After today I have two/three weeks until I next have to hand in a philosophy essay, and so I am expected to do a lot of reading. However, there is no specific set of reading I have to do, except for the fact it needs to be moral philosophy, because that's what I'm studying this term (specifically focusing on Mill and Utilitarianism).
Anyway, what's the best libertarian ethics/moral philosophy stuff people would recommend?
They have literally everything published in the UK somewhere in one of our libraries, so it doesn't matter if it's obscure, but I generally prefer articles to books, if the issue can be adequately described in shorter length.
The difference between libertarianism and socialism is that libertarians will tolerate the existence of a socialist community, but socialists can't tolerate a libertarian community.
This might be helpful: Selected Writings on Political Philosophy by Roderick T. Long
AnalyticalAnarchism.net - The Positive Political Economy of Anarchism
If your focus is on Mill, I recommend you read philosophers who offered up strong critiques. like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_monster Nozick for example
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
Rothbard has a good critique of Mill in his History of Economic Thought
'Men do not change, they unmask themselves' - Germaine de Stael
The book John Stuart Mill and the Religion of Humanity reviewed here by David Gordon looks interesting.
From the review...
" Like Maurice Cowling and Joseph Hamburger, by whom she has been much influenced, she sees Mill as mainly a propagandist anxious to replace Christianity with a Religion of Humanity, guided by intellectuals such as himself."
Cowling and Hamburger look like good sources to check out as well.
And as I've discussed before Ralph Raico's discussion of Mill in this lecture from his series on liberalism is excellent.
Also essential would be to read Rothbard's discussion of Jeremy Bentham (the father of modern utilitarianism) in Volume II of the History of Economic Thought book Laughing Man mentioned.
If you can get your hands on Robert Nozick's work, do it. He's a minarchist, and talks about self-ownership and various other libertarian ideals. I had to do some reading on him for my Moral and Political Philosophy class.
Periodically the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.
Thomas Jefferson
Cam Nedland: If you can get your hands on Robert Nozick's work, do it. He's a minarchist, and talks about self-ownership and various other libertarian ideals. I had to do some reading on him for my Moral and Political Philosophy class.
He was a minarchist. But then he converted to communitarian social democracy. lol
Lilburne:And as I've discussed before Ralph Raico's discussion of Mill in this lecture from his series on liberalism is excellent.
It definitely is. I have gone through the first lecture and I have learned whole new concepts especially with areas I thought I knew.
There is also the David Gordon Political Thought seminar which covers several political thinkers and Mill is included. You can find that here
Conza88: Cam Nedland: If you can get your hands on Robert Nozick's work, do it. He's a minarchist, and talks about self-ownership and various other libertarian ideals. I had to do some reading on him for my Moral and Political Philosophy class. He was a minarchist. But then he converted to communitarian social democracy. lol
No he didn't. He was a libertarian to his dieing breath (contrary to what the jealous Rothbardians want you to think). Have you even read The Examined Life where he supposed rejects libertarianism?
Robert Nozick: What I was really saying in The Examined Life was that I was no longer as hardcore a libertarian as I had been before. But the rumors of my deviation from libertarianism were much exaggerated."
What I was really saying in The Examined Life was that I was no longer as hardcore a libertarian as I had been before. But the rumors of my deviation from libertarianism were much exaggerated."
"I cannot prove, but am prepared to affirm, that if you take care of clarity in reasoning, most good causes will take care of themselves, while some bad ones are taken care of as a matter of course." -Anthony de Jasay
Surely Rothbard's "The Ethics of Liberty" is the book you are looking for. It demolishes utilitarianism along with lots of other stuff. One of the best books I've read.
http://irishliberty.wordpress.com/
Solid_Choke:No he didn't.
He didn't? You must define Libertarian differently than me. How do you define it? How did Nozick?
Solid_Choke:He was a libertarian to his dieing breath (contrary to what the jealous Rothbardians want you to think).
Jealous of what exactly?
Solid_Choke:Have you even read The Examined Life where he supposed rejects libertarianism?
No. And I haven't read Keynes General theory, nor Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations. Is there a need to read it? Is Hoppe's analysis wrong?
Are you going to address the arguments and the passages he quotes from the book and other Nozick works?
Got a free pdf of it? I doubt it would be worth my fiat paper.
He was never hardcore to begin with. That's an argument in my favour. What on earth is his conception of Libertarianism, if he believes arguments are coercive? Seriously?
"Further, in a truly startling twist, Nozick went on to say that the use of knockdown arguments even constituted coercion and was hence morally offensive:"
The terminology of philosophical art is coercive: arguments are powerful and best when they are knockdown, arguments force you to a conclusion, if you believe the premises you have to or must believe the conclusion, some arguments do not carry much punch, and so forth. A philosophical argument is an attempt to get someone to believe something, whether he wants to believe it or not. A successful philosophical argument, a strong argument, forces someone to a belief. . . . Why are philosophers intent on forcing others to believe things? Is that a nice way to behave toward someone? I think we cannot improve people that way. . . . Philosophical argument, trying to get someone to believe something whether he wants to believe it or not, is not, I have held, a nice way to behave toward someone; also, it does not fit the original motivation for studying or entering philosophy. That motivation is puzzlement, curiosity, a desire to understand, not a desire to produce uniformity of belief. Most people do not want to become thought-police. The philosophical goal of explanation rather than proof not only is morally better, it is more in accord with one's philosophical motivation. Also it changes how one proceeds philosophically; at the macro-level . . . it leads away from constructing the philosophical tower; at the micro-level, it alters which philosophical "moves" are legitimate at various points. 20
"With this surprising redefinition of systematic axiomatic-deductive reasoning as "coercion," Nozick had pulled the last tooth from his libertarianism. If even the attempt of proving (or demonstrating) the ethical impermissibility and injustice of democratic socialism constituted "bad" behavior, libertarianism had been essentially disarmed and the existing order and its academic bodyguards rendered intellectually invincible. How could one not be nice to someone as nice as Nozick? It is no wonder that the anti-libertarian intellectual establishment took kindly to a libertarianism as gentle and kind as his, and elevated Nozick to the rank of the premier philosopher of libertarianism."
He later came back as a 'Hayekian' I think David Gordon gives him a fair shake in his history of political thought.