Abstract
Liberal-contractarian philosophies of justice see the unjust systems of slavery and autocracy in the past as being based on coercion—whereas the social order in modern democratic market societies is based on consent and contract. However, the ‘best’ case for slavery and autocracy in the past were consent-based contractarian arguments. Hence, our first task is to recover those ‘forgotten’ apologia for slavery and autocracy. To counter those consent-based arguments, the historical anti-slavery and democratic movements developed a theory of inalienable rights. Our second task is to recover that theory and to consider several other applications of the theory. Finally, the liberal theories of justice expounded by John Rawls and by Robert Nozick are briefly examined from this perspective.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aristotle 1958. The Politics of Aristotle. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Batt, Francis 1967. The Law of Master and Servant. London: Pitman.
Blackstone, W., Ehrlich’s Blackstone, J. W. Ehrlich (ed.) (New York: Capricorn Books, 1959 [1765]).
Cassirer, Ernst 1963. The Myth of the State. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Corwin, Edward S. 1955. The ‘Higher Law’ Background of American Constitutional Law. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Davis, David Brion 1966. The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture. Ithaca: Cornell U. Press.
Ellerman, David 1990. The Democratic Worker-Owned Firm. London: Unwin-Hyman.
Ellerman, David 1995. Intellectual Trespassing as a Way of Life: Essays in Philosophy, Economics, and Mathematics. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Ellerman, D., Property & Contract in Economics: The Case for Economic Democracy (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1992). Downloadable from: www.ellerman.org
Fitzhugh, G., Cannibals All! or, Slaves Without Masters (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960 [1857]).
Genovese, Eugene 1971. The World the Slaveholders Made. New York: Vintage Books.
Gierke, O., Political Theories of the Middle Age, F. W. Maitland (trans.) (Boston: Beacon Press, 1958).
Gierke, O., The Development of Political Theory, B. Freyd (trans.) (New York: Howard Fertig, 1966).
Gray, Lewis Cecil 1958. History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860. Gloucester: Peter Smith.
Grotius, H., The Rights of War and Peace, A. C. Campbell (trans.) (Washington: M. Walter Dunne, 1901 [1625]).
Hobbes, T., Leviathan (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958 [1651]).
Hutcheson, F., A System of Moral Philosophy (London, 1755).
Israel, Jonathan 2010. A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jefferson, T., The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes. Vol. 12. Correspondence and Papers: 1816-26, P. L. Ford (ed.). Federal Edition (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904–1905). Available at: http://oll.libertyfund.org/EBooks/Jefferson_0054.12.pdf.
Justinian, The Institutes of Justinian, T. C. Sandars (trans.) (London: Longmans, Green, and Co, 1948).
Laslett, Peter 1960. Introduction with Notes. In Laslett (ed) John Locke: Two Treatises of Government. New American Library, New York
Locke, J., Two Treatises of Government, P. Laslett (ed.) (New York: New American Library, 1960 [1690]).
Luther, M. 1942. Concerning Secular Authority. In: Francis W. Coker (ed.), Readings in Political Philosophy. New York: Macmillan: 306-329.
Lynd, Staughton 1969. Intellectual Origins of American Radicalism. New York: Vintage Books.
Marsilius of Padua, Defensor Pacis, A. Gewirth (trans.) (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980 [1324]).
McKitrick, Eric (ed.) 1963. Slavery Defended: the views of the Old South. Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, T. Nugent (trans.) (New York: Appleton, 1912 [1748]).
Nozick, Robert 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books.
Pateman, Carole 1988. The Sexual Contract. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Philmore, J. [pseudonym for David Ellerman], ‘The Libertarian Case for Slavery: A Note on Nozick’, Philosophical Forum XIV(Fall): (1982), 43–58.
Pufendorf, S., The Whole Duty of Man, According to the Law of Nature (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2003 [1673]).
Rawls, John 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Rawls, John 1996. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Sabine, George H. 1958. A History of Political Theory. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
Samuelson, Paul A. 1976. Economics. Tenth edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Seabury, S., American Slavery Justified by the Law of Nature (Miami: Mnemosyne Publishing Company, 1969 [1861]).
Seneca, L. (1995) On Favours (De Beneficiis). In: John M. Cooper, J. F. Procope (eds.), Moral and Political Essays. New York: Cambridge University Press: 183-308.
Skinner, Q. The foundations of modern political thought, 2 Vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978).
Spinoza, B. Theologico-Political Treatise, R. H. M. Elwes (trans.) (New York: Dover Publications, 1951 [Orig. 1670]).
Sterkx, H. E. 1972. The Free Negro in Ante-Bellum Louisiana. Cranbury, N.J.: Associated University Presses.
Wills, Garry 1979. Inventing America. New York: Vintage Books.
Wish, Harvey, (ed.) 1960. Ante-bellum. New York: Capricorn Books.
Zimmern, Alfred E. 1918. Nationality & Government. London: Chatto & Windus.
Open Access
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
About this article
Cite this article
Ellerman, D. Inalienable Rights: A Litmus Test for Liberal Theories of Justice. Law and Philos 29, 571–599 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10982-010-9076-8
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10982-010-9076-8