Synopsis
A rigorous defense of libertarianism grounded in contractarian ethics, deriving strong rights of liberty and property from rational self-interested agreement.
Core passage idea
Paraphrase · Modern copyrighted workRational agents seeking mutual advantage would agree to a strict liberty principle that forbids coercion and secures each person's property and self-ownership.
It tries to justify libertarian rights without appeal to intuition or natural law, building them from bargaining among self-interested people.
To avoid a bubble
Pair with A Theory of Justice.
Reading note
Follow the argument step by step; its force depends on accepting the contractarian starting point about rational agreement.
Best paired with
A Theory of Justice