ABSTRACT: Humanism is a longstanding intellectual tradition dedicated to moral, aesthetic, and social perfectibility. Classical liberalism and modern libertarianism are products of classical humanist thinking; so is Enlightenment humanism, which substituted science and secular reason for theological dogma and ignorant superstition. Today’s progressive humanist movement, by contrast, transcends freedom, liberty, and reason by seeking utopian perfection through flawed secular dogma and compulsory communitarianism.

ABSTRACT: In this paper I investigate whether Wellman’s freedom of association argument provides libertarians with a compelling argument against open borders. In the first section I set out Wellman’s argument, highlighting its appeal to libertarians. In the second section I address some objections to his argument, and in the third section I discuss some specifically libertarian objections. I conclude that the freedom of association argument is a strong argument against open borders and that thus libertarians are not necessarily committed to unrestricted immigration.

ABSTRACT: In this essay, I argue that we should believe that agents have what I call natural procedural rights. On the one hand, agents have rights to prevent their rights from being violated, rights to stop those who are violating their rights, and rights to rectification when their rights are violated. In pursuing these rights, I argue that—at least under some conditions—agents have an obligation to inform others of the extent to which they are prepared to go in enforcing these rights.

ABSTRACT: This paper begins with propositions whose truth is evident, and from them conclusions are derived whose truth has been made evident by deduction. In this paper, the foundations of the right to property are laid out, with implications for the acquisition of unowned property and the ability of a person to transfer that ownership. This includes ownership rights over one’s body. The slave is a slave because his body is owned by someone else, and that owner is not the rightful owner. Slavery is theft, and theft is also slavery.

ABSTRACT: The greatest challenge for libertarians, whether economic or otherwise, is to develop a grand historical narrative that is to counter and correct the so-called Whig theory of history that all ruling elites, everywhere and at all times, have tried to sell to the public: that is the view, that we live in the best of all times and that the grand sweep of history, notwithstanding some ups and downs, has been one of more or less steady progress.

ABSTRACT: This paper recounts the history of food inspection from a voluntaryist perspective. In England and the United States, the efforts to achieve food safety have relied upon two main methods: education and legislation. Governments did nothing that could not be done on the free market (and in many cases was already being done). Books on how to test for adulterated products at home were published. Some manufacturers voluntarily observed the highest standards of sanitation and cleanliness in their manufacturing plants.