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Libertarianism defended,

2011; Palgrave Macmillan; Volume: 10; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1057/cpt.2009.29

1476-9336

Luke MacInnis,

Political Philosophy and Ethics

In Libertarianism Defended Tibor Machan attempts to rescue a beaten but unbowed libertarian tradition that, in his view, has been intellectually hoodwinked in recent decades.The book collects 26 essays which attempt both to replace poor defences of, and to develop a new case for, classical liberal ideas.Machan writes with fine clarity and directness, and though his analysis does not always make for light reading, the book nevertheless provides a clear and comprehensive introduction to the issues over which libertarians differ from contemporary liberals, communitarians, Marxists, philosophical skeptics and others.Backing virtually all of Machan's arguments is the familiar Lockean premise, embodied in the American Declaration of Independence, that negative rights to life and property are something individuals possess just in virtue of their humanity.Negative freedoms are the ethical first principles he deploys throughout the book as pre-political trumps over liberal egalitarian concerns to find terms of political association that treat individuals fairly and as equals (pp.4, 269, 335).Machan concedes to critics like Thomas Nagel, however, that even the most intellectually respected recent libertarian voices, like Robert Nozick, have failed to provide an enduring account of pre-political negative rights, and he wants to develop one himself (pp.163-166).But Machan refuses to ground his account in our ordinary intuitions or reflective judgments concerning distributive fairness.He rejects, for instance, both Nozick's intuitive argument for his principle of just transfer (his famous 'Wilt Chamberlain example'), as well as Rawls's call for us to seek a 'reflective equilibrium' between a proposed theoretical rights structure and our considered judgments (pp.32-33, 166, 336-337).Our ordinary convictions, Machan supposes, must be indecisive given the shifting and contingent nature of our intuitions, and he seeks more durable and objective foundations.Machan is part of an increasing trend toward naturalistic defences of libertarian rights, and in Chapter 3 he presents a contemporary restatement