Politics, Philosophy and Economics 3 (3):337-364 (2004)
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Abstract |
Left-libertarian theories of justice hold that agents are full self-owners and that natural resources are owned in some egalitarian manner. Some philosophers find left-libertarianism promising because it seems that it coherently underwrites both some demands of material equality and some limits on the permissible means of promoting such equality. However, the main goal of this article is to argue that, as far as coherence is concerned, at least one formulation of left-libertarianism is in trouble. This formulation is that of Michael Otsuka, who published it first in a 1998 article, and now in his thought-provoking book Libertarianism Without Inequality . In a nutshell, my objection is that the set of reasons that support egalitarian ownership of natural resources as Otsuka understands it stand in a deep tension with the set of reasons that would prompt one to endorse Otsukas right to self-ownership. In light of their underlying commitments, a defender of either of the views that left-libertarianism combines would actually have to reject the other. This incoherence, it seems, can only be remedied either by an approach that renders left-libertarianism incomplete in a way that can only be fixed by endorsing more commitments than most left-libertarians would want to or by an approach that leaves left-libertarianism a philosophically shallow theory. Key Words: equality left-libertarianism libertarianism original appropriation property self-ownership.
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DOI | 10.1177/1470594X04046246 |
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References found in this work BETA
Self-Ownership, Equality, and the Structure of Property Rights.John Christman - 1991 - Political Theory 19 (1):28-46.
The Fragmentation of Value.Thomas Nagel - 1998 - In James Rachels (ed.), Ethical Theory 2: Theories About How We Should Live. Oxford University Press.
View all 6 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
Why Left-Libertarianism Is Not Incoherent, Indeterminate, or Irrelevant: A Reply to Fried.Peter Vallentyne, Hillel Steiner & Michael Otsuka - 2005 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 33 (2):201-215.
Against Self-Ownership: There Are No Fact-Insensitive Ownership Rights Over One's Body.Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen - 2008 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 36 (1):86–118.
Freedom, Self-Ownership, and Equality in Steiner’s Left-Libertarianism.Ronen Shnayderman - 2013 - Politics, Philosophy and Economics 12 (3):219-227.
Common Ownership of the Earth as a Non-Parochial Standpoint: A Contingent Derivation of Human Rights.Mathias Risse - 2009 - European Journal of Philosophy 17 (2):277-304.
Common Ownership of the Earth as a Non‐Parochial Standpoint: A Contingent Derivation of Human Rights.Mathias Risse - 2009 - European Journal of Philosophy 17 (2):277-304.
View all 16 citations / Add more citations
Similar books and articles
Left-Libertarianism: A Primer.Peter Vallentyne - 2000 - In Peter Vallentyne & Hillel Steiner (eds.), Left Libertarianism and Its Critics: The Contemporary Debate. Palgrave Publishers.
Left-Libertarianism and Liberty Forthcoming in Debates in Political Philosophy.Peter Vallentyne, Hillel Steiner & Michael Otsuka - 2009 - In Thomas Christiano & John Christman (eds.), Debates in Political Philosophy. Blackwell.
Left-Libertarianism and Private Discrimination.Peter Vallentyne - 2006 - San Diego Law Review 43:981-994.
Left-Libertarianism and Global Justice.Peter Vallentyne - 2001 - In Burton M. Leiser & Tom Campbell (eds.), Human Rights in Philosophy & Practice. Ashgate Publishing.
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