- My main academic interests remain those I attempted to address in my 2009 thesis: "Coercion, Authority and Democracy.... moreMy main academic interests remain those I attempted to address in my 2009 thesis: "Coercion, Authority and Democracy." I continue to think that the state is coercive, that it has little or no authority, and that democracy is largely the road to more state socialism. More recently I was pleased to see Michael Huemer sharing somewhat similar views in his "The Problem of Political Authority."edit
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
As a classical liberal, or libertarian, I am concerned to advance liberty and minimize coercion. Indeed on this view liberty just is the absence of coercion or costs imposed on others. In order to better understand the notion of coercion... more
As a classical liberal, or libertarian, I am concerned to advance liberty and minimize coercion. Indeed on this view liberty just is the absence of coercion or costs imposed on others. In order to better understand the notion of coercion I discuss Robert Nozick’s classic essay on the subject as well as more recent contributions. I then address the question of whether law is coercive, and respond to Edmundson and others who think that it isn’t. Assuming that the law is in fact coercive, there is still a question,as with all coercive acts, as to whether that coercion is justified. Edmundson thinks that this places a special burden on the state of justifying its existence, whereas it simply places the same burden on the state as anyone else. What I reject is the longstanding doctrine of Staatsräson, namely that the state is not subject to the same moral rules as its subjects. With respect to the relation of morality to law, Edmundson thought that another of the fallacies of which philo...