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Anarchy, State, and Utopia: An Advanced Guidepresents a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the ideas expressed in Robert Nozick's highly influential 1974 work on free-market libertarianism-considered one of the most important and influential works of political philosophy published in the latter half of the 20th-century. Makes accessible all the major ideas and arguments presented in Nozick's complex masterpieceExplains, as well as critiques, Robert Nozick's theory of free market libertarianismEnables a new generation of readers to draw their own conclusions about the wealth of timely ideas on individualism and libertarian philosophyIndicates where Nozick's theory has explanatory power, where it is implausible, and where there are loose ends with further work to be done Lester H. Huntis Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is the author of Nietzsche and the Origins of Virtue(1991) and Character and Culture(1997).

Early in Peter Abelard's Dialogue between a Philosopher, a Jew, and a Christian, the philosopher (that is, the ancient Greek) and the Christian easily come to agreement about what the point of ethics is: "[T]he culmination of true ethics … is gathered together in this: that it reveal where the ultimate good is and by what road we are to arrive there." They also agree that, since the enjoyment of this ultimate good "comprises true blessedness," ethics "far surpasses other teachings in both usefulness and worthiness." As Abelard understood them, both fundamental elements of his twelfth-century ethical culture — Greek philosophy and Christian religion — held a common view of the nature of ethical inquiry, one that was so obvious to them that his characters do not even state it in a fully explicit way. They take for granted, as we take the ground we stand on, the premise that the most important function of ethical theory is to tell you what sort of life is most desirable, or most worth living. That is, the point of ethics is that it is good for you, that it serves your self-interest.

An attempt is made to show that social conventions -- conceived as a kind of shared belief -- have certain advantages over laws as ways to regulate human behavior. This conception of conventions implies that their enforcement can be both extremely effective & virtually costless. It also implies that their enforcement invariably increases the utility of those who share the belief, & has relatively little effect on anyone else, & that even these extraneous effects can be beneficial. Further, it implies that conventions are likely to be much more responsive to perceived human interests than laws are (even in a direct democracy). AA.

Lester Hunt presents his case against (more-than-minimal) gun control and then David DeGrazia makes his case for (moderately extensive) gun control. Readers are left to decide for themselves which position is more defensible. The core of Hunt's argument is rights-based: the right to own a gun is a necessary consequence of the more basic right of self-defense

Argues that broad bans on firearms are not liberal policies, and that a state which disarms its citizenry conflicts with fundamental principles of liberalism, in context of the US gun control debate and Second Amendment rights. Liberal constraints, autonomy, risk, equality, and liberal neutrality.