Download or read book The Moral Libertarian Horizon Volume 2 written by TaraElla and published by TaraElla. This book was released on 2018-07-12 with total page 83 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does liberalism's dedication to distributing liberty equally make it a moral ideology? To answer this question, we need to first look at what liberty is.

Download or read book The Moral Libertarian Horizon written by TaraElla and published by . This book was released on 2018-11-15 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A ghost is hanging over the West: the ghost of liberalism. The ghost of only partly fulfilled yet already abandoned promises of life and liberty, of equality and fraternity. Liberalism is not quite dead yet, but nor is it truly alive. It can only watch hopelessly as far-right ultra-nationalist elements duel it out with far-left neo-Marxist tendencies, with liberty being the biggest loser of each and every battle. The right had made 'liberal' a dirty word for four decades, and now a new generation of the left is about to do the same, the two long-time enemies burying liberalism in a rare bipartisanship.Is it too late for liberalism? No, not really. But to return to life, it will need a life force. Life force comes from conviction, from moral principles, and from confidence. Only the moral libertarian idea, with its grounding in the one simple principle of morality that has been the unspoken core of liberal thought in history, will be able to resuscitate liberalism and return it to its previous vitality. Moral libertarians seek to clearly spell out their principle of Equality of Moral Agency (EMA), and vigorously apply it and defend it in the free market of ideas.

Download or read book The Moral Libertarian Horizon Volume 1 4 written by TaraElla and published by TaraElla. This book was released on 2020-12-02 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the combined version of the first four volumes of The Moral Libertarian Horizon by TaraElla.

Download or read book The Background and Context of Moral Libertarianism written by TaraElla and published by TaraElla. This book was released on 2021-08-14 with total page 111 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In our moral system, the post-Enlightenment Western moral system, it is generally held that people should be entirely responsible for their own actions. Indeed, I would argue that, if this principle does not hold, our whole moral system would collapse. The Moral Libertarian principle of Equal Moral Agency for every individual is a principle derived from the individual accountability requirements of the Western moral system, and seeks to prevent lack of moral accountability. Given our individualistic moral code, I believe this is the only way to ensure morality is upheld. This mean that, compared to all other available options, liberalism is still the most morally sound path for Western democratic societies going forward, and most likely to get us to the best resolution for the controversial social issues we face. The aim of this book is to illustrate more clearly the background and context in which I derived my Moral Libertarian ideas. I believe that, to truly understand an idea, we must understand its context, so that we don't take its application out of context.

Download or read book The Moral Libertarian Horizon Volume 1 written by TaraElla and published by TaraElla. This book was released on with total page 81 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does liberalism's dedication to distributing liberty equally make it a moral ideology? To answer this question, we need to first look at what liberty is. Liberty is the power an individual has over their own actions, their ability to put their ideas into action. Therefore, looking at it from a moral perspective, liberty is moral agency, i.e. the ability to act in accordance with one's moral compass. An equitable distribution of liberty therefore ensures an equitable distribution of moral agency. In this way, liberalism ensures that every individual in society has an equal share of moral agency. At this point, we need to turn to the fact that liberty (and hence moral agency) are also finite resources: if some have more, others must have less. If lords can command slaves (therefore having more liberty), slaves will not be able to act according to their own moral compass, and thus have no moral agency. Therefore, in an equal distribution of liberty (and hence moral agency), everyone can have full moral agency over their own beliefs and actions, but nobody can have moral agency over another. This, I would argue, makes liberalism the ONLY morally valid ideology. Since all human beings are morally flawed to some extent, allowing some humans to have moral agency over others is morally impermissible. Allowing a lord to command a slave as he pleases means that the slave must commit an immoral act even if the act is both objectively immoral (as in absolute truth) and known to be immoral by the slave, as long as the the act is not known to be immoral by the lord (or alternatively he is a depraved lord and does not care). This has several consequences. On an individual level, the slave would be morally responsible (at least in his conscience, and also by the laws of religion for those of us who are religious) for commiting a moral wrong, knowing that it is wrong, but not being able to resist anyway. On a societal level, it also means that those holding power can commit severe atrocities, without the moral consciences of other people acting as a brake. Which was actually how tragedies like the holocaust happened. One may be tempted to argue that, as long as we prevent having bad governments by being vigilant voters and by putting in place national and international regulations, nothing as bad will happen again. But this is naive, because the ability to judge if governments are good is limited by the fact that politicians often lie their way into power and manipulate the political landscape once in office. It is also still true that no human being can perfectly know the absolute truth of what is morally right or wrong, and therefore, if we simply let those in power decide for everyone, there will still be plenty of injustices, even if nowhere as great as the holocaust. The principle of Equal Moral Agency is the only thing that will prevent such injustices.

Download or read book The Moral Libertarian Perspective written by TaraElla and published by TaraElla. This book was released on 2022-04-05 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Compared to all other available options, liberalism is still the most morally sound path for Western democratic societies going forward, and most likely to get us to the best resolution for the controversial social issues we face. This book will make the case for this argument. The book will also talk about ways to make liberalism meaningful again, including on grounds of morality, tradition, family and community. In our moral system, the post-Enlightenment Western moral system, it is generally held that people should be entirely responsible for their own actions. Indeed, I would argue that, if this principle does not hold, our whole moral system would collapse. Hence, to be moral, in the context of our code of morality, is to be fully responsible for our own choices, our own decisions, and our own actions, and to make sure that these don’t result in negative outcomes, especially on other people. Our moral system places a particular emphasis on individual accountability and responsibility, and for our moral system to work, our culture and politics must support these notions clearly, and to the fullest extent possible. Furthermore, the individualistic nature of Western morality means that, whenever power is concentrated in a few hands, those few people will exercise their power solely according to their own sense of morality, not because it’s their fault, not because it’s the system’s fault, but because it’s what Western morality actually expects people to do. In this situation, there will inevitably be a lack of moral accountability, which means a lack of moral responsibility. The Moral Libertarian principle of Equal Moral Agency for every individual is a principle derived from the individual accountability requirements of the Western moral system, and seeks to prevent lack of moral accountability. It ensures, as much as possible, that nobody has moral agency over another person’s actions, and that every person can act according to their own moral agency. This is where I believe the true heart of liberalism lies, and it is why I say that liberalism is the best expression of morality, as it is commonly agreed upon in our shared moral system. Given our individualistic moral code, I believe this is the only way to ensure morality is upheld. Anything else would violate the basic assumptions of our moral code, which would lead to deep confusion about what constitutes morality, as interwar Europe under fascism had shown, in a very disastrous way. This book incorporates the best content from The Moral Libertarian Horizon Volumes 1, 2, 4 and 5, and is intended to provide a more complete picture on the Moral Libertarian philosophy.

Download or read book Governing Least written by Dan Moller and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-12-07 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "That government is best which governs least." -- Henry David Thoreau In this major new defense of libertarianism, Dan Moller argues that critics and supporters alike have neglected the strongest arguments for the theory. It is often assumed that libertarianism depends on thinking that property rights are absolute, or on fetishizing individual liberty. Moller argues that, on the contrary, the foundations of libertarianism lie in widely shared, everyday moral beliefs -- particularly in restrictions on shifting our burdens onto others. The core of libertarianism, on this "New England" interpretation, is not an exaggerated sense of our rights against other people, but modesty about what we can demand from them. Moller then connects these philosophical arguments with related work in economics, history, and politics. The result is a wide-ranging discussion in the classical liberal tradition that defies narrow academic specialization. Among the questions Moller addresses are how to think about private property in a service economy, whether libertarians should support reparations for slavery, what the history of capitalism tells us about free markets, and what role political correctness plays in shaping policy debates.

Download or read book The Ethics of Liberty written by Murray Newton Rothbard and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This updated edition of a classic defense of libertarianism includes a new introduction.

Download or read book The Libertarian Tradition written by Jeff Riggenbach and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-05-24 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: JEFF RIGGENBACH, widely known as the voice of liberty, has been researching and writing about the history of libertarianism for decades. This is the second volume of his two-volume master work, The Libertarian Tradition. Each of the many essays inside will introduce you one or more of the most important and intriguing people who developed the idea that we humans should live together in peace and freedom. Every chapter sparkles with Riggenbach's erudition, his wry humor, and his gift for storytelling. The Libertarian Tradition takes you from the rise of the idea of liberty in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, through innovative and playful adaptations by outsiders and novelists in the twentieth century, and right into current debates at the dawning of the twenty-first. Volume 2 includes sections 7-11: Revisionist History, Journalists, Other Storytellers, Outsiders, and The Future.

Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Libertarianism written by Jason Brennan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-08-18 with total page 699 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Libertarians often bill their theory as an alternative to both the traditional Left and Right. The Routledge Handbook of Libertarianism helps readers fully examine this alternative without preaching it to them, exploring the contours of libertarian (sometimes also called classical liberal) thinking on justice, institutions, interpersonal ethics, government, and political economy. The 31 chapters--all written specifically for this volume--are organized into five parts. Part I asks, what should libertarianism learn from other theories of justice, and what should defenders of other theories of justice learn from libertarianism? Part II asks, what are some of the deepest problems facing libertarian theories? Part III asks, what is the right way to think about property rights and the market? Part IV asks, how should we think about the state? Finally, part V asks, how well (or badly) can libertarianism deal with some of the major policy challenges of our day, such as immigration, trade, religion in politics, and paternalism in a free market. Among the Handbook's chapters are those from critics who write about what they believe libertarians get right as well as others from leading libertarian theorists who identify what they think libertarians get wrong. As a whole, the Handbook provides a comprehensive, clear-eyed look at what libertarianism has been and could be, and why it matters.

Download or read book For a New Liberty written by Murray N. Rothbard and published by Ludwig von Mises Institute. This book was released on 2006 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, Rothbard proposes a once-and-for-all escape from the two major political parties, the ideologies they embrace, and their central plans for using state power against people. Libertarianism is Rothbard's radical alternative that says state power is unworkable and immoral and ought to be curbed and finally overthrown. To make his case, Rothbard deploys his entire system of thought: natural law, natural rights, Austrian economics, American history, the theory of the state, and more. It is relentless, scientific, analytical, and morally energetic—a book that makes an overwhelming case. Indeed, it gave an entire movement its intellectual consciousness and earned Rothbard the titles "Mr. Libertarian" and "The State's Greatest Living Enemy." Society without the nation-state? Rothbard shows that this is the way for peace, prosperity, security, and freedom for all. In the entire history of libertarian ideas, no book has more successfully combined ideological rigor, theoretical exposition, political rhetoric, historical illustration, and strategic acumen. Rothbard poured a lifetime of research and all his intellectual energy into this project and he succeeded in writing a classic. The book is the result of the only contract Rothbard ever received from a mainstream commercial publisher. He was asked to sum up the whole of the libertarian creed. Looking at the original manuscript, which was nearly complete after its first draft, it seems that it was a nearly effortless joy for him to write. It is seamless, unrelenting, and full of life. He cut no corners and pulled no punches. It appeared in 1973 and created a whole movement that set out to crush the political monopoly. From the day the book went out of print, the phone calls and emails started coming into our offices, hopeful of a new edition. Thanks to benefactors who have made it possible, this new edition from the Mises Institute is hardbound, beautiful, and affordable. In subject after subject, this book is informative, bracing, and challenging. It also features the characteristically clear writing style for which Rothbard is famous, which stemmed from his organized thinking and passionate drive to teach and change the world. The book begins with American history to show that the revolution of 1776 was the most libertarian of any in history. The pastors, pamphleteers, and statesmen who led it held that the state has no rights that the people themselves do not possess. They demanded full liberty, not some truncated version that existed in the old world. In this discussion, the reader comes to appreciate the founders of the United States of America as never before. Rothbard then sets out to rekindle that fire, first through a discussion of the philosophy and ethics of freedom. The central axiom: no man or group of men may aggress against the person and property of anyone else. He justifies the axiom on the basis of natural rights. It is an axiom that has few opponents, until Rothbard spells out its implications: taxation is theft, conscription is slavery, and war is mass murder, among many other points. Bracing indeed! But the state is the primary violator of this simple axiom. It presumes the right to rob and kill while purporting to protect us from robbing and killing. Thus follows a full theory of the state, how it gains and maintains controls over the population (but not through a “social contract”!), the various failed methods for keeping it in check (not even constitutions work!), its operations and tendencies to work its evil (it never has enough power), and how intellectuals become co-opted by the forces of state power. Here again, Rothbard draws his argument from American history. He shows how dangerous it was for the US Constitution to entrust the Supreme Court with the job of policing the government for infractions against the Constitution. What it ended up doing, of course, was ratifying egregious violations of the Constitution, with full knowledge that there was no higher court to which the people themselves could appeal. Rothbard isn’t satisfied to make his case on this abstract level. He shows that the most pressing problems of society are wrapped up in government operations. Whether it is medical issues, the price of oil, the disaster of education, conflicts over religion, police corruption, or the scandal of war, the issues that are tearing us apart are invariably the result of government intervention into the sector. When markets are in full control—whether markets for computer technology and software, or for cell phones—we find not conflict but cooperation and progress. And so Rothbard demonstrates the failure of government and the triumph of markets in a host of areas: personal liberties, education, welfare, inflation and the business cycle, monopoly and regulation, streets and roads, environmentalism and economic growth, and even police, courts, and law. Nor does he neglect the hugely important areas of trade, war, and foreign policy. He shows that states that are aggressive abroad do not maintain liberty at home. He also pioneers a theory of peace in absence of the state. This book is generous with detail on the whole of American history, from the banking debates of the 19th century, through the welfare debate of the 1960s and the controversies over environmental regulation in the 1970s. He shows that the state creates social and economic problems and then further intervenes to make these problems worse then ever while increasing its power at the expense of everyone else. He is particularly good at highlighting who really benefits from government regulation: usually it is the largest corporations who are attempting to rig the game in their favor. The anticipated effect of this book on both liberals and conservatives, the Left and the Right, is to force a rethinking of the typical categories. It asks that all sides face their hypocrisies: the Left favors freedom of speech but cares nothing for the private property that guarantees such freedom. The Right demands lower taxes but wages culture wars and real wars that grant government more power to take liberty and property from the American family. As you can see, this is a radical and challenging book. We are given not only the big picture or a series of small studies but both at once, fully integrated into an analytical whole. Once you are exposed to the complete picture-and For a New Liberty has been the leading means of exposure for more than a quarter of a century-you cannot forget it. It becomes the indispensable lens through which to interpret events in the real world with the greatest possible clarity. This book more than any other explains why Rothbard seems to grow in stature every year (his influence has vastly risen since his death), why the state continues to regard libertarian ideas as the gravest threat to its power, and why Rothbardianism has so many enemies on the left, right, and center. Quite simply, the science of liberty that he brought into clear relief is as thrilling in the hope it creates for a free world as it is unforgiving of the error of power. Its logical and moral consistency, together with its empirical-explanatory muscle, represents a threat to any intellectual vision that sets out to use coercion and violence to refashion the world. And yet, to the same extent, it also impresses the reader with a hopeful vision of what might be. Rothbard chose to pull no punches. Trimming and compromising for the sake of the times or the potential audience was just not his way. He knew that he had a once-in-a-generation chance to present libertarianism in all its glory, and he was not about to pass it up. And thus do we find in this masterpiece: not just a case for cutting government but for eliminating it altogether, not just an argument for assigning property rights but for deferring to the market even on questions of contract enforcement, and not just a case for cutting welfare but for banishing the entire welfare-warfare state. Whereas other attempts to make a libertarian case, both before and after this book, might typically call for transitional or half measures, or be willing to concede as much as possible to statists, this is not what we get from Murray. Not for him such schemes as the privatization of government programs that should not exist at all. Instead, he presents and follows through with the full-blown and fully bracing vision of what liberty can be. This is why so many other similar attempts to write the "Libertarian Manifesto" have not stood the test of time, and yet this book remains in high demand. Similarly, there have been many books on libertarianism that have appeared in the intervening years that have covered philosophy alone, politics alone, economics alone, or history alone. Those that have put all these subjects together have usually been collections by various authors. Rothbard alone had the mastery in all fields that permitted him to write an integrated manifesto—one that has never been displaced. And yet his approach is typically self-effacing: he constantly points to other writers and intellectuals of the past and his own times. In addition, Rothbard never talks down to his readers, who will discover that every page exudes energy and passion, that the logic of his argument is impossibly compelling, and that the intellectual fire that inspired this work burns as bright now as it did all those years ago. The last section is entitled “A Strategy for Liberty.” Here he explains why we can’t count on the political class, big business, big media, or big foundations to point the way toward a libertarian future. We must work through the young on campuses and through our own institutions that we build from the ground up. He shows that the moment is right, that pockets of liberty are all around us. It is up to us to lead in the educational effort and to fight for our ideals in every way. He ends with a bold and inspiring call for us all to throw ourselves into the main battle of our time, which is the battle between the forces of despotism and the freedom of all. Rothbard’s enthusiasm and optimism is as sincere as it is infectious. The book is still regarded as "dangerous" precisely because, once the exposure to Rothbardianism takes place, no other book on politics, economics, history, or sociology can be read the same way again. The news on television and in papers will never read the same way either. Rothbard rediscovers the liberty that is our heritage and can again be our guiding principle in all aspects of public life. It set off a firestorm when it was published. What was once a commercial phenomenon has truly become a classic statement of the political foundations of civilization. The book has been entirely reset from lesser previous editions, and is the first one to really do this classic justice. The footnotes appear on the bottom of each page, the index is authoritative and complete, the binding is outstanding, and the typeface is clean and strong. The full text, including the index, is 419 pages.

Download or read book Getting Libertarianism Right written by Hans-Hermann Hoppe and published by . This book was released on 2018-11-07 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Useful as a brief statement of where Hoppe stands on the most important issues within the libertrarian movement - and the most important issues of our age. Some regard Hoppe as the greatest living libertarian, others as the devil. The only point of agreement is that he is a thinker who cannot be ignored.

Download or read book The Libertarian Idea written by Jan Narveson and published by Philadelphia : Temple University Press. This book was released on 1988 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book In Our Best Interest written by Jason Hanna and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-21 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When, if ever, is it permissible to intervene in a person's affairs for his or her own good? This, in essence, is the moral problem of paternalism. Many consider paternalism morally objectionable. In this book, Jason Hanna argues boldly for an alternative pro-paternalist view: that intervention is permissible so long as it serves the best interest of the person subject to it, without thereby wronging others. To Hanna, the moral debate over paternalism is most fundamentally a debate about the weight and relevance of a certain kind of reason or rationale for intervention. In arguing that paternalistic rationales provide valid and weighty reasons, Hanna considers the objections that paternalism is disrespectful, that it wrongly imposes values on people, that it violates individual rights, and that it is likely to be misapplied or abused. He argues that each of these objections fails to demonstrate that there is anything distinctively problematic about paternalism. Moreover, he attempts to situate pro-paternalism within a popular rights-based moral theory. Hanna shows that popular alternatives to pro-paternalism confront serious problems of their own, especially insofar as they attempt to distinguish permissible intervention on behalf of incompetent persons from impermissible intervention on behalf of competent adults. Although the book's central aim is to defend a moral view, it suggests how this view can be fruitfully applied in a number of real-world contexts.

Download or read book History of Civilization in England written by Henry Thomas Buckle and published by . This book was released on 1868 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Anarchy State and Utopia written by Robert Nozick and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 1974 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robert Nozicka s Anarchy, State, and Utopia is a powerful, philosophical challenge to the most widely held political and social positions of our age ---- liberal, socialist and conservative.

Download or read book Manifesto for a Moral Revolution written by Jacqueline Novogratz and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An instant classic." —Arianna Huffington "Will inspire people from across the political spectrum." —Jonathan Haidt Longlisted for the Porchlight Business Book of the Year Award, an essential shortlist of leadership ideas for everyone who wants to do good in this world, from Jacqueline Novogratz, author of the New York Times bestseller The Blue Sweater and founder and CEO of Acumen. In 2001, when Jacqueline Novogratz founded Acumen, a global community of socially and environmentally responsible partners dedicated to changing the way the world tackles poverty, few had heard of impact investing—Acumen’s practice of “doing well by doing good.” Nineteen years later, there’s been a seismic shift in how corporate boards and other stakeholders evaluate businesses: impact investment is not only morally defensible but now also economically advantageous, even necessary. Still, it isn’t easy to reach a success that includes profits as well as mutually favorable relationships with workers and the communities in which they live. So how can today’s leaders, who often kick off their enterprises with high hopes and short timetables, navigate the challenges of poverty and war, of egos and impatience, which have stymied generations of investors who came before? Drawing on inspiring stories from change-makers around the world and on memories of her own most difficult experiences, Jacqueline divulges the most common leadership mistakes and the mind-sets needed to rise above them. The culmination of thirty years of work developing sustainable solutions for the problems of the poor, Manifesto for a Moral Revolution offers the perspectives necessary for all those—whether ascending the corporate ladder or bringing solar light to rural villages—who seek to leave this world better off than they found it.