Contemporary liberal concepts of property

The author presents the assumptions which form the bedrock of modern liberal property theories. It refers to the conceptions of John Christman, James O. Grunebaum, Lawrence Becker, Stephen R. Munzer and Jeremy Waldron. All these philosophers have devoted separate monographs to the problems of ownership and their works seem representative of the entire liberal current in contemporary political philosophy. This paper does not provide a detailed analysis of the authors' views on property, but focuses on the elements that these theories share. These are: (1) the bundle theory of property rights; (2) the priority of distributive justice over ownership; (3) the belief that labour is not a property entitlement; (4) the assumption about the separation of production and distribution; (e) the belief in the redistributive role of the state

Left and Right Libertarianism

In the paper I discuss theoretical differences between left and rightlibertarianism. (I will skip the specific and practical issues which differ left and rightlibertarians, including among others the minorities and immigration policies or affirmative action. I assume that practical solutions suggested by the followers of both positions stem from their theoretical assumptions.) I will focus on two issues which determine the fundamental difference between left and rightlibertarianism. These are property and equality. I compare standpoints of some leftlibertarians with the positions of rightlibertarians represented by Murray Rothbard, concerning property and equality. I conclude that the main and fundamental difference between leftand rightlibertarians concerns equality. Leftlibertarians are egalitarians whereas rightlibertarians are antiegalitarians. I also argue that egalitarian position is not compatible with the notion of full selfownership, which leftlibertarians advocate for

The being of values

In this paper I present three main approaches to the problem of the being of values by discussing objectivism, subjectivism and relationism referring to historical positions. I conclude that axiological discourse, when reduced to the horizontal dimension, leads to the relativisation of all values, the process of blurring the boundaries to their eventual annihilation

Virtue and care in modern ethics

In this paper I compare two contemporary moral theories; virtue ethics and the ethics of care. They both reject traditional ethical positions - Kantian ethics and utilitarianism. Virtue ethics focuses on the question what person should I be, instead, as in the case of Kantian ethics and utilitarianism, what should I do. It holds that value concepts (good, value) in contrary to deontological concepts (duty, obligation) are fundamental in ethical theory. Ethics of care, in rejecting a position based on justice, emphasises the role of care in human relations. It concentrates on personal relationships like love, friendship and charity. Virtue ethics emphasises the crucial role of individual character in moral life, whereas ethics of care holds that relations between people based on attentiveness, responsiveness and respect are the most important in moral life

Emotive sources of post-truth

The first part of this paper briefly presents the phenomenon of post-truth, which is then confronted with emotivism, a position of 20th-century ethics or metaethics that ascribes an emotive and evocative meaning to ethical judgements, rather than a descriptive one. The second part shows briefly the theories of two main representatives of this view, namely A.J. Ayer and Charles Stevenson. The third part focuses on the objections to emotivism, primarily presented by Alasdair MacIntyre. Finally, the influence of emotivism on post-truth is discussed

Wokół własności : próba uporządkowania stanowisk w filozofii politycznej

In the paper I propose a new model of political spectrum. Instead - as so far - arranging political philosophies in two or four dimensional diagrams (from the left to the right, from the top to the bottom) I suggest a form of spiral, where political philosophies evolve naturally from amoralistic anarchism to communism. I also put some names of philosophers who represent respective political views. Thus we start from amoralistic anarchism by Max Stirner, then we have moralistic anarchism by Murray N. Rothbard, then moralistic minarchism by Robert Nozick, which in turn evolves into utilitarian minarchism by Ludwig von Mises, then utilitarian liberalism by Friedrich A. von Hayek, socialist liberalism by John Rawls and socialism leading to communism by Karl Marx. In our model we organize political views not as usually around the concept of freedom (personal and economic), but around the concept of private property. Therefore we are able to include in our model anarchism, which is usually ignored, as a non-political view

Murray N. Rothbard - filozofia poszukująca polityki

The paper presents personage and ethical and political ideas of the most distinguished libertarian, Murray Newton Rothbard, American economist, philosopher and political thinker. The pivotal of Rothbard’s theory is distinction between individual and the state. The latter is described as criminal institution, acquiring its revenue by physical coercion (taxation) and achieving a compulsory monopoly of force and of ultimate decision-making power over a given territorial area. Rothbard who draws upon natural rights theory argues, that every person has a right to own his person. Therefore every person, group of persons or institution, which violate that right must be regarded as unjust. It is significant, that Rothbard whose ethical and political views are radical, defends traditional values of Western culture

Czy Robert Nozik był libertarianinem?

W 1974 r. ukazała się w Stanach Zjednoczonych książka Roberta Nozicka Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Wkrótce potem Nozick stał się jednym z najbardziej znanych amerykańskich filozofów politycznych a jego książka porównywana była do klasycznej już wtedy A Theory ofJustice Johna Rawlsa. Nozick jako oponent liberała Rawlsa był postrzegany jako zwolennik radykalnego libertarianizmu. Także w naszym kraju - zwłaszcza po przetłumaczeniu tej pozycji w 1999 r. - Nozick uważany jest przez sporą część środowiska akademickiego za głównego przedstawiciela libertarianizmu. W związku z tym chcemy postawić bardziej zasadnicze pytanie: czy Robert Nozick był w ogóle libertarianinem? (...