Nozick's Libertarian Project: An Elaboration and Defense

Description

Elaborating on and defending a rigorous, rights-based libertarianism, Mark D. Friedman here develops the seminal ideas articulated by Robert Nozick in his landmark work Anarchy, State and Utopia. Consolidating more than three decades of scholarly and popular writing to have emerged in the wake of Nozick's text, Friedman offers a 21st century defense of the minimal libertarian state. In the course of this analysis, and drawing on further insights offered by the work of F.A. Hayek, Nozick's Libertarian Project shows that natural rights libertarianism can offer convincing answers to the fundamental questions that lie at the heart of political theory. The book also rebuts many of the most common criticisms to have been levelled at this worldview, including those from left libertarians and from egalitarians such as as G.A. Cohen.

Mark D. Friedman received a J.D. from Georgetown Law School, USA, with honors, and holds an MBA from Columbia University, USA. He is currently an independent scholar working in the field of political theory and ethics.

Author's interview on Kosmos online is now available as a podcast/ transcript on the Kosmos website: http://www.kosmosonline.org/group-post/podcast-mark-friedman-nozicks-libertarian-project. Nozick's Libertarian Project gives a good overview of many of the arguments in ASU. -- Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews Friedman's book is a serious attempt to defend and develop Nozick's work. It is ambitious, well-informed, packed full of arguments, and attacks problems from different angles and with varied solutions. His solutions and his arguments are not always successful, especially where they depend upon appeal to contested intuitions, but when they fail, they are usually instructive. The book is clearly written and remarkably compact. It is an enjoyable and enlightening read. -- Danny Frederick * Reason Papers *