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In this short paper, we investigate the problems with the employment of the notion of and in libertarianism. We pretend to demonstrate that these two, as conceived of by libertarians, figure in as the main issue when it comes to justifying its major institutions, say: bequeathing, gifts, transactions (or what they label as “voluntary transfer”). The difficulty here boils down to the fact that a purely rights-based idea of freedom and voluntariness, the pretentions of Nozick notwithstanding, cannot do alone, since it is the consideration whether we do something (e.g. bequeath, donate etc.) (or ) (in a non-moralized sense) that could account for the rights redistribution. Therefore, it seems that – at least sometimes – the notion of voluntariness (or freedom) is prior to the notion of rights.

The main purpose of this paper is to rationally reconstruct Nozick’s account of unproductivity, especially his characteristically libertarian, and hence uncompromising, ban on fraud. We posit that, when Nozick’s theory is interpreted charitably, it does not yield to contradictory prescriptions concerning permissibility. That is, there does not have to be any inconsistency in the Nozickian ban on certain exchanges, with the ban tracking two properties of the said exchanges; that is, either (1) their unproductivity or (2) their fraudulence. When analyzing economic exchanges, our interest is focused on both productive and unproductive exchanges. However, we suggest that Nozick’s banning exchanges along the lines of their unproductivity tallies poorly with his avowed libertarianism since his position predicts prohibiting unproductive and yet non-fraudulent exchanges. Hence, and we suggest resolving the said tension in a principled libertarian (deontological) manner; that is, by banning and allowing ones, , while submitting that the properties of exchanges such that or are morally inert.

In this paper we try to wrestle with the triviality objection to the concept of the same good. If we define two resources as serving the same list of ends, then whether these items can be subsumed under the rubric of the “same good” revolves around how we conceive of ends. If ends are at least partly language-dependent, that is, the way of individuating ends depends on the level of generality with which we refer to them, then the notion of the same good seems trivial. In extreme cases, we can specify ends in such a manner that no two items would fall into the-same-good category. Or, we can construe ends so generally that all resources would be conceptualized as the same good for they would serve the same general ends; e.g., of benefitting their owners. After presenting the problem in detail, we study the implication of our construal of ends. We conclude by showing that the triviality objection cannot undermine Austrian subjectivism.

In this paper we analyse the concept of coerced exchange (and partly of voluntary exchange inasmuch as the absence of coercion is its necessary condition), which is of utmost importance to economic theory in general and to the Austrian School of Economics in particular. The subject matter literature normally assumes that a coerced action occurs under threat. Threats in turn can be studied from the perspective of speech act theory, which is concerned with the speaker’s intentions. Ultimately, our goal is to provide a descriptive (i.e. non-moralized) definitions of threat and coercion, based on the analysis of the coercer’s intentions. If successful, we would be in a position to present such an account of coerced and voluntary exchanges that is compatible with both speech act theory and the Austrian methodology. Although we focus on the Austrian School of Economics, we believe that our investigations might impact on economic theory in general. We also criticize a rights-based account of coercion employed in the research practice of some neo-Austrians and based on the libertarian ethic of property rights.

This paper addresses the debate on indifference within the remit of praxeology as unfolded between Hoppe and Block. It argues that the whole controversy between the two authors stem from the fact that they conceive of choice differently. Simultaneously there is an attempt made to sharpen the authors' respective positions and to scrutinize the implications thereof while confronting them with our common-parlance linguistic intuitions. In other words, the paper pretends to show what follows from both positions on what is chosen; that is, what sorts of elements does an opportunity set consists of (be it, as will be argued, psychologically and intensionally defined end-states or particular action-tokens). Finally, the paper is concluded by demonstrating relative merits of the Blockian position over the Hoppean one as the former appears to be closer to the letter of praxeology as such.

The present paper addresses a minarchist criticism of anarcho-capitalism based on the so-called paradox of deontology. The paper argues that minarchists are right in contending that minarchism does not run into a contradiction by recognizing individual rights and at the same time allowing their violations by the minimal state. However, the minarchist idea that the existence of the minimal state might be justified due to the paradox of deontology in which anarcho-capitalism is allegedly entangled is rejected. The whole discussion is conducted in the context of the exchange between Stanisław Wójtowicz’s rendition of the minarchist position as expressed in his recent paper “Libertarianism, Individual Rights, and the Paradox of Deontology: Rejoinder to Dominiak and Wysocki on Minarchism” (this issue) and Łukasz Dominiak and Igor Wysocki’s defense of anarcho-capitalism as presented in the target paper of Wójtowicz’s rejoinder, “The Anarcho-Capitalist Case against the State as a Challenge to the Minarchist Libertarians”, published also in Roczniki Filozoficzne recently.

The present paper formulates the principled anarcho-capitalist case against the state and investigates the possible minarchist replies thereto. It identifies three and only three logically available (general) ways of undermining the anarcho-capitalist case and argues that none of them works for minarchism (although they might work for other political philosophies) due to the premises from which this theory starts. The sketch of the analysis presented in the paper suggests that minarchist research program falls short of theoretical soundness or even of logical validity (albeit not necessarily of a political appeal).

Este artículo es una respuesta a la réplica de Crovelli a nuestra crítica original de su objeción a la adopción supuestamente equivocada del frecuentismo por parte de Ludwig von Mises. En primer lugar, demostramos la falta de importancia de la distinción favorecida por Crovelli entre la probabilidad y el método para generar probabilidades. Más adelante, mostramos que en alguna lectura del «subjetivismo» su afirmación de que el determinismo necesita abrazar la definición subjetiva de la probabilidad es simplemente trivial. Después de aclarar estos conceptos erróneos, exponemos lo que creemos que son dos puntos reales de desacuerdo entre nosotros y Crovelli. En concreto, argumentamos -contra Crovelli- que (1) el determinismo no requiere interpretar las probabilidades como grados de creencias y que (2) el frecuentismo es compatible tanto con la visión del mundo determinista como con la indeterminista. Por último, enumeramos algunos retos adicionales que Crovelli dejó sin tratar y que, en nuestra opinión, su teoría no podría abordar en ningún caso.

Wysocki and Block examine Crovelli's views on probability. Crovelli, more than once, upbraids Mises for not defining probability; for using the concepts of case and class probability, without ever explicating what these two branches have in common. And, this is a legitimate, although somewhat minor, criticism of Ludwig von Mises. Mises defines/explains what he means by class probability and case probability, but granted that MathWorld didn't exist at the time he wrote, how difficult would it have been for him to provide a standard, authoritative definition of probability? Moreover, the dichotomy between class and case probability strictly coincides with the Knightian distinction between risk and uncertainty, which preceded Mises' terminology by decades.