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Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 428.

I was a guest on Episode 316 of The Bob Murphy Show, entitled “Stephan Kinsella on Rothbard’s Contributions to Legal Theory.” Bob’s shownotes: “Stephan joins Bob to discuss his new book, Legal Foundations of a Free Society. They cover Rothbard’s contributions to legal theory, as well as Bob and Stephan’s differing entry points into libertarianism.”

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Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 427.

Yesterday (April 10, 2024) I participated in Strings Attached: Tracing the Global Systems that Bind, 62nd Annual International Affairs Symposium, Lewis & Clark College, Portland Oregon, Debate 5: Pirates and Patents. Debate Topic: Is international intellectual property regulation a necessary protection for innovators or a form of modern imperialism?

My opponent was Pieter Cleppe. My notes are appended below.

We got along well and had a nice dinner after the debate.

(Unofficial iphone Audio (mp3))

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Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 426.

Matthew Sands of the Nations of Sanity project, which aims to promote the Non-Aggression Principle as a universal peace agreement, and I discussed various issues including: immigration and open borders, and so on.

(See previous episode with Matthew, KOL372 | Discussing Contract Theory, Restitution, Punishment, with Matthew Sands of Nations of Sanity and KOL362 | California Gold #6, with Matt Sands: Defining Libertarianism, Anarchism and Voluntaryism.)

Related links:

• Switzerland, Immigration, Hoppe, Raico, Callahan
• A Simple Libertarian Argument Against Unrestricted Immigration and Open Borders, LewRockwell.com, September 1, 2005
• Van Dun on Freedom versus Property and Hostile Encirclement
• Libertarian Answer Man: Homesteading Donuts, Hostile Encirclement, and Prostitution as Selling One’s Body

Stephan Kinsella, “Patents, Pharma, Government: The Unholy Alliance,” Brownstone Institute (April 2024)

Patents, Pharma, Government: The Unholy Alliance

BY STEPHAN KINSELLA   APRIL 1, 2024   ECONOMICS, PHARMA   12 MINUTE READ

Dear Mr. Kinsella,

I’m a fan of your work, and appreciate your input into unalienable rights and the Blockean homestead problem. I’d like to add a bit of angel-pin nuance to them.

1) You’ve mentioned multiple times that the human physical body is unalienable, in the vein of Rothbard. I’d like to clarify that it is the mind/will, or in a quasi-Christian sense “soul”, that is unalienable, and not the physical body, since consensual organ sales and prostitution are perfectly fine in libertarianism (of course, this is for consensual transactions of one’s physical body, so stuff like infant circumcision is still out).

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Q:

I have a question regarding your defence of the ‘Title Transfer Theory of Contract” pursuant to Ch. 9 of your book Legal Foundations of a Free Society.

The question is as follows: ‘Are you familiar with Lukasz Dominiak and Tate Fegley’s 2022 criticism of the title transfer theory of contract? If so, what are your thoughts regarding the arguments made by Dominiak and Fegley? Do you feel that the title transfer theory of contract– as advanced by yourself, Rothbard and Evers– ought to be abandoned or amended in light of Dominiak and Fegley’s criticisms? Alternatively, do you believe that Dominiak and Fegley have erred in their analysis? If so, how?’

Thank you for your time Mr Kinsella, and I hope to hear from you soon. I am most interested to hear your views! 🙂 [continue reading…]

Q:

Hi Mr. Kinsella,

I just recently had a long conversation with my philosophy professor whose specialty is to study Kant’s works. He began to talk about the universalizability principle,¹ so I asked him whether a State’s existence (which I clarified is an issue because one group of people essentially says “I can hit you but you can’t hit me”) can be coherently justified with a Kantian ethic. He said “yes,” which led to a long conversation and then me asking whether any initiation of force by one group of privileged individuals over a group of non-privileged individuals can be justified with a Kantian ethic. He proceeded to tell me that the initiation of force can be justified in circumstances in which the victimized party has no reason for resisting the force except for “it’s mine.” However, he also said that slavery is inconceivable because it treats people as a mere means, and gives people no “respect,” which they require for being autonomous beings. He also told me that Kant supported a confederation of nations and that any given maxim could be correct if it is conceivable that a “society” within a nation could exist that all adhere to this maxim. [continue reading…]

1. On this, see Kinsella, “The problem of particularistic ethics or, why everyone really has to admit the validity of the universalizability principle,” StephanKinsella.com (Nov. 10, 2011).  [↩]