Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Arguments for Liberty by Aaron Ross Powell (Editor), Grant Babcock (Editor), Christopher Freiman (Contributor), Eric Mack (Contributor), Jason Kuznicki (Contributor), Jan Narveson (Contributor), Kevin Vallier (Contributor), Mark LeBar (Contributor), Neera K Badhwar (Contributor), Michael Huemer (Contributor), Jason Brennan (Contributor) (Cato Institute)



If the point of Arguments for Liberty is to persuade skeptics of libertarianism that libertarianism is true, then it probably fails, if only because its very premise--look at all these ethical roads leading to libertarianism!--has a whiff of "Methinks the lady doth protest too much". Jason Brennan, in the final chapter of the book, even splashes some cold water on the book's theme in just this way, with good humor.

But, plausibly, that's not the point of the book at all, despite appearances. The book should work well for anyone who wants to learn more about libertarianism from a philosophical perspective without necessarily expecting to convert. The chapters are written by professional academic philosophers, and yet they're written as introductory, so that the reader doesn't need much prior philosophical experience to get the gist. And the range of approaches is broad enough that even the intermediate philosophy student like myself will likely learn quite a lot.

But the best audience for the book is folks who already identify as libertarian but want to learn about the diversity of views within libertarian and classical liberal thought. I have in mind college students who have just come to libertarianism from discovering Ayn Rand, Ron Paul, or the Libertarian Party, etc. Instead of reading their nth Rand book, reading Arguments for Liberty will be immensely more edifying. If all you know is Rand, for example, then Jason Kuznicki's chapter on Kant will dispel some ill-founded notions, and Jason Brennan's and Kevin Vallier's chapters (on value pluralism and Rawls, respectively) will especially expand your horizons.

The book is also good for libertarians who want a good survey of ethics: holding libertarianism constant makes the survey of different approaches to ethics more digestible than just tackling an introduction to ethics, which can be a bit more dull.

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