Libertarianism and social justice: Freedom as a political value
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15517/h.v1i0.3548Keywords:
Freedom, Social Justice, Rawls, Political Values, Ethics, Nozick, Positive Wrights, Good SamaritanAbstract
This article examines the tensions between the values of freedom and equality along the lines of an immanent critique to the libertarian approach— an approach that claims absolute priority to the value of freedom. The article seeks to defend the idea of positive duties through a criticism of the negative absolute value of individual liberty. The article also makes the case for positive duties in a more direct way, i.e., by showing how positive duties are consistent with the value of liberty as a political value. The idea is to bring to light the thesis that positive duties are a necessary condition of liberty properly understood.Downloads
References
Beitz, C. (2005). “Cosmopolitanism and Global Justice”. In Brock, G. and Moellendorf, D. (eds.) (2005). Current Debates in Global Justice. Dordrecht: Springer.
Caney, S. (2005). Justice Beyond Borders. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Geuss, R. (2008) Philosophy and Real Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hawthorn, G. (2005). Introduction. In the Beginning was the Deed. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kuper, A. (2002). “More than Charity: Cosmopolitan Alternatives to the "Singer Solution"”. Ethics and International Affairs 16 (2): 107-120.
Kuper, A. (2004). Democracy Beyond Borders: Justice and Representation in Global Institutions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kymlicka, W. (2002). Contemporary Political Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Miller, D. (2002). "Two Ways to Think about Justice" Politics, Philosophy and Economics 1 (1): pp. 5-28.
Miller, D. (2007). National Responsibility and Global Justice. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Murphy, L. (1999). "Institutions and the Demands for Justice". Philosophy and Public Affairs 27(4): 252-291.
Nagel, T. (1982) “Libertarianism without Foundations”. In Jeffrey Paul (ed.). Reading Nozick. Basil Blackwell: Oxford.
Nagel, T. (2005). "The Problem of Justice". Philosophy and Public Affairs 33 (2): 113-147.
Narveson, J. (2007) “Libertarianism”. In Hugh LaFollette (ed.) Ethical Theory, Blackwell: Oxford.
Nozick, R. (1974) Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Oxford: Blackwell.
Pogge, T. (2002). World Poverty and Human Rights. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Rawls, J. (1985). "Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical". Philosophy and Public Affairs 14 (3): 223-251.
Rawls, J. (1993). Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Rawls, J. ([1971]1999). A Theory of Justice. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Saingiovanni, A. (2007) “Global Justice, Reciprocity and the State”. Philosophy and Public Affairs 35 (1): 3-39.
Sangiovanni, A. (2008) “Justice and the Priority of Politics to Morality”. The Journal of Political Philosophy 16 (2): 137-64.
Sen, A. (1999) Development as Freedom. Anchor Books: New York.
Singer, P. (1972) “Famine, Aflluence and Morality” Philosophy and Public Affairs. (1): 229-243.
Singer, P. (2002a) “Poverty, Facts and Political Philosophies: Response to ‘More than Charity’”. Ethics and International Affairs 16 (2): 121-124.
Singer, P. (2002b) “Achieving the Best Outcome: Final Rejoinder”. Ethics and International Affairs 16 (2): 127-128.
Steiner, H. (1982) “Justice and Entitlement”. In Jeffrey Paul (ed.). Reading Nozick. Basil Blackwell: Oxford.
Sterba, J. (2007) “Towards Reconciliation in Ethics”. In Hugh LaFollette (ed.) Ethical Theory, Blackwell: Oxford.
Stuart Mill, J. (1998 [1859]). On Liberty and Other Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Walzer, M. (1983). Spheres of Justice. New York: Basic Books.
Wenar, L. (2007) “Responsibility and Sever Poverty”. In Thomas Pogge (ed.) Freedom from Poverty and Human Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wenar, L. (2008) “Human Rights and Equality in the Work of David Miller”. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 11 (4): 401-411.
Williams, B. (1982) “Robert Nozick’s Derivation of the Minimal State”. In Jeffrey Paul (ed.) Reading Nozick. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Williams, B. (2002). Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Williams, B. (2005). In the Beginning was the Deed. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Wolff, R. P. (1982) “The Minimal State”. In Jeffrey Paul (ed.) Reading Nozick. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2014 Humanidades

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
