March 28, 2016
The Moral Presumption in Favor of Free Trade
In chapter 9 of Global Justice as Global Freedom, Bas van der Vossen and I defend free trade from various attacks from various philosophers. Here’s an excerpt from the beginning of…
All posts in: Rights Theory
March 18, 2016
A Dissenting View on Guns: Why Rights-Based Arguments Against Gun Control Fail
Bobby is a brilliant scientist. So brilliant, in fact, that he builds a functional atomic bomb in his garage. Of course, Bobby strictly adheres to the non-aggression principle, so he…
March 16, 2016
Happy Open Borders Day: How to Argue for Immigration Restrictions
In honor of Open Borders Day, here is an excerpt from the current draft of Global Justice as Global Freedom, which Bas and I are writing for Oxford University Press. This excerpt comes…
February 11, 2016
First-Order Libertarianism, Second-Order Public Reason Liberalism
I’ve been asked a lot lately whether I am “still” a libertarian. One reason I think I’m asked this is that I spend a lot of time criticizing certain kinds…
January 27, 2016
The Crime Objection to Open Borders
If you’ve been reading this blog, you probably know the basic moral and economic (is that different?) arguments for open borders. In short: Immigration restrictions actively harm people by prohibiting…
September 18, 2015
The Bad Libertarian Argument for Commodification
For any particular good X, is morally permissible for you to sell X? Note that this question doesn’t ask whether selling X ought to be legal. Rather, it asks whether selling…