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This weekend, I will be attending and presenting my work on Ronald Coase, who is considered the founder of “law & economics,” at the Winter Institute for the History and Philosophy of Economics at the University of Austin (UATX), a … Continue reading →

How do our Anglo-American common law principles inform social contract theory? Would any of the three fictional social contracts of Hobbes, Locke, or Rousseau, for example, be enforceable from a purely legal perspective? Recall from my previous post the four … Continue reading →

Is the so-called “social contract” of social contract theory a valid or legally-enforceable agreement? At common law, the four key elements of a contract are as follows: What happens when we apply these four common law elements of contract law to … Continue reading →

This past weekend I concluded my series on the paradox of politics, which I began in October of this year. Among the many political theorists we surveyed were Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacque Rousseau, all of whom are deservedly … Continue reading →

Shout out to my youngest daughter, Adys, for introducing me to Laufey’s music!

I will begin a new series of blog posts in the next day or two. In the meantime, here is a compilation of my previous 12 posts on the political theories of Rousseau, Rawls, and Nozick:

“We are all libertarians …” –Dr. Julia Maskivker Although Nozick’s valiant pincer movement against Rawls is vulnerable to counter-attack (as we saw in my previous post), Nozick is right about two things: (a) liberty matters, and (b) any attempt to … Continue reading →

“Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights).” –Robert Nozick Thus far (see here and here), we have presented the first flank of Nozick’s powerful pincer attack on Rawls: … Continue reading →

To pick up where I left off in my previous post: Robert Nozick’s “Wilt Chamberlain Argument” is a devastating takedown of the difference principle. To see why, recall Rawls’s main motivating rationale when he wrote A Theory of Justice, i.e. … Continue reading →

I concluded my previous post by stating without qualification that Nozick “totally demolished” Rawls’s difference principle, i.e. Rawls’s claim that social and economic inequalities are only just if they work to the advantage of the least-advantaged members of society. In … Continue reading →