Currently viewing the tag: "social contract theory"

Contract Liberalisms and Their Enemies

By On April 5, 2012 · 16 Comments · In Liberalism, Libertarianism

Over the last week, I’ve been mulling over our extended discussion of public reason liberalism. In response to Andrew’s post, I thought I’d try to distinguish between contract liberalisms (of which PRL is a variant) and alternatives to further focus on what is at stake.

I’ll begin [...]

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A Libertarian Rehabilitation of Hobbes

By On February 21, 2012 · 77 Comments · In Liberalism, Libertarianism, Liberty, Rights Theory

I think that libertarian hostility to Hobbes has blinded them to one of his deepest insights, an insight that in many ways makes him less authoritarian than many of the libertarians I know.

I. Hobbes and the Problem of Private Judgment

First, I recommend this on Hobbes’s moral and political philosophy.

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Contractualism

By On February 15, 2012 · 48 Comments · In Academic Philosophy, Consequentialism, Libertarianism, Rights Theory

I think the right political theory is some form of contractualism. In this post, I will explain what I mean by contractualism and address some common but confused objections to it. I will partly summarize the main points in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entries on Contractualism, Contractarianism and

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Political Philosophy’s Fundamental Question

By On February 13, 2012 · 34 Comments · In Academic Philosophy, Liberalism, Libertarianism, Liberty, Rights Theory

In this post, my aim is to identify political philosophy’s fundamental question. Yes, I want to attempt this in a blog post, so my answer will undoubtedly be radically incomplete. But I believe I can sketch a brief case for why the social contract theorists got it right. If we understand why, I [...]

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The Good in the Contract: A Reply to Will

By On February 7, 2012 · 7 Comments · In Academic Philosophy, Libertarianism, Rights Theory

Our discussion of the connection between eudaimonism, contractualism and libertarianism continues, and now good ole’ Will Wilkinson has joined it. Will makes two basic points in his post: (i) eudaimonism is false so it’s not going to help much in grounding self-ownership or contractualism and (ii) the best reason to be a [...]

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