Igor Wysocki

There is an old worry to the effect that all valid arguments are circular. As Mill originally argued, the conclusion of a valid argument must be already assumed in its premise set. The sense of “being assumed in” is somewhat vague but makes perfect intuitive sense, given that valid reasoning is non-ampliative. Hence, if the argument’s conclusion were to express some information over and above what its premise set expresses, the argument would be invalid. After all, the truth of its premises would not necessitate the truth of its conclusion, a clear mark of invalidity. Moreover, if the argument’s conclusion already resides in its premise set, the argument is characterized by so-called premise circularity. Therefore, rather alarmingly, validity seems to entail premise-circularity. The worry is revisited by Fulmer (Synthese 204:1-30, 2024), published in this journal, with the help of sharp analytic conceptual apparatus. Fulmer (Synthese 204:1-30, 2024) argues that “[n]early every single valid argument “ exhibit circularity. However, I submit that the circularity of a valid argument does not bar its persuasiveness. Hence, some circular arguments are informative and non-fallacious, whereas some others are not. Therefore, circularity per se does not constitute a decisive criticism of valid arguments.

This volume provides a thorough reconsideration of libertarian theory, offering novel perspectives that challenge established assumptions and initiate new directions for philosophical, legal and economic investigation. By tackling such topics as voluntariness, dignity and inalienability of rights, game theory, healthcare, and the political relevance of monarchy, the chapters provide readers with novel analytical instruments for delving more deeply into libertarianism. Through detailed examinations of such issues as fraud, blackmail, slavery, liability, and technological disruption, contributors reconsider the foundations of libertarian principles while demonstrating how they apply to pressing contemporary practical problems. The book offers critical reassessments of established doctrines and constructive proposals for reformulating libertarianism, while trying to remedy its theoretical weaknesses. In doing so, it furnishes its readers with a framework that helps to understand both the theoretical coherence and the practical adaptability of libertarian ideas, ensuring its relevance for philosophers, legal theorists, economists, and policymakers alike. The book will be of great interest to political economists, political philosophers, political scientists, ethicists, and everyone in libertarianism in all its forms.

The purpose of the present paper is to ground the alleged universal law of (positive) time preference. Thus, we take the said positivity of individual time preference rates for granted. However, we also take pains to show that some other time preference rates (even negative ones) are conceivable only providing that ceteris paribus clause is not satisfied. All in all, we cannot but admit that the intuition standing behind the apparently necessary positivity of time-preference rates is quite robust. However, little effort has been made to justify it. For example, in Austrian economics, it is said that positive rate of time preference is somehow implied in the concept of human action. Yet, no demonstration to that effect is forthcoming. In this essay, we are trying to approximate what could serve as a best reason to believe that individual time preference rates are indeed positive. We first consider whether a phenomenon of social interest rates is able to ground the positivity of time preference. Having rejected this apparent solution as circular, we analyse whether a case can be made against non-positive rates of time preference as unjustified under any set of relevant beliefs. This attempt is also rejected, as there seems to exist a relevant belief under which a rate of time preference can rationally be zero. Finally, we appeal to the Parfitian reductionist view on personal identity as allegedly capturing necessarily positive rates of time preference. Here we note the crucial fact that psychological connectedness (something at least partially constitutive of personal identity) between person P at some time and the same person at some other time diminishes as the interval between these two times increases. Finally, this very fact appears to neatly explain the positivity of time preference.

The present paper addresses a minarchist criticism of anarcho-capitalism based on the so-called paradox of deontology. The paper argues that minarchists are right in contending that minarchism does not run into a contradiction by recognizing individual rights and at the same time allowing their violations by the minimal state. However, the minarchist idea that the existence of the minimal state might be justified due to the paradox of deontology in which anarcho-capitalism is allegedly entangled is rejected. The whole discussion is conducted in the context of the exchange between Stanisław Wójtowicz’s rendition of the minarchist position as expressed in his recent paper “Libertarianism, Individual Rights, and the Paradox of Deontology: Rejoinder to Dominiak and Wysocki on Minarchism” (this issue) and Łukasz Dominiak and Igor Wysocki’s defense of anarcho-capitalism as presented in the target paper of Wójtowicz’s rejoinder, “The Anarcho-Capitalist Case against the State as a Challenge to the Minarchist Libertarians”, published also in Roczniki Filozoficzne recently.

This paper argues – pace Kinsella – that dialogical estoppel, the task of which is to justify rights to punish, is an empty criterion. What is the most damaging to the employment of estoppel is that the relation between a given act and a moral belief it demonstrates is one-to-many. That is, a given act might exemplify infinitely many moral principles an agent might be committed to. It is, we posit, this very fact that renders the estoppel criterion empty, for it always remains underdetermined on which moral principle an agent acts. But if so, then we can never know what it is that an agent is estopped from complaining. Moreover, we submit that any appeal to morally relevant description of the offender’s action either begs the question or invokes external moral reasons, which only shows that estoppel in and of itself – notwithstanding Kinsella’s pretenses to the contrary – is unable to perform its task.

This paper takes issue with Córdoba’s (Axiomathes 27(5):521–529, 2017) attempt to axiomatize praxeology, with the particular target being his ultimate derivation of the Scarcity Theorem. This author starts with proving the Uneasiness Theorem, a proof we find flawless. It is indeed the case that action entails wanting something, from which it follows – by contraposition – that being satisfied (i.e. not wanting anything) entails no action. That much must be granted. However, we consider the author’s alleged proof of the Scarcity Theorem wanting. Specifically, what we find unpersuasive is Córdoba’s premise (9) having it that if there is nothing that is scarce for _a_ (some arbitrary economic agent), then _a_ is satisfied and therefore _a_ does not (and cannot) act. On Córdoba’s own definition of scarcity, scarcity is a _relational_ property. To wit, a certain resource is scarce for _a_ when it does not suffice to satisfy _a_’s multiple ends. But then, while sticking to this definition, we envisage a situation wherein nothing is scarce for _a_ (relative to his ends). It seems that even under this scenario, the economic actor may _not_ be satisfied _just yet_ (say, at time t 1 ). Yet, he may start sequentially employing his adequate means to satisfy his ends, thus obeying the law of diminishing marginal utility with both his desires and beliefs issuing in the purposeful behavior in question, nothing short of action proper. If our thought experiments counts for something, it shows that scarcity is just a contingent – _pace_ Mises (Human action, 4th edn. Fox & Wilkes, San Francisco, p. 70, 1949) and Córdoba – rather than a necessary condition of action.

The present paper argues that Rothbard’s economic case against the state is more robust than suggested by his critics. The charge that it might be anemic is based on the suggestion that we can say literally nothing about the way governmental acts bear on social utility. Contra this supposition we submit that Rothbard’s critics missed the fact that the effects of governmental interventions might be actually indeterminate in two ways: weakly or strongly. If the indeterminacy involved in his welfare theory is weak, then his economic criticism of the state is more robust than envisaged by these authors. To the effect that this indeterminacy is indeed weak we advance the following reasons: Rothbard’s understanding of the Unanimity Rule; the avoidance of the contradiction allegedly committed by Rothbard over one and the same page of his famous essay; his economic criticism of interventionism being better aligned with his overall ethical anti-governmental stance; the principle of charitable reading, which cuts across all of the previously stated reasons. If our arguments count for something, then we are warranted in claiming that Rothbard is indeed able to say something about social utility under interventionism. And if so, then his criticism of interventionism should be viewed as robust rather than anemic.

This paper is a rejoinder to Block’s (2022) response to Wysocki’s (Wysocki, 2021) essay on Nozick’s challenge leveled at Austrian economics. Instead of merely reiterating Wysocki’s (Wysocki, 2021) position, we try to highlight that the Blockean account of indifference and preference entails the views which are otherwise unwelcome, given his unyielding commitment to Austrian economics at large. To wit, we argue that Block’s theory still fails to make sense of the law of diminishing marginal utility. Moreover, his extreme idea of choice, sadly, appears to jettison characteristically Austrian subjectivism and thus perilously verges on behaviourism. We conclude that, given all these predicaments the Blockean account is caught in, Block himself (_qua_ Austrian) has a reason to embrace the Hoppean theory of preference and indifference.

It all started in 2021 when we sparked a rather specific debate within Austrian economics in _Philosophical Problems in Science_ (_Zagadnienia Filozoficzne w Nauce_) – traditionally abbreviated as _ZFN_. The story unfolded as follows. First, Wysocki submitted a paper on the concept of indifference, as it is normally understood in the Austrian school of economics. To his astonishment and great relief, this then rising journal (now the one with well-established reputation, its Scopus ranking being as high as Q2 under the rubric of philosophy) accepted the submission in question and published it promptly in ZFN 71 as (Wysocki, 2021). It was an honour and a privilege, especially given the fact that Austrian economics – with all due respect to its scientific achievements – is nowadays not a mainstream economic current, to say the least. Hence, being published in _ZFN_ only added to the strength of Wysocki’s belief that the journal is clearly unbiased towards any sort of philosophy of science. The very fact that Wysocki published a paper on indifference in Austrian economics and the fact that he spread the news about _ZFN_ being also open to publishing maverick (after all, as already observed, Austrian economics is not a branch of mainstream economics) papers related to philosophy of science prompted Walter Block (a prominent Austrian economist) to submit to _ZFN_ his rejoinder to Wysocki’s original paper on indifference, with the said response being ultimately published in ZFN 72 as (Block, 2022).

The pivotal point in the Austrian literature on homogeneity, choice and indifference was constituted by Nozick’s On Austrian Methodology. Nozick provoked a long debate on the above notions within Austrianism. The aim of this paper is to elaborate such an account of homogeneity that would take the sting out of Nozick’s challenge and allow for non-trivial formulation of the law of diminishing marginal utility. Hence, we shall first take a closer look at the debate on indifference within the Austrian camp, while defending and building upon the Hoppean account vis-à-vis Block’s criticism. Our justification of the Hoppean position shall consist in showing that his account of the correct description of an action is not an ad hoc move aimed at solving just one problem of indifference but is highly intuitive and widely applicable. We conclude by restating the above-mentioned law, thus demonstrating that the Nozickian objection can be successfully replied.

Artykuł analizuje problem kosztów powstałych w wyniku realizacji obowiązku udzielenia pomocy osobie znajdującej się w niebezpieczeństwie. Autorzy prezentują trzy odmienne stanowiska dotyczące tego problemu, rozważając scenariusz, w którym osoba decyduje się, z własnej woli lub przymuszona za pomocą prawa, uratować inną osobę, w sytuacji, w której taka pomoc wiąże się z naruszeniem praw trzeciej strony. Przykładowo, A ratuje tonącego B, ale w trakcie ratowania narusza prawa C. Pytanie, które stawiają autorzy brzmi: zakładając, że istnieje obowiązek udzielenia pomocy osobie znajdującej się w niebezpieczeństwie, kto powinien ponieść koszty odszkodowania za naruszenie praw trzeciej strony? Autorzy rozważają następujące możliwości: koszty pomocy powinny zostać poniesione przez (a) ratującego, (b) osobę, której prawa zostały naruszone, (c) ratowanego, (d) całe społeczeństwo.

In “Evictionism and Libertarianism,” published in this journal, Walter Block defends the view that, although the fetus is a human being with all the rights to its body, it may nonetheless be evicted from the woman’s body as a trespasser, provided the pregnancy is unwanted. We argue that this view is untenable: the statement that the unwanted fetus is a trespasser does not follow from the premises that the fetus uninvitedly resides in the woman’s body and that the woman is a full self-owner. For this statement to follow, one more statement would have to be true; namely, the woman would have to hold her self-ownership rights specifically against the fetus, and for this to be the case, the fetus would have to have a correlative duty to the woman to abstain from interfering with her body. This statement, however, is false.

Autorzy artykułu argumentują, że libertarianie (tacy jak Murray Rothbard, Stephan Kinsella), którzy jednocześnie podpisują się pod zasadą proporcjonalności w obronie własności prywatnej oraz pod poglądem, iż posiadanie prawa własności prywatnej oznacza posiadanie prawa do jej obrony, popadają tym samym w dylemat polegający na tym, iż jeżeli jedynym sposobem obrony prawa własności prywatnej jest jego nieproporcjonalna obrona, to to własności tej - wbrew temu, co ów pogląd głosi - nie towarzyszy prawo do jej obrony. Najlepiej uzasadnionym sposobem wyjścia z tego dylematu jest osłabienie peremptoryjności praw własności prywatnej, czyli skonceptualizowanie tychże praw jako absolutnych jedynie w słabym sensie tego słowa (korzystając z dystynkcji zaproponowanej przez Matthew H. Kramera). Z kolei libertarianie, którzy tak jak Walter Block chcieliby wybrnąć z rzeczonego dylematu poprzez zastąpienie zasady proporcjonalności zasadą delikatności, popadają w innego rodzaju problemy (nieintuicyjność moralną czy ogólną niekoherencję), co jest tylko kolejnym argumentem na rzecz tezy, iż osłabienie wymogów praw własności prywatnej jest najlepiej uzasadnionym sposobem przezwyciężenia rozważanego tu dylematu.

The present paper probes the relation between the metaphysics of human freedom and the Rothbardian branch of Austrian economics. It transpires that Rothbard and his followers embrace metaphysical libertarianism, which holds that free will is incompatible with determinism and that the thesis of determinism is false as pertaining to human action. However, as we demonstrate, their economics with its reliance on value scales requires for its tenability compatibilist freedom. Moreover, we attempt to show that the notion of value scales (or preferences) postulated by them implies that value scales are determinative of choices people make. We contend that it is for this reason that the said Austrians should jettison their metaphysical libertarianism.

This paper argues—contra some Austro-libertarians—that whether a given exchange is welfare-enhancing or welfare-diminishing does not depend on whether that exchange is just or unjust, respectively. Rather, we suggest that in light of our two thought experiments, Austro-libertarianism has at least a pro tanto reason to conceive of justice and welfare as two logically distinct ideals. This would in turn, most interestingly, predict the possibility of (a) just but welfare-diminishing exchanges and (b) unjust but welfare-enhancing ones. Upon considering possible rejoinders to our points, we suggest that Austro-libertarians abandon a justice-based notion of welfare.

In this paper we analyse the concept of coerced exchange (and partly of voluntary exchange inasmuch as the absence of coercion is its necessary condition), which is of utmost importance to economic theory in general and to the Austrian School of Economics in particular. The subject matter literature normally assumes that a coerced action occurs under threat. Threats in turn can be studied from the perspective of speech act theory, which is concerned with the speaker’s intentions. Ultimately, our goal is to provide a descriptive (i.e. non-moralized) definitions of threat and coercion, based on the analysis of the coercer’s intentions. If successful, we would be in a position to present such an account of coerced and voluntary exchanges that is compatible with both speech act theory and the Austrian methodology. Although we focus on the Austrian School of Economics, we believe that our investigations might impact on economic theory in general. We also criticize a rights-based account of coercion employed in the research practice of some neo-Austrians and based on the libertarian ethic of property rights.

The present paper formulates the principled anarcho-capitalist case against the state and investigates the possible minarchist replies thereto. It identifies three and only three logically available ways of undermining the anarcho-capitalist case and argues that none of them works for minarchism due to the premises from which this theory starts. The sketch of the analysis presented in the paper suggests that minarchist research program falls short of theoretical soundness or even of logical validity.

In this short paper, we investigate the problems with the employment of the notion of freedom and voluntariness in libertarianism. We pretend to demonstrate that these two, as conceived of by libertarians, figure in as the main issue when it comes to justifying its major institutions, say: bequeathing, gifts, transactions (or what they label as “voluntary transfer”). The difficulty here boils down to the fact that a purely rights-based idea of freedom and voluntariness, the pretentions of Nozick notwithstanding, cannot do alone, since it is the consideration whether we do something (e.g. bequeath, donate etc.) voluntarily (or freely) (in a non-moralized sense) that could account for the rights redistribution. Therefore, it seems that – at least sometimes – the notion of voluntariness (or freedom) is prior to the notion of rights.