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219Aristotle's Conception of FreedomReview of Metaphysics 49 (4): 775-802. 1996.In particular, Miller argues persuasively for attributing to Aristotle the following theses--theses traditionally rejected by communitarians as liberal innovations antithetical to the Aristotelian point of view
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185Toward a Libertarian Theory of Class: RODERICK T. LONGSocial Philosophy and Policy 15 (2): 303-349. 1998.Libertarianism needs a theory of class. This claim may meet with resistance among some libertarians. A few will say: “The analysis of society in terms of classes and class struggles is a specifically Marxist approach, resting on assumptions that libertarians reject. Why should we care about class?” A greater number will say: “We recognize that class theory is important, but libertarianism doesn't need such a theory, because it already has a perfectly good one.”
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174Wittgenstein, Austrian Economics, and the Logic of Action: Praxeological InvestigationsPsychology Press. 2008.Fascinating and thought-provoking, this book shows how the methodology of Austrian economics can be justified and strengthened by grounding it in the philosophy of Wittgenstein. Frege and Wittgenstein argued that whatever counts as thought must embody logical principles. Their arguments also support the conclusion that whatever constitutes action must embody economic principles. In this incisive text, the author shows that this confirms the claims of Austrian economists such as Mises and Hayek t…Read more
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173Mill's Higher Pleasures and the Choice of Character*: Roderick T. LongUtilitas 4 (2): 279-297. 1992.J. S. Mill's distinction between higher and lower pleasures is often thought to conflict with his commitment to psychological and ethical hedonism: if the superiority of higher pleasures is quantitative, then the higher/lower distinction is superfluous and Mill contradicts himself; if the superiority of higher pleasures is not quantitative, then Mill's hedonism is compromised.
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149An earlier, abbreviated version was presented as remarks for the inaugural symposium of the Molinari Society, at the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division meeting, on 27 December 2004. Replies and comments on matters of style, content, and argument in this essay are welcome.
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149Philosophy – Auburn University 8th Austrian Scholars Conference 15-16 March 2002 [email protected]..
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149I want to talk about some of the main objections that have been given to libertarian anarchism and my attempts to answer them. But before I start giving objections and trying to answer them, there is no point in trying to answer objections to a view unless you have given some positive reason to hold the view in the first place. So, I just want to say briefly what I think the positive case is for it before going on to defend it against objections.
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144Immanent Liberalism: The Politics of Mutual ConsentSocial Philosophy and Policy 12 (2): 1-31. 1995.Part One of Marx's “On the Jewish Question” is a communitarian manifesto, one of the finest and subtlest ever penned. But has it anything valuable to offer defenders of liberalism?I think it does; for in “On the Jewish Question” Marx points to a potential danger into which communitarians are liable to fall, and I shall argue that his discussion sheds light on an analogous peril for liberals. Specifically, Marx distinguishes between a genuine and a spurious form of communitarianism, and warns tha…Read more
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123Associate Professor | Director and President Department of Philosophy | Molinari Institute 6080 Haley Center, Auburn University Auburn AL 36849 USA email: [email protected] URL: praxeology.net..
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116Abortion, Abandonment, and Positive Rights: The Limits of Compulsory Altruism*: RODERICK T. LONGSocial Philosophy and Policy 10 (1): 166-191. 1993.We began with three propositions: that people have a right not to be treated as mere means to the ends of others, that a woman who voluntarily becomes pregnant nevertheless has the right to an abortion, and that a woman who voluntarily gives birth does not have a right to abandon her child until she finds a substitute caretaker. These propositions initially seemed inconsistent, for the prohibition on treating others as mere means appeared to rule out the possibility of positive rights, thus maki…Read more
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105The Irrelevance of Responsibility: RODERICK T. LONGSocial Philosophy and Policy 16 (2): 118-145. 1999.Responsibility is often thought of as primarily a legal concept. Even when it is moral responsibility that is at issue, it is assumed that it is above all in moralities based on law-centered patterns and models that responsibility takes center stage, so that responsibility is a legal concept at its core, and is applicable to the realm of private morality only by extension and analogy
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94Reference and Necessity: A Rand-Kripke Synthesis? (review)Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 7 (1). 2000.The widespread assumption among academic philosophers that no truth can be simultaneously necessary and factual, founded on the analytic-synthetic dichotomy, was challenged from outside the profession by Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff in the 1960s, and from within the profession by Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam in the 1970s. Gregory M. Browne's book Necessary Factual Truth represents a long-overdue attempt to synthesize the Rand-Peikoff and Kripke-Putnam approaches into an integrated theory. While…Read more
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88Rule-following, praxeology, and anarchyNew Perspectives on Political Economy 1 (2): 36-46. 2006.JEL Classification: B41, B53, B31, B2, P48, A12 Abstract: Wittgenstein’s rule-following paradox has important implications for two aspects of Austrian theory. First, it makes it possible to reconcile the Misesian, Rothbardian, and hermeneutical approaches to methodology; second, it provides a way of defending a stateless legal order against the charge that such an order lacks, yet needs, a final arbiter.
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83The classical roots of radical individualismSocial Philosophy and Policy 24 (2): 262-297. 2007.While the classical Greco-Roman tradition is not ordinarily thought of as associated with radical individualism, many of the central concerns of such radical individualists as Frédéric Bastiat, Herbert Spencer, Benjamin Tucker, Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, and Ayn Rand—including their views on human sociality, spontaneous order, and the relation between self-interest and non-instrumental concern for others—are shown to be inheritances from and developments of Platonic, Aristotelian, Epicurean,…Read more
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79Market anarchism as constitutionalismIn Roderick T. Long & Tibor R. Machan (eds.), Anarchism/Minarchism: Is a Government Part of a Free Country?, Ashgate. pp. 133-154. 2008.A legal system is any institution or set of institutions in a given society that provides dispute resolution in a systematic and reasonably predictable way. it does so through the exercise of three functions: the judicial, the legislative, and the executive. The judicial function, the adjudication of disputes, is the core of any legal system; the other two are ancillary to this. The legislative function is to determine the rules that will govern the process of adjudication (this function may be …Read more
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77While regarding Gregory M. Browne as mainly on target in his Rand-inspired treatment of reference and necessity, as well as in his rejection of the analyticsynthetic dichotomy, Long argues, first, that Browne is mistaken in rejecting some other vital distinctions, such as the a priori / a posteriori distinction; second, that Browne is nevertheless implicitly committed, under different terminology, to these very distinctions that he purportedly rejects; and third, that Browne's treatment of kinds…Read more
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69The value in friendshipPhilosophical Investigations 26 (1). 2003.Why do we value friendship? No explanation that appeals to values external to friendship will be a satisfactory answer to this question
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68Praxeology: Who Needs ItJournal of Ayn Rand Studies 6 (2). 2005.Despite her admiration for the economic theories of Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand rejects Mises's central concept of "praxeology," the science of human action. Yet the features of Misesian praxeology that Rand finds most objectionable— its aprioristic methodology, its value-subjectivism, and its claims about motivational psychology— can be reinterpreted in ways that make them congenial to Rand's philosophical principles while still preserving the essential points that Mises wishes to make
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64Review of Review of Leland Yeager, Ethics as Social Science. (review)Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 6 89-98. 2003.Like feuding relatives at a family barbecue, economists and moral philosophers often like to pretend they have nothing to do with each other. Economists pose as value-neutral scientists who have no need for airy-fairy moral theory; yet they regularly dispense the sorts of prescription and advice that cry out for ethical analysis. Philosophers likewise view themselves as having loftier concerns than vulgar economics; but by conducting their ethical and political theorizing in ignorance of economi…Read more
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60Richard Rufus’s Reformulations of Anselm’s Proslogion ArgumentInternational Philosophical Quarterly 47 (3): 329-347. 2007.In a Sentences Commentary written about 1250 the Franciscan Richard Rufus subjects Anselm’s argument for God’s existence in his Proslogion to the most trenchant criticism since Gaunilon wrote his response on behalf of the “fool.” Anselm’s argument is subtle but sophistical, claims Rufus, because he fails to distinguish between signification and supposition. Rufus therefore offers five reformulations of the Anselmian argument, which we restate in modern formal logic and four of which we claim are…Read more
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53Some writers have so confounded government with society, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a ble…Read more
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50Reply to Fred Seddon, "Plato, Aristotle, Rand, and Sexuality" (Fall 2008): Interpreting Plato's Dialogues: Aristotle versus SeddonJournal of Ayn Rand Studies 10 (1). 2008.In reply to Seddon's charge that Long's analysis in Reason and Value rests on a mistaken reading of Plato, Long both defends his interpretation of Plato and argues that nothing in Reason and Value depends on Plato interpretation in any case
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38Aristotle on the Category of Relation (review)Journal of the History of Philosophy 45 (1): 149-150. 2007.Roderick T. Long - Aristotle on the Category of Relation - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:1 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.1 149-150 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Roderick T. Long Auburn University Pamela M. Hood. Aristotle on the Category of Relation. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2004. Pp. xi + 154. Paper, $28.00. It is often assumed that Aristotle cannot have an adequate understanding of relations, and in particular that "his substance-acc…Read more
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37Reply to Stephen Cox: Anarchism and the Problems of Rand and PatersonJournal of Ayn Rand Studies 13 (2): 210-223. 2013.In his essay “Rand, Paterson, and the Problem of Anarchism,” which appeared in The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies (July 2013), Stephen Cox argues that the principles of consent and non-initiation of force on which anarchists rely are too strong, and would require undue violation of the principle of non-sacrifice unless modified. But properly interpreted, these principles do not generate the conflicts that Cox describes, and such modifications as are defensible still do not rule out anarchism; hence…Read more
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35Cognition of Value in Aristotle's Ethics: Promise of Enrichment, Threat of Destruction (review)Journal of the History of Philosophy 41 (3): 411-412. 2003.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.3 (2003) 411-412 [Access article in PDF] Deborah Achtenberg. Cognition of Value in Aristotle's Ethics: Promise of Enrichment, Threat of Destruction. Albany: The State University of New York Press, 2002. Pp. xiii + 218. Paper, $20.95.Deborah Achtenberg argues that, for Aristotle, virtue is a disposition to respond to situations with the appropriate emotions, where emotions are understood as perc…Read more
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35The Nathaniel Branden Annotated BibliographyJournal of Ayn Rand Studies 16 (1-2): 260-294. 2016.This bibliography constitutes the most extensive compilation of references on Nathaniel Branden yet published.
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35Many libertarians are familiar with the system of private law that prevailed in Iceland during the Free Commonwealth period (930 1262). Market mechanisms, rather than a governmental monopoly of power, provided the incentives to cooperate and maintain order.
Areas of Specialization
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