From the category archives:

Philosophy

Mythbuster: Libertarianism and Unchosen Obligations

by Geoffrey Allan Plauché June 18, 2010 @ 2:30 pm Featured Posts

It is a common mistake, made even by some libertarians and former libertarians, that libertarians reject the idea of unchosen obligations. Gene Callahan, apparently a former libertarian turned communitarian, is the latest to make this mistake. He says: Obligation . . . is the crucial idea denied by libertarian political theory.1 Well, this is just [...]

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How to Mirror a Censored WordPress Blog

by Geoffrey Allan Plauché June 17, 2010 @ 8:51 pm Featured Posts

A couple of days ago David mentioned on The Libertarian Standard that the Mises Institute providing its entire online media and literature library as a set of free torrents can be seen as part of a distributed or grassroots intellectual guerrilla resistance against the state. This is just one aspect of the Mises Institute’s effort [...]

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If you don’t like it, leave — for a price

by Geoffrey Allan Plauché May 28, 2010 @ 12:29 pm Featured Posts

A common retort that libertarians, even minarchists, hear when criticizing ‘their’ government is “If you don’t like it, then just leave.”1 Indeed, residency is perceived to be one piece of evidence (among others, like voting, paying taxes, etc.) for one’s implicit consent to the state and its rules. Just leave. As if there are better alternatives. [...]

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American vs. British SF, Revisited

by Geoffrey Allan Plauché May 1, 2010 @ 12:22 am Aristotelian Liberalism

A while back I published a blogpost here about the individualist American strain of SF and the more cosmological perspective of the British strain. I just published and expanded and revised version at The Libertarian Standard, working in more explicit libertarian observations.

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The Libertarian Standard

by Geoffrey Allan Plauché April 8, 2010 @ 9:47 am (Austrian) Economics

There’s a new website and group blog in town, by a great group of radical Austro-Libertarians, including yours truly. It’s The Libertarian Standard. I’ve been pre-occupied with admin work for the site the past couple weeks, getting it set up and looking nice, but I’ll be getting around to blogging relatively soon. I’ll probably be [...]

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Summary: Korsgaard’s Sources of Normativity

by Geoffrey Allan Plauché December 29, 2009 @ 1:17 pm Nonfiction Reviews

In an undergrad philosophy class on problems in ethical theory, taught by libertarian James Stacey Taylor (who introduced me to the IHS), we were required to write 300-words-or-less summaries of each chapter of the philosophy books we were reading. It’s not easy summarizing 10-30 pages of academic philosophy into 300 words or less, and such [...]

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Liberty, Virtue, and the Autobot Way

by Geoffrey Allan Plauché December 8, 2009 @ 6:02 pm (Austrian) Economics

That was to be the subtitle for my chapter in Open Court‘s recent addition to their Popular Culture and Philosophy series, Transformers and Philosophy: More Than Meets the Mind. Alas, no subtitles made it into the book. I have received official permission to provide a pdf copy of my chapter, “Freedom Is the Right of [...]

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Aristotle’s Prime Mover

by Geoffrey Allan Plauché December 4, 2009 @ 9:05 am Philosophy

This is from a page of notes I put together in grad school for a presentation on Aristotle’s Prime Mover. Sources: De Anima III.5, Metaphysics XII (especially 7 & 9), Physics VIII (especially 8-10). PDF version. Characteristics of the Prime Mover (Divine Nous) First principle First mover (logically, not temporally); itself unmoved and unmovable/unalterable Substance [...]

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Taking the Pledge of Liberty and Justice for All Seriously

by Geoffrey Allan Plauché November 17, 2009 @ 1:05 pm Education

A 10-year-old boy is taking a stand for “liberty and justice for all,” refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance until gays and lesbians enjoy equal rights. Good for him. But this will be best achieved by getting the state out of marriage entirely. Let people define marriage how they will. Barring that, the second best option [...]

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My JLS Atlas Shrugged Article, Finally!

by Geoffrey Allan Plauché November 12, 2009 @ 11:20 am Aristotelian Liberalism

The “final” issue of the Journal of Libertarian Studies is finally available online, although it looks like there will be one more final issue for all the other accepted but unpublished articles. This is the Atlas Shrugged Symposium issue, the last issue edited by Roderick Long, and I’m proud to say it includes an article [...]

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