Comments on: 41. “Why There are No Dilemmas in Widerquist’s ‘A Dilemma for Libertarians’”

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:33:44 +0000

I must thank both Widerquist and Rodgers attack and defend libertarianism.

Reading Rodgers’ reply to Widerquist’s paper was something equivalent to curing of weeks of constipation. Widerquist’s thought experiment at the moment when I read his paper seemed concrete and unquestionably reasonable. Thanks to Rodgers who pointed out conceptual mistakes, I did not have to do all the hard thinking on my own.

By: Guard

Guard — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 13:52:27 +0000

Thank you. I also am amazed at the prevalent idea that “the state” or a corporation is somebody. The United States apologizes for the internment of Japanese during World War II?! Or Exxon Corporation being “punished” for environmental disasters? What are they thinking?

By: RJ Miller

RJ Miller — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 04:28:15 +0000

I was pondering this “problem” earlier with regards to the notion that aboriginal property rights inevitably force libertarians to violate their own principles. But gladly someone has already done the hard thinking for me!

Nonetheless it’s shameless that many people have begun using Widerquist’s arguments in varied forms, usually by insisting that you must choose between acceptance of capitalism and rejection of colonialism.

By: mdh

mdh — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:30:02 +0000

Widerquist sounds like a fairly unintelligent individual, sorry to say. Neither of these so-called dilemmas is at all sensical, much less genuinely coherent, to anyone who has even a cursory knowledge of libertarian philosophy and politics. Beyond that, once one does have even such cursory knowledge, the appropriate answers become apparent. In the case of the latter “dilemma”, private property rights start with ones’ own body and extend out from there in a logical manner – and since the state itself, like other state-sanction artificial abstract entities such as corporations, has no body, it can therefore have no property rights. In the case of the former quandary, even if private property rights *can* legitimately yield non-libertarian states (which I do not agree with either – I believe that the existence of a state and private property rights are clearly incompatible) that does not mean that a libertarian ought advocate such. A libertarian should merely advocate libertarianism, which is founded upon the non-aggression principle. The non-aggression principle is the highest and simplest philosophy of respecting the private property rights of others.