The Possibility of Thick Libertarianism

Libertarian Papers 8 ()
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Abstract

The scope of libertarian law is normally limited to the application of the non-aggression principle (NAP), nothing more and nothing less. However, judging when the NAP has been violated requires not only a conception of praxeological notions such as aggression, but also interpretive understanding of what synthetic events count as the relevant praxeological types. Interpretive understanding—or verstehen—can be extremely heterogeneous between agents. The particular verständnis taken by a judge has considerable moral and political implications. Since selecting a verständnis is pre-requisite to applying the NAP, the NAP itself cannot tell us which one we ought morally to choose. Therefore the application of the NAP calls on moral and political considerations outside of the NAP itself. Since some of these are more consistent with an endorsement of the NAP than others, libertarianism is not a “thin” commitment to the NAP alone, but a “thick” commitment to the NAP and other supporting moral and political considerations.

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Billy Christmas
King's College London

Citations of this work

Libertarianism.Peter Vallentyne - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Rescuing the Libertarian Non-Aggression Principle.Billy Christmas - 2018 - Moral Philosophy and Politics 5 (2):305-325.

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References found in this work

A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive.John Stuart Mill - 1843 - New York and London,: University of Toronto Press. Edited by J. Robson.
Interpretation and the Sciences of Man.Charles Taylor - 1971 - Review of Metaphysics 25 (1):3 - 51.
The ethics of liberty.Murray Newton Rothbard - 1982 - Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press.

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