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We discuss the two most common philosophical justifications for libertarianism: consequentialism and rights-based theories.
Tom Palmer joins Aaron and Trevor for a discussion on the two most common philosophical justifications for libertarianism.
Typically we think of justifications for libertarianism as falling into one of two kinds of categories: consequentialism and rights-based. Are these two justifications necessarily at odds with each other?
Tom G. Palmer is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, director of the Institute’s educational division, Cato University, Vice President for International Programs at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, and General Director of the Atlas Global Initiative for Free Trade, Peace, and Prosperity.
Show Notes and Further Reading:
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature
John Locke, Two Treatises of Government
Jeremy Bentham, A Fragment on Government
Randy Barnett, The Structure of Liberty
Murray Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty
Stephen Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
Richard Epstein, Simple Rules for a Complex World
Simple Rules Libertarianism.org lecture video
Bertrand de Jouvenel, The Ethics of Redistribution
George Orwell, Animal Farm
Tom G. Palmer is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, director of the Institute’s educational division, Cato University, Executive Vice President for International Programs at Atlas Network, and author of Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice, among other works.
Aaron Powell founded Libertarianism.org. He is now the host of (Re)Imagining Liberty, a podcast about the case for radical freedom.
Trevor Burrus was a research fellow in the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies and editor-in-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review. His research interests include constitutional law, civil and criminal law, legal and political philosophy, legal history, and the interface between science and public policy.
He is the editor of A Conspiracy against Obamacare (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and Deep Commitments: The Past, Present, and Future of Religious Liberty (Cato, 2017). Burrus holds a BA in philosophy from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a JD from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. He also contributed a chapter to Libertarianism.org’s Visions of Liberty.