From the monthly archives: May 2011

Ships of The BHL Line

By On May 31, 2011 · 29 Comments · In Academic Philosophy, Libertarianism, Social Justice

In my most recent post I compared the moral status quo among political philosophers to a frozen sea. That frozen expanse separates, on one coast, libertarians and classical liberals and, on the other, (self-described) high liberals of various sorts. The classical liberals and libertarians affirm the importance of private economic liberty and are skeptical of [...]

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More Than Just Free Markets

By On May 29, 2011 · 61 Comments · In Current Events, Libertarianism, Liberty, Social Justice

Everyone knows that libertarians like free markets.  Even we Bleeding Heart Libertarians spend an awful lot of time talking about the economic implications of libertarianism.  And it would be easy to infer from this that libertarians care about economic freedom to the neglect of all other freedoms.  One might even go on to conclude that [...]

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The Moral Status Quo

By On May 27, 2011 · 49 Comments · In Academic Philosophy, Libertarianism, Social Justice

Bleeding heart libertarianism (BHL) suggests a new research agenda. As I mentioned in my previous posting, I see that BHL agenda as having two main parts. One invites bleeding heart libertarians to develop a rival normative vision of what free societies owe the poor; the other invites libertarians to defend economic liberty in new ways. [...]

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A Research Agenda for Bleeding Heart Libertarians

By On May 26, 2011 · 65 Comments · In Academic Philosophy, Libertarianism, Social Justice

What does it mean to be a bleeding heart libertarian? Here is one answer: “To be a bleeding heart libertarian means to have a concern for the poor that, in content and intensity, equals that of traditional bleeding heart liberals.” Looked at this way, familiar normative disputes get reduced to (somewhat less familiar) empirical ones. [...]

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Guest Blogging: John Tomasi

By On May 26, 2011 · 1 Comment · In Blog Administration

I’m very excited to announce that for the next week or so, John Tomasi will guest blogging for us here at Bleeding Heart Libertarians.

John is Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Brown University, where he is the founding director of The Political Theory Project.  His first book, [...]

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Philosophers on Drugs

By On May 25, 2011 · 15 Comments · In Current Events, Liberalism, Libertarianism, Liberty, Social Justice

Ron Paul’s recent public statements endorsing the legalization of heroin have caught him some flak, and not just from political conservatives.  Meanwhile, in university-land, I’ve just wrapped up another semester where we’ve spent some time surveying philosophers’ contributions to the drug legalization debate.

The difference is striking.

In [...]

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Taxation and Slavery/Theft

By On May 20, 2011 · 84 Comments · In Liberalism, Libertarianism

In recent posts, Matt and Fernando talked about whether taxation was analogous to slavery.  I thought I’d briefly say a little about this (now that I have returned from a land of higher taxation than the U.S.).  With Matt, I think its clear that taxation is not, at core, slavery.  Indeed, I think its clear [...]

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Kant: Libertarian or Progressive?

By On May 19, 2011 · 16 Comments · In Academic Philosophy, Liberalism, Libertarianism, Liberty, Social Justice

This is a post for philosophers; my apologies to readers who have different interests.

I want to suggest that, perhaps, libertarians can claim Kant as one of them.  I don’t say that this is the true interpretation (whatever that means) of Kant’s political philosophy, but that it is a plausible interpretation.

In the Doctrine [...]

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FSU and the Koch Kerfuffle

By On May 17, 2011 · 39 Comments · In Current Events

There’s been a lot of talk about the Charles G. Koch Foundation’s funding of faculty positions at the Economics Department at FSU. Much of it has been critical, with it being variously claimed that the Foundation’s donation compromises academic integrity, violates academic freedom, has corrupted academia, and that the FSU economics department has “sold out” [...]

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More on Analogical Slavery

By On May 16, 2011 · 30 Comments · In Academic Philosophy, Current Events, Democracy, Liberty, Social Justice

I agree with Matt that describing Obamacare as slavery is a bad analogy.  However, I think it is important to insist on using the term “slavery” when it properly applies but people refuse to use it for truth-insensitive reasons. For example, I think Cuba is a slave society (see our book, pp. 47-50). [...]

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