Natural rights liberalism from Locke to Nozick / edited by Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred D. Miller, Jr., and Jeffrey Paul.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Paul, Ellen Frankel.

Miller, Fred D., Jr., 1944-

Paul, Jeffrey.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Human rights--Philosophy.

Human rights.

Liberalism--Philosophy.

Liberalism.

Natural law.

Physical Description:

xiv, 403 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Summary:

Natural rights theory holds that individuals have certain rights-to life, liberty, and property-in virtue of their human nature rather than on account of prevailing laws or conventions. Arguably, this idea had been recognized in nascent form by ancient Greek and Medieval thinkers, but theories of natural rights came into true prominence in the early modern era when they were advanced by seminal thinkers such as Grotius, Hobbes, and Pufendorf. Most influential was the English philosopher John Locke, who published his Second Treatise of Government in 1690.

Lockean natural rights resounded in the American Declaration of Independence of 1776: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.-That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,-That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government..."

Beginning in the latter half of the eighteenth century and continuing through most of the twentieth, natural rights liberalism was eclipsed by a succession of antithetical political theories including utilitarianism, Progressivism, and various egalitarian and collectivist ideologies. It took the publication in 1974 of Anarchy, State, and Utopia by Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick to rekindle interest in natural rights liberalism. Nozick's book begins with a ringing declaration: "Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights)." What follows is a clever and engaging defense of the minimal state.

This collection is dedicated to the memory of Robert Nozick, who died in 2002 at the age of sixty-three, and to a reconsideration of his political philosophy after the passage of three decades.

Contents:

The Political Needs of a Toolmaking Animal: Madison, Hamilton, Locke, and the Question of Property / Paul A. Rahe 1

Natural Rights and Imperial Constitutionalism: The American Revolution and the Development of the American Amalgam / Michael Zuckert 27

There Is No Such Thing as an Unjust Initial Acquisition / Edward Feser 56

Nozick and Locke: Filling the Space of Rights / Jeremy Waldron 81

Toward a Theory of Empirical Natural Rights / John Hasnas 111

History and Pattern / David Schmidtz 148

Libertarianism at Twin Harvard / Loren E. Lomasky 178

Sidney Hook, Robert Nozick, and the Paradoxes of Freedom / John Patrick Diggins 200

Begging the Question with Style: Anarchy, State, and Utopia at Thirty Years / Barbara H. Fried 221

The Shape of Lockean Rights: Fairness, Pareto, Moderation, and Consent / Richard J. Arneson 255

One Step Beyond Nozick's Minimal State: The Role of Forced Exchanges in Political Theory / Richard A. Epstein 286

Natural Rights and Political Legitimacy / Christopher W. Morris 314

Consent Theory for Libertarians / A. John Simmons 330

Prerogatives, Restrictions, and Rights / Eric Mack 357.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0521615143

OCLC:

56685118