Contractarian Libertarianism of Jan Narveson. Is It Still Libertarianism?

Abstract

This chapter aims at presenting and scrutinizing a contractarian approach to libertarianism, which has been proposed by a Canadian philosopher, Jan Narveson, known as the main proponent of so-called contractarian libertarianism. The chapter begins with the short introduction followed by "Assumptions," discussing Narveson's understanding of morality, his critique of Rawlsian methodology and his view on natural law and natural rights. Afterwards, "Social contract: justification, procedure, motives" presents such elements in the philosophy of Narveson as advantages of contractarianism, levels of the social contract and its status, as well as motives of parties being subject to the social contract. The third part, entitled "Critics vs. Narveson" touches on a critical discussion of the subject by other theorists (Tibor R. Machan, John T. Sanders, Leo Groarke). The last section, "Is the Contractarianism of Narveson Libertarianism?" presents the thesis that Narveson's contractarianism is not a justified basis of libertarianism. Albeit he comes to conclusions agreeable to libertarianism, his philosophy is better labeled as laissez-faire.Keywords: Ian Narveson, contractarianism, social contract, foundations of libertarianism. ResumenEste artículo se propone presentar y explorar la aproximación contractualista al libertarismo planteada por el filósofo canadiense Jan Narveson, conocido como el principal representante del llamado libertarismo contractualista. El trabajo empieza con una breve introducción seguida de un apartado que, bajo el rótulo de "Supues-

Libertarianism and Original Appropriation

“…Therefore, there must be some community acceptance for property rights to be instituted and this common or contractual recognition of property rights is their ultimate justification. amongst libertarian scholars this conventional-contractarian theory of acquisition is represented by Jan Narveson (2001) for whom libertarian property rights are the implication of the social contract (Nowakowski, 2016). in the present paper we will not elaborate on the conventional-contractarian theory of original appropriation because of its so-far limited impact and atypicality within libertarianism.…”

“…What may victims of injustice permissibly do in order to rectify the injustices being done to them, including the many injustices done by persons acting through their government?" (Nozick, 2014). There are discussions going on within libertarian scholarship between proponents of retributivist and restitutive theories of rectification and between strict liability and negligence accounts of responsibility.…”