The most widely accepted justification for political authority is that coercive institutions are necessary to provide for public goods. Making use of the tools of rational choice theory, economics, and the law of contracts, David Schmidtz offers an incisive critique of this argument that will forever change the shape of the debate on this issue. Along the way, he makes significant contributions to our understanding of the logic of contractarian arguments, the prisoner's dilemma, and the institution of property. An important lesson is that a community is and must be primarily a voluntary association, and in his final chapter Schmidtz explores the implications of this lesson for the foundations of morality.
FREE Two-Day Shipping for students on millions of items. Learn more |
| |||||||||||||||
Book Description
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book is a gem!,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Limits of Government: An Essay on the Public Goods Argument (Hardcover)
This book is an excellent critique of the public-goods argument for governmental action, demonstrating ways in which public goods can be provided without state interference. BUT there's so much more to the book than that. We get a critique of hypothetical-consent justifications of the state (raising serious problems for both Rawls and Nozick), an argument for property rights that combines Lockean and tragedy-of-the-commons arguments (maintaining persuasively that the famous "Lockean proviso," thought by many to make legitimate appropriation from the commons impossible, actually requires it), and more. This book is a gem!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The thesis of this book is a public good,
By Anomaly (Chapel Hill, North Carolina) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Limits of Government: An Essay on the Public Goods Argument (Paperback)
In clear and concise prose, David Schmidtz offers an insightful analysis of public goods. Schmidtz rightly distinguishes public goods problems from prisoner's dilemmas, and explains both why and when people tend to contribute to the production of public goods. Unlike other works on this subject, Schmidtz integrates philosophical analysis with carefully crafted empirical tests, thus providing evidence for his general thesis that while some public goods problems are best solved by private contracts, others may require coercive state intervention.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
