February, 2008

Of Little Green Men and the Fairness of the Welfare State

by Michael C. Munger

February 21st, 2008

A survey, apropos Prof. Gaus’s use of survey research on fairness:
YANKELOVICH PARTNERS, INC. SURVEY – 1997

Source: USA Today, July 7, 1997

Do you believe the government is hiding evidence of intelligent life in space?

 Yes 79%

Do you believe a UFO crashed in Roswell in 1947?

Yes 65%

Seriously, what kind [...]

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The Myth of Interest

by Gerald Gaus

February 21st, 2008

In his reply de Jasay makes two claims.
First, he claims, “The saving grace of using interest as the motive of choice is that for all its narrowness, it deals in matter that is identifiable, ascertainable and with a bit of luck even quantifiable.” There is a well-known, notorious, problem with this old view. If we employ [...]

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More on the Nozickian Minimal State

by Randy E. Barnett

February 20th, 2008

Julian Sanchez thinks that Nozick did make a descriptive argument for why a “monopolistic” dominant protection agency would develop. He may be right and I thank him for his response. But Nozick’s claim in the passages highlighted by Julian is far from transparent.  In the first passage he references, for example, Nozick describes the natural [...]

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Misunderstanding Nozick

by Randy E. Barnett

February 20th, 2008

In his reply to my post, Tony repeats a common mischaracterization of Nozick’s argument. In Anarchy, State and Utopia, Nozick made no prediction about the emergence of a dominant protection agency. Nor did he describe a mechanism for that emergence. Rather, his argument was that a dominant protection agency could emerge morally without [...]

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