taken for granted. And if the specific content of that morality, especially where it touches on matters of sexuality, is widely regarded with contempt, the meta-ethical notion that one ought to respect a moral code precisely because it is traditional gets even worse treatment: It is held to be beneath contempt. Modern educated people take it to be a sign of their modernity and education that they refuse to accept the legitimacy of any institution or code of behavior, however widespread, ancient, and venerable, which has not been rationally justified.

Ludwig von Mises emphasized that economics is the foremost political science of our age. As such, the clarification of the facts on which this science is built, and of the way political conclusions are based on them, is of the greatest practical importance.

Volume 17, Number 1 (2003)

In this article, Professor Bruce L. Benson offers a review of James L. Nolan, Jr’s Reinventing Justice: The American Drug Court Movement.

Volume 17, Number 1 (2003)

The economic theory of interpersonal free exchange is beautifully simple. Given two individuals A and B, all we need for an exchange between them to take place is a double inequality. For example, suppose that A has an orange, and B has an apple. If A prefers B’s apple more than his own orange, while B prefers A’s orange more than his own apple, they will exchange.

This is simple, but it could also be misleading.

Volume 17, Number 2 (2003)

The theory of property specifies how to determine which individuals own—have the right to control—particular scarce resources. By having a just, objective rule for allocating control of scarce resources to particular owners, resource use conflicts may be reduced. Non-owners can simply refrain from invading the borders of the property— that is, avoid using the property without the owner’s consent.

Volume 17, Number 2 (2003)

The Declaration of Independence maintains that:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

In this article, Laurence M. Vance offers a review of John Merrifield’s School Choices: True and False.

Volume 17, Number 2 (2003)

The abortion debate is often understood to hinge on the question of whether or not the fetus is a full-fledged member of the moral community of persons and/or possesses a property or properties that make it the sort of being that it is prima facie wrong to kill. This is the position taken by Justice Harry A. Blackmun in Roe v. Wade as well aspartisans on all sides of the debate.

Arguments based on hypothetical consent are widely used in legal, political, and moral philosophy. The notion of hypothetical consent has been important to political philosophy at least from the 17th century, when the first classical forms of contractarian political theories were formulated. In bioethics, especially in literature concerning medical paternalism, arguments based on hypothetical consent have drawn much attention. In recent years, these arguments have become popular in legal theory as well.

When scholars look for anticipations of classical liberal, Austrian, and libertarian ideas in early Chinese thought, attention usually focuses not on the Confucians, but on the Taoists, particularly on Laozi (Laotzu), reputed author of the Taoist classic Daodejing (Tao Te Ching). For example, David Boaz’s Libertarian Reader is subtitled “Classic and Contemporary Writings from Lao-tzu to Milton Friedman.” In Libertarianism: A Primer, Boaz identifies Laozi as the “first known libertarian.” No Confucian thinker makes an appearance in either work.