Persons, property and morality : a defence of political libertarianism
type: CreativeWork
description: This dissertation adopts as its starting point the beliefs that moral truths can be known and that political philosophy is a branch of ethics. The author identifies three variants of libertarianism on the basis of their different treatments of the right to private property, which all three consider to be the cornerstone of political libertarianism. The author evaluates the arguments of Robert Nozick, Murray Rothbard, John Hospers and Ayn Rand for the moral foundations of libertarianism and finds them to be methodologically inadequate. None is able to furnish libertarianism with the moral foundations it requires. Following the example of Jan Narveson in his recent defence of the libertarian idea, the author adopts as the correct metaphysic of morality the method of hypothetical contract. The contractarian method is capable of determining both the nature and the extent of moral obligation. From application of the method of hypothetical contract, the author concurs with the above-mentioned authors that morality is a system of rights and duties, i.e. deontological in character, and that persons are indeed bearers of moral, non-conventional rights. One of these rights is the negative right to equal social liberty. The author differs, however, in finding that contractarianism favours also a positive right to basic, standard welfare. Recognition of this latter right commits the author to a form of moderate or Lockean libertarianism that endorses the in-principle justice of coercive redistribution to meet persons' basic welfare. Consequently, the orthodox libertarianism advocated by Nozick, Rothbard, Hospers, Rand and Narveson which recognises only negative moral rights is rejected by the author. All of the libertarians cited accept in one form or another John Locke's labour theory of appropriation. However, the author eschews the standard reading of Locke they are wedded to. The standard reading premises the labour theory on a person's ownership of himself. This reading is…
abstract: This dissertation adopts as its starting point the beliefs that moral truths can be known and that political philosophy is a branch of ethics. The author identifies three variants of libertarianism on the basis of their different treatments of the right to private property, which all three consider to be the cornerstone of political libertarianism. The author evaluates the arguments of Robert Nozick, Murray Rothbard, John Hospers and Ayn Rand for the moral foundations of libertarianism and finds them to be methodologically inadequate. None is able to furnish libertarianism with the moral foundations it requires. Following the example of Jan Narveson in his recent defence of the libertarian idea, the author adopts as the correct metaphysic of morality the method of hypothetical contract. The contractarian method is capable of determining both the nature and the extent of moral obligation. From application of the method of hypothetical contract, the author concurs with the above-mentioned authors that morality is a system of rights and duties, i.e. deontological in character, and that persons are indeed bearers of moral, non-conventional rights. One of these rights is the negative right to equal social liberty. The author differs, however, in finding that contractarianism favours also a positive right to basic, standard welfare. Recognition of this latter right commits the author to a form of moderate or Lockean libertarianism that endorses the in-principle justice of coercive redistribution to meet persons' basic welfare. Consequently, the orthodox libertarianism advocated by Nozick, Rothbard, Hospers, Rand and Narveson which recognises only negative moral rights is rejected by the author. All of the libertarians cited accept in one form or another John Locke's labour theory of appropriation. However, the author eschews the standard reading of Locke they are wedded to. The standard reading premises the labour theory on a person's ownership of himself. This reading is…
author: Williams, Graham Andrew
language: eng
date published: 1992
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:23:17Z
provider: University of Cape Town
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Department of Philosophy

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/17058