Suchergebnisse

A response depicts Luciano Pellicani's (1998) critique of scholars who have connected modernity with totalitarianism as an apology for liberal democracy. Rather than interpret totalitarianism as completely nihilistic, it is asserted that the notion of "complete control" remains a valuable theoretical tool to explain social tendencies; ie, totalitarianism can be used to describe the results of modernity's elimination of entire cultural traditions & the succeeding period of social stultification. The former USSR exemplifies modernity's devastating effects against social infrastructures when modernization is accelerated. Modernity is delineated as a disease of Western culture rather than illustrative of Western culture itself. Arguing that Zygmunt Bauman's (1989) treatment of the Holocaust is exemplary, Pellicani is criticized for misinterpreting modernity, culture, & civilization & attempting to associate civilization & culture with nationalism, imperialism, &, ultimately, vulgar Marxism. Pellicani's identification of societies as "gnostic" is compared to Eric Voegelin's (1952) sociopolitical analysis, & it is suggested that totalitarianism is merely another pathological step in the development of post-Enlightenment, Western society. J. W. Parker

Bibliography: p.191-197. ; This dissertation adopts as its starting point the beliefs that moral truths can be known and that political philosophy is a branch of ethics. The author identifies three variants of libertarianism on the basis of their different treatments of the right to private property, which all three consider to be the cornerstone of political libertarianism. The author evaluates the arguments of Robert Nozick, Murray Rothbard, John Hospers and Ayn Rand for the moral foundations of libertarianism and finds them to be methodologically inadequate. None is able to furnish libertarianism with the moral foundations it requires. Following the example of Jan Narveson in his recent defence of the libertarian idea, the author adopts as the correct metaphysic of morality the method of hypothetical contract. The contractarian method is capable of determining both the nature and the extent of moral obligation. From application of the method of hypothetical contract, the author concurs with the above-mentioned authors that morality is a system of rights and duties, i.e. deontological in character, and that persons are indeed bearers of moral, non-conventional rights. One of these rights is the negative right to equal social liberty. The author differs, however, in finding that contractarianism favours also a positive right to basic, standard welfare. Recognition of this latter right commits the author to a form of moderate or Lockean libertarianism that endorses the in-principle justice of coercive redistribution to meet persons' basic welfare. Consequently, the orthodox libertarianism advocated by Nozick, Rothbard, Hospers, Rand and Narveson which recognises only negative moral rights is rejected by the author. All of the libertarians cited accept in one form or another John Locke's labour theory of appropriation. However, the author eschews the standard reading of Locke they are wedded to. The standard reading premises the labour theory on a person's ownership of himself. This reading is rejected on the grounds that the idea of self-ownership is insufficiently determinate to act as a sure basis for establishing property rights in things one has mixed one's labour with. A reconstructed defence of the moral right to private property through labouring which avoids this difficulty is given. That defence is premised not on self-ownership but on the right to equal social liberty. Save for the requirement to meet basic welfare there are no limits to the extent of acquisition. The author argues that, despite his avowals to the contrary, Nozick in fact endorses a positive right to welfare, and that this positive right is one that is co-extensive with the right to basic welfare established by the method of hypothetical contract. Two arguments are given. The first argument draws on Nozick's Lockean proviso that an act of appropriation not worsen the position of others. The second is based upon the application to an envisaged society of libertarian-rights bearers of Nozick's clause that permits the violation of rights in order to avoid catastrophic moral horror. This latter argument the author believes to be successful against any libertarianism that is wedded to absolute property rights. Redistribution to meet the demands of basic welfare necessitates taxation. Taxation is to be levied proportionately and not progressively, and is to be coupled with a system of private social insurance. None of the three variants of libertarianism identified, and which the author maintains sustain redistribution as a matter of justice, is ostensibly committed to redistribution more extensive than required to meet persons' basic welfare~ Ernest Loevinsohn's argument to the effect that libertarians are - by the very principle they defend as libertarians - committed to more far-reaching welfare and redistribution is examined and rejected. Because Loevinsohn's argument is directed against a consequentialist defence of libertarianism and not a deontological version it is misplaced. Furthermore, it fails to establish the conclusion Loevinsohn supposes it.

THE LIBERAL TRADITION'S AMBIVALENCE TOWARD GOVERNMENT AND TODAY'S SELF-STYLED "LIBERTARIANS" USE OF THAT TRADITION TO DELIVER A HARSH CRITIQUE OF THE MODERN STATE IS DISCUSSED. LIBERTARIANS PREFER THEIR GOVERNMENT BOUND AND THE MARKETPLACE UNFETTERED. PERSONAL FREEDOM IS THEIR HIGHEST POLITICAL VALUE, REALIZED THROUGH THE ABSENCE OF FORMAL CONSTRAINTS ON INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR. THE AUTHORS ARGUE AGAINST THE IMPLICT ASSUMPTIONS BEHIND THE LIBERTARIAN PHILOSOPHY, POINTING OUT THAT THEY ARE OBLIVIOUS TO THE EFFECTS OF INEQUALITY IN THE MARKET THAT CAN TRANSLATE SOCALLED "NEGATIVE LIBERTY" INTO THE VIRTUAL NEGATION OF LIBERTY FOR THE ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED. THE SEEMING IDEOLOGICAL ECLECTICISM OF THE LIBERTARIAN PLATFORM IS SCRUTINIZED TO REVEAL THE CONSISTENT ANTISTATISM OF THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY. THE AUTHOR STATES THE LIBERTARIAN POSITION'S APPARENT NAIVETE VIS A VIS THE PERVASIVE EVIL OF PREJUDICE AND THE LONG-REACHING ROLE OF THE MODERN CORPORATIONS.

Contemporary civil libertarians claim that their works preserve a worthy American tradition of defending free-speech rights dating back to the framing of the First Amendment. Transforming Free Speech challenges the worthiness, and indeed the very existence of one uninterrupted libertarian tradition. Mark A. Graber asserts that in the past, broader political visions inspired libertarian interpretations of the First Amendment. In reexamining the philosophical and jurisprudential foundations of the defense of expression rights from the Civil War to the present, he exposes the monolithic free-speech tradition as a myth. Instead of one conception of the system of free expression, two emerge: the conservative libertarian tradition that dominated discourse from the Civil War until World War I, and the civil libertarian tradition that dominates later twentieth-century argument. The essence of the current perception of the American free-speech tradition derives from the writings of Zechariah Chafee, Jr. (1885-1957), the progressive jurist most responsible for the modern interpretation of the First Amendment. His interpretation, however, deliberately obscured earlier libertarian arguments linking liberty of speech with liberty of property. Moreover, Chafee stunted the development of a more radical interpretation of expression rights that would give citizens the resources and independence necessary for the effective exercise of free speech. Instead, Chafee maintained that the right to political and social commentary could be protected independent of material inequalities that might restrict access to the marketplace of ideas. His influence enfeebled expression rights in a world where their exercise depends increasingly on economic power. Untangling the libertarian legacy, Graber points out the disjunction in the libertarian tradition to show that free-speech rights, having once been transformed, can be transformed again. Well-conceived and original in perspective, Transforming Free Speech will interest political theorists, students of government, and anyone interested in the origins of the free-speech tradition in the United States.

In this essay I wish to consider the implications for theory and practice of the following two propositions, either or both of which may be controversial, but which will here be assumed for the sake of argument:(L) Libertarianism is the correct framework for political morality.(M) The vast majority of our fellow citizens disbelieve (L).1

In this essay, I identify the reasons that libertarian principles have failed to capture the popular imagination as an acceptable form of civil society. By the term "libertarian" I mean a belief in and commitment to a set of methods and policies that have as their common aim greater freedom under law for individuals. The term "freedom" in this context means not only a commitment to civil liberties, such as freedom of expression, but also to economic liberties, including a commitment to a laissez-faire policy of free enterprise and free trade between countries. Libertarians, therefore, are committed to the absolute minimum state intervention in the economy as well as in people's private lives. In a world constrained by these libertarian principles, people should be permitted to do as they please, constrained only by rules that prevent them from encroaching on the liberty of others.