The Promise of Liberty

A Non-Utopian Vision

Tibor R. Machan

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Year: 2009
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9798216347323
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

Tibor Machan's central political imperative in The Promise of Liberty is one that he has found borne out by history, analysis, and personal experience: to recognize that individuals have unalienable rights to their lives, liberty, and property (which includes, of course, the pursuit of their happiness, their life agendas), that the only limitations on these rights should be others' equal rights, and that the proper function or role of the legal authorities in a country is to "secure" or protect these rights.

As Machan points out, however, that imperative cannot survive scrutiny all on its own; it needs to be grounded on other true notions, on facts about us, the world, and the nature of community life. As a result, this book touches on a wide-ranging array of topics and addresses basic issues in ethics and the possibility of moral and ethical knowledge. This book will be of interest to students of politics and political economy, as well as those interested in what kind of human community is best suited for human living as such, with all its variety and multiplicity.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Introduction. Why Moral Judgments Can Be Objective
• Chapter 1. Theorists versus Their Theories
• Chapter 2. Ethics and Its Controversial Assumptions
• Chapter 3. Individualism and Human Success
• Chapter 4. Virtue, Liberty, and Private Property
• Chapter 5. Economic Analysis and the Pursuit of Liberty
• Chapter 6. Human Rights and Poverty
• Chapter 7. Rights, Values, Regulation, and Health Care
• Chapter 8. The Morality of Smoking
• Chapter 9. Philosophy, Physics, and Common Sense
• Chapter 10. The Calculation Problem and the Tragedy of the Commons
• Chapter 11. Government Budget Crises
• Chapter 12. Some Reflections on the Right to Private Property
• Chapter 13. Revisiting a Critique of Libertarianism
• Chapter 14. Leo Strauss, Neo-Conservative?
• Chapter 15. Tocqueville and Rand, Contrasting Views of Individualism
• Chapter 16. Can and Should the Constitution Be Rescued?
• Chapter 17. The Distraction of Anarchism
• Chapter 18. "Intellectual" Stuff and the Right to Private Property
• Chapter 19. Fetal Rights
• Chapter 20. 1985 Speculation
• Chapter 21. Does One Have a Right to Be Wrong?
• Chapter 22. Reflections on Democracy
• Chapter 23. Altruism (Stakeholder Theory) versus Business Ethics
• Chapter 24. Yes, Individualists Should Respect Others' Rights
• Postscript. Ethics, East and West
• Appendix. Self-Ownership and the Lockean Proviso
• Index
• About the Author