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Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- INTRODUCTION -- ONE. THE STRUCTURE OF LOCKE'S MORAL THEORY -- TWO. LOCKE AND NATURAL RIGHTS -- THREE. THE RIGHT TO PUNISH -- FOUR. RIGHTS AND THE FAMILY -- FIVE. PROPERTY RIGHTS -- SIX. JUSTICE AND CHARITY -- CONCLUSION -- WORKS CITED -- INDEX

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- PREFACE -- INTRODUCTION -- CHAPTER I. Obligations -- CHAPTER II. The Problem of Political Obligation -- CHAPTER III. The Consent Tradition -- CHAPTER IV. The Argument from Tacit Consent -- CHAPTER V. The Principle of Fair Play -- CHAPTER VI. The Natural Duty of Justice -- CHAPTER VII. Gratitude -- CHAPTER VIII. Concluding Remarks -- NOTES -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX

Modern states claim (and exercise) rights of jurisdiction and control over particular geographical areas and their associated natural resources. Boundaries of Authority explores the possible moral bases for such territorial claims by states, in the process arguing that many of these territorial claims in fact lack any moral justification.

A. John Simmons is widely regarded as one of the most innovative and creative of today's political philosophers. His work on political obligation is regarded as definitive and he is also internationally respected as an interpreter of John Locke. The characteristic features of clear argumentation and careful scholarship that have been hallmarks of his philosophy are everywhere evident in this collection. The essays focus on the problems of political obligation and state legitimacy as well as on historical theories of property and justice. Cumulatively the collection presents a distinctive social and political philosophy, exploring the nature of our most fundamental rights and obligations, and displaying the power and plausibility of Lockean ideal theory

This paper argues that libertarian political philosophers, including
Robert Nozick, have erred in neglecting the problem of political obligation
and that they ought to embrace an actual consent theory of political
obligation and state legitimacy. It argues as well that if they followed
this recommendation, their position on the subject would be correct. I
identify the tension in libertarian (and especially Nozick's) thought
between its minimalist and its consensualist strains and argue that, on
libertarianism's own terms, the consensualist strain ought to prevail.
I then describe the form of the consent theory that I recommend to
libertarians. The paper concludes with an extended defense of this form of
consent theory against contemporary liberal-egalitarian criticisms of it
(both explicit and implicit), including those of Dworkin, Rawls, and their
followers.

My aim in this essay is to explore the nature and force of "original-acquisition" justifications of private property. By "original-acquisition" justifications, I mean those arguments which purport to establish or importantly contribute to the moral defense of private property by: (a) offering a moral/historical account of how legitimate private property rights for persons first arose (i.e., at a time prior to which no such rights existed); (b) offering a hypothetical or conjectural account of how justified private property could arise (or have arisen) from a propertyless condition; or (c) simply defending an account of how an individual can (or did) make private property in some previously unowned thing (where "things" might include not only land, natural resources, and artifacts, but also, e.g., ideas or other individuals). The "original acquisition" to which such justifications centrally refer, then, may be either the first instance(s) of legitimate private property in human history (typically assumed to have been many centuries ago on earth), or only the first legitimate acquisition of some particular thing (which might, for instance, have occurred yesterday or occur in the future on Mars). But in either case, the justification will involve or entail the defense of one or more moral principles specifying how unowned (or collectively owned) things can become privately owned — that is, the defense of the kind of principles Robert Nozick has called "principles of justice in acquisition."