)Reason Papers 30 113-120. 2008.
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29Rights and UtilitarianismCanadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 5 (n/a): 137-160. 1979.Few questions about utilitarianism have been more vexed than that of its relation to rights. It is commonplace to hold that there are nonutilitarian rights, rights not founded on considerations of utility. And it is even thought that the very notion of rights is inherently incapable of being significantly employed within the utilitarian framework. In the present paper, I wish to consider both of these matters. I propose to give reasons—mostly not really new—for rejecting the stronger, conceptual…Read more
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148Utilitarianism, group actions, and coordination or, must the utilitarian be a Buridan's ass?Noûs 10 (2): 173-194. 1976.
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82Present Payments, Past Wrongs: Correcting Loose Talk about Nozick and RectificationLibertarian Papers 1 1. 2009.It is widely thought that Robert Nozick’s views on rectification of past injustices are of critical importance to his theory of distributive justice, even perhaps justifying wholesale redistributive taxes in the present because of the undoubted injustices that have pervaded much past history. This essay undertakes to correct this impression—not mostly by disagreeing with Nozick’s claims, but nevertheless proceeding on basic libertarian theory. Of enormous importance is the role of putative innoc…Read more
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D. Weinstein, Equal Freedom and Utility-Herbert Spencer's Liberal Utilitarianism Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 19 (4): 295-297. 1999.
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129The Medical Minimum: ZeroJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 36 (6): 558-571. 2011.The question is what the mandated medical minimum for all should be. The correct answer is zero. That is to say, the government should not be forcing anyone to pay for anyone. The most popular arguments within the liberal framework, presumed to be shared by all, are briefly surveyed. Health care is provided by someone to someone else, and that someone else should either be paying for it, or recognize that someone is providing it charitably to him or her. Compelling someone else to pay for it is …Read more
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106Libertarianism, postlibertarianism, and the welfare state: Reply to FriedmanCritical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 6 (1): 45-82. 1992.Jeffrey Friedman broaches a number of criticisms of Libertarianism as a conceptual basis for opposing the extensive modern welfare state, examining several variants and concluding that they are fundamentally unsupported. He opts for a “consequentialist” view of foundations. Nevertheless, he thinks that the modem welfare state is subject to effective critique along such lines. But rational contractarian individualism works and does provide foundations for libertarianism, while “consequentialism” …Read more
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773Liberty, Property, and Welfare Rights: Brettschneider’s ArgumentLibertarian Papers 5 194-215. 2013.Brettschneider argues that the granting of property rights to all entails a right of exclusion by acquirer/owners against all others, that this exclusionary right entails a loss on their part, and that to make up for this, property owners owe any nonowners welfare rights. Against this, I argue that exclusion is not in fact a cost. Everyone is to have liberty rights, which are negative: what people are excluded from is the liberty to attack and despoil others. Everyone, whether an owner of extern…Read more
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566Pacifism: A philosophical analysisEthics 75 (4): 259-271. 1965.Of all the attitudes and theories associated with or identified as "pacifism," only the doctrine that everyone ought not to resist violence with force is of philosophical interest, And it is logically incoherent. Pacifism's popularity rests on confusions about what the doctrine really is. If we have rights, We have the right to prevent infringements upon them. We have the right to use force to protect our rights, And in the degree necessary to accomplish that end. (staff)
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Timo Airaksinen and Martin A. Bertman, eds., Hobbes: War among Nations (review)Philosophy in Review 11 3-5. 1991.
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90On Defense by Nuclear DeterrenceCanadian Journal of Philosophy 16 (sup1): 195-211. 1986.(1986). On Defense by Nuclear Deterrence. Canadian Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 16, Supplementary Volume 12: Nuclear Weapons, Deterrence and Disarmament, pp. 195-211
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52A Theory of the Good and the Right (review)International Studies in Philosophy 12 (1): 107-108. 1980.
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82Reiman on Labor, Value, and the Difference PrincipleThe Journal of Ethics 18 (1): 47-74. 2014.In As Free and as Just as Possible: The Theory of Marxian Liberalism, Jeffrey Reiman proposes to develop a theory of “Marxian Liberalism.” ‘Liberalism’ here is defined by the principle that “sane adult human beings should be free in the sense of free from coercion that would block their ability to act on the choices they make.” While the idea of coercion could use some glossing, it is not obvious that poverty, unemployment, racism, and sexism are as such coercive. In this book, it is, very broad…Read more
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2Why Care about Liberty?Philosophic Exchange 38 (1). 2008.This is the age of the welfare state. The general assumption is that something is amiss if governments do not provide benefits to its people. Since these benefits are funded by coercive taxation, this implies that those who are taxed are morally required to pay for benefits for others. This paper argues that this assumption is mistaken. Like the founders of the American republic, I argue that government should protect individual liberty, not provide benefits to the needy.
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Maxificing: life on a budget; or, if you would maximize, then satisfice!In Michael Byron (ed.), Satisficing and Maximizing: Moral Theorists on Practical Reason, Cambridge University Press. pp. 59--70. 2004.
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33Are Liberty and Equality Compatible?Cambridge University Press. 2012.Are the political ideals of liberty and equality compatible? This question is of central and continuing importance in political philosophy, moral philosophy, and welfare economics. In this book, two distinguished philosophers take up the debate. Jan Narveson argues that a political ideal of negative liberty is incompatible with any substantive ideal of equality, while James P. Sterba argues that Narveson's own ideal of negative liberty is compatible, and in fact leads to the requirements of a su…Read more
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99Pacifism—Fifty Years LaterPhilosophia 41 (4): 925-943. 2013.I suppose I’m writing this because of my 1965 paper on Pacifism. In that essay I argued that pacifism is self-contradictory. That’s a strong charge, and also not entirely clear. Let’s start by trying to clarify the charge and related ones.Pacifism has traditionally been understood as total opposition to violence, even the use of it in defense of oneself when under attack. I earlier maintained (in my well-known “Pacifism: A Philosophical Analysis” (Narveson, Ethics, 75:4, 259–271, 1965)) that thi…Read more
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University of WaterlooDepartment of Philosophy
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Areas of Specialization
| Value Theory |