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The human rights that are defended in libertarian literature tend to be limited in scope, which entails that the duties that people can be compelled to fulfil are similarly minimal. For this reason a commitment to libertarianism tends to be seen as incompatible with support for subsistence rights, enforceable positive duties, and redistributive taxation, since each one of these issues may require the infringement of libertarian property rights. In this thesis I aim to challenge these assumptions about libertarianism and to show that if a more plausible reading of libertarianism is adopted – what has come to be known as left-libertarianism – then this will generate a more substantial range of rights and correlative duties which are not only compatible with redistributive taxation, but in fact entail it. I show that libertarianism, despite its contention that human rights are exclusively negative, does not rule out subsistence rights provided that these are understood as negative rights, for example: a right not to be deprived of the means of subsistence, or deprived of a clean living environment. Negative rights can be violated not only by individuals or by institutions, but also by individuals supporting institutions. In order to respect the negative rights of others it is necessary to refrain from supporting or contributing to institutions that violate these rights. Moreover, failure to respect these rights brings about a positive duty of rectification, demonstrating the potential for positive libertarian duties even in the absence of positive rights. Since the manner in which rights can be violated is extensive, so is the scope of those individuals that owe rectification. The fundamental libertarian rights of self-ownership, which I characterise as three property rights – over the body, over the faculties (including talents, abilities and labour) and over what one can produce through exercising those faculties in conjunction with the body – demonstrate how we can come to have property rights over external objects, but self-ownership does not confer permanent private property rights over unlimited external worldly resources. In fact, a robust right of self-ownership is incompatible with the radically inegalitarian appropriation with which libertarianism is ordinarily associated. Given the equal rights of selfownership of every individual, it is far more plausible to conceive of the world as held in some egalitarian manner, rather than as unowned and available for appropriation in such a way that would disadvantage latecomers. I propose an egalitarian understanding of world ownership which comprises common ownership of land, and joint ownership of other external worldly resources such as oil and minerals. Taking the injustice of radically inegalitarian appropriation in conjunction with a duty to rectify past injustices, there follows a libertarian argument for redistribution, but crucially this redistributive taxation is collected not on income but on natural resource use. On a left-libertarian theory of rights, then, there is no right to appropriate unlimited resources, but there is a right to redistribution in the event of past injustices, including the misappropriation of worldly resources.

In this thesis I will explore the relationship between Nozick’s self-ownership principle and freedom. I will defend G.A. Cohen’s critique of self-ownership and try to show how his argument that self-ownership is hostile to genuine freedom presents a problem for Nozick. I think it is clear that Nozick’s self-ownership does little to protect a meaningful sort of freedom; and a meaningful sort of freedom is exactly what Nozick aims to protect. This is true because eudaimonistic moral beliefs ought to undergird Nozick’s self-ownership thesis, and self-ownership can therefore be assessed in light of whether it actually promotes human flourishing in the relevant ways. This undergirding eudaimonism becomes clear when we see that self-ownership is intended to protect the ability of each individual to pursue and act upon her own conception of the good.

In this article, I want to explain Michael Otsuka¡¦s idea of distributive justice, the latest theory of the left-libertarianism. Otsuka argued that self-ownership can be combined with a kind of egalitarian ownership principle and he critics that the conflict between self-ownership and equality is an illusion. I will examine Otsuka¡¦s theory about self-ownership, egalitarian proviso and the framework of political societies of voluntarism. And I will point out what is the wrong and right in his theory.

No description available.

In this paper, I have examined the political philosophy of a left-libertarian, Michael Otsuka from his book Libertarianism Without Inequality, and a libertarian socialist, Nicholas Vrousalis from his article Libertarian Socialism: A Better Reconciliation between Equality and Self-Ownership. The goal of this examination is partially to explore and present a variety of positions on distributive justice within libertarian theory as well as defend libertarian socialism as a plausible form of libertarianism. The main question motivating this defense is “Can libertarian socialism be truly libertarian in its conception of self-ownership and autonomy?”. In this examination of both left-libertarianism and libertarian socialism I compared both theories to the works of prominent right-libertarian philosophers, primarily John Locke and Robert Nozick, to determine if the theories meet the standards set by traditional libertarianism in promoting individual autonomy as well as to determine if these standards can be reconciled with substantial material equality, either in terms of opportunity or welfare. The results of this examination showed that not only are left-libertarianism and libertarian socialism plausible theories of libertarianism, even exceeding potential for individual autonomy found in right-libertarian theory, but that they both successfully reconcile this autonomy with equality. In defending libertarian socialism, it was determined that it is a successful reconciliation of self-ownership and equality, though this comes at the expense of the potential for minor decreases in self-ownership among individuals when compared to Otsuka’s left-libertarianism. This was defended, however, as libertarian socialism seems more promising a theory for those who hold stronger commitments to equality as well as additional commitments, namely a commitment to democracy.

In this dissertation, I investigate the implications of libertarian morality in relation to the problem of climate change. This problem is explicated in the first chapter, where preliminary clarifications are also made. In the second chapter, I briefly explain the characteristics of libertarianism relevant to the subsequent study, including the central non-aggression principle. In chapter three, I examine whether our individual emissions of greenhouse gases, which together give rise to climate change, meet this principle. I do this based on the assumption that we are the legitimate owners of the resources we use in those activities. In the fourth chapter, I question this assumption and scrutinize libertarianism’s restrictions on appropriations of climate-relevant resources, which leads me to distinguish between some different versions of the libertarian view. Toward the end of the chapter, I also examine libertarianism’s answer to the political question regarding how emission rights should be distributed. The fifth chapter investigates libertarianism’s verdicts for mere risks of infringement, as stemming from people’s emissions and acts of appropriations. In chapter six, I investigate the libertarian right to self-defense against both the effects of climate change and other people’s climate-relevant activities. In chapter seven, I discuss two intergenerational issues related to climate change: what libertarianism says concerning future generations and how libertarianism might deal with the problem of historical emissions. The eighth chapter explores the implications of libertarianism regarding collective moral wrongdoing in connection to climate change. In chapter nine, I take a look at the libertarian room for governmental responses for tackling climate change. The tenth and final chapter is a summary. The overall conclusion of the dissertation is that libertarianism recommends that we reduce our emissions and decrease our extraction of natural resources such as forests and fossil fuels. Furthermore, governments are permitted to undertake some quite substantial actions in order to fight the causes of climate change. I end with some bottom-up reflections on what these conclusions might say about the plausibility of libertarianism. I claim that although libertarianism after all manages to explain some of our moral intuitions regarding climate change, it is questionable whether libertarianism’s explanation is better than those offered by alternative moral theories.

This thesis defends an individual's moral right to be aided in dying by a physician (that is, voluntary active euthanasia, or VAE), but departs significantly from the view in its favor generally accepted in the bioethics literature. The prevailing view appeals to both respect for an individual's autonomy and promotion of an individual's well-being as necessary conditions for a right to VAE, so as to justify the right only for those suffering grave illnesses and/or disabilities. The author argues that such a view is logically untenable; one or another aspect must be given up. Since invoking the premise that certain individuals would be better off dead necessarily relies on controversial assumptions about both the value of life and the nature and value of death, about which reasonable people disagree, it is the justification from an individual's best interest which must be excluded in a liberal society. The author endorses a self-determination justification for the right to VAE, but rejects understanding this in terms of respecting personal autonomy, instead making the case for a right to VAE grounded in self-ownership. The author's main conclusion is that the right to VAE is a general right applying to all competent adults, not only those suffering grave illnesses or disabilities, or those whose choice for VAE is an exercise of autonomy. Moreover, by analyzing the basis of physician authority over prescription medicine and how this can be justified to a society of self-owners, she maintains that individuals have not only the right to choose VAE without state interference, but also the right to be provided VAE by doctors. Nevertheless, both rights are compatible with reasonable limitations to protect both the interests of VAE seekers and the rights of others.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it makes a normative idea analysis concerning organ donation, by comparing the perspectives of utilitarianism and classical liberalism. Secondly, it applies these perspectives on the Swedish legislation, in order to understand it in a political philosophical view. As a theoretical framework, the paper uses the two perspectives´ overarching ethical standpoints, but also try to discern their views on four - for the topic -appropriate concepts, these being the concepts of liberty, consent and self-ownership. These are then bundled together into two so-called ”ideal types”, to use for making normative statements about what the most morally right legislation would be concerning organ donation. In utilitarianism, an agent-neutral overall happiness is at the forefront, which leads it to prioritize an increase in donations over the autonomy of the individual. This makes the case for a conscription of organs or the softer notion of an opt-out system. Classical liberalism focus more on the right to self-ownership and negative liberty, and therefore argue for an opt-in system, which requires the explicit consent of the individual. Lastly, the paper makes the claim that the Swedish legislation falls in a category inbetween the normative judgements of the two perspectives, as it prescribes an opt-out system, but reserves the right of the family to refuse a donation, in case the deceased had not made a choice ante mortem.

Ce mémoire a pour but de miner le projet libertarien d'une défense de la structure de la propriété libérale basée sur le principe de propriété de soi. Loin de nier le concept de propriété de soi, nous adoptons le principe associé à la pensée libertarienne et démontrons que l'adoption d'un tel principe nous mène à la restructuration du concept de propriété vers un concept qui est cohérent avec les valeurs égalitaristes et démocratiques. Nous espérons, ceci faisant, pouvoir montrer l'incohérence du projet libertarien, et fournir les outils nécessaires afin que les égalitaristes puissent défendre leurs idées en terrain libertarien. / The purpose of this thesis is to try and undermine the libertarian project of defending the liberal structure of ownership through its use of the principle of self-ownership. Far from denying the concept of self-ownership, we adopt the principle associated with libertarian thought and show that the adoption of such a principle leads us to a restructuring of the concept of ownership towards one that is coherent with egalitarian and democratic values. We hope that, by doing so, we are able to show the incoherence within libertarianism and give the tools necessary for egalitarians to defend their ideas on libertarian grounds.