So, I'm about to read An Introduction to Contemporary Metaethics by Alex Miller but after I'm done with that I'm not sure where to start in regards to libertarian ethics. I've got some books by Veatch (Rational Man, Human RIghts) how easy are they? Other than that what else is good to read?
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
For a contractarian approach, there's Morals By Agreement by David Gauthier and The Libertarian Idea by Jan Narveson.
How easy are both of those?
Those books are rather easy. His For an ontology of morals is more difficult. Other than them, go for Rasmussen and den Uyl's Norms of Liberty and Liberty and Nature (as well as Rand's The Virtue of Selfishness.)
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
Jon Irenicus:as well as Rand's The Virtue of Selfishness.
I figured you might suggest that. That sounds good for now, I also have A Companion to Ethics edited at Singer is that worth reading?
Haven't read it, but it's likely to be a bundle of summaries of various views, which might be good when you want to refer to some view in particular but not very useful for detailed exposition of arguments.
Reading this thread reminds me how lacking I am in my philosophy department.
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krazy kaju: Reading this thread reminds me how lacking I am in my philosophy department.
That's essentially why I posted, I feel relatively comfortable with AE. Not exceedingly proficient, but short of Human Action, I've read a lot of the important works.
I'm not sure if Rothbard wrote at length on Laozi, but I think a couple other folks have considered Taoist Ethics in light of modern libertarian thought. That might be a worthwhile subtopic for a read if you want something that is an atypical context on libertarian ethics.
"The power of liberty going forward is in decentralization. Not in leaders, but in decentralized activism. In a market process." -- liberty student
By the way, as I understand it Veatch, Den Uyl and Rasmussen are aristotelians, is it worth reading Aristotle's own works before those of the authors mentioned.
I would say yes because he first noticed the correlation between private property and civilization. He doesn't spell out much as to why this is a good thing, but it's the first recorded time (possibly there are earlier examples, I can't be sure) the proverbial lightbulb starts to light up.
GilesStratton: By the way, as I understand it Veatch, Den Uyl and Rasmussen are aristotelians, is it worth reading Aristotle's own works before those of the authors mentioned.
It would provide some context, especially the Ethics. Veatch's Aristotle: A Contemporary Appreciation is also good. And as far as Aristotelian libertarianism goes, Long's Foundation of Libertarian Ethics lecture series and his Why Does Justice Have Good Consequences?, and GAP's PhD dissertation are also excellent.
Market anarchist, Linux geek, aspiring Perl hacker, and student of the neo-Aristotelians, the classical individualist anarchists, and the Austrian school.
Yes. and Aristotle is very clear, so there's not much possibility of confusion.
No one yet mentioned The Foundations of Morality by Henry Hazlitt. A must read, and not difficult because Hazlitt was a great writer.
Good day.
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Nozick's Philosophical Explanations and Invariances, David Schmidtz's Elements of Justice, and Loren Lomasky's Persons, Rights and the Moral Community, all contain interesting parts / chapters on ethics from a libertarian viewpoint.
By Narveson, beside The Libertarian Idea (which is dealing more with political theory issues), you've got a book on libertarian ethics called Moral Matters.
Concerning Singer's book, i personally wouldn't bother reading it if you're looking for a libertarian view on ethics; it's extremely general, covering undiscriminately all moral traditions and (from what i'm aware of) none of the authors writting on the more modern Western topics is a libertarian.
If you want a look at the table of contents though, it's on amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Companion-Ethics-Blackwell-Companions-Philosophy/dp/0631187855#
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