Papinian (Aemilius Papinianus), famous Roman jurist, who wrote, “”It is easier to commit murder than to justify it.” when he refused to come up with an argument justifying a murder, and was himself put to death.
Last year I presented a 6 week Mises Academy course, “Libertarian Legal Theory: Property, Conflict, and Society,” discussed in my Mises Daily article “Introduction to Libertarian Legal Theory.”1 This course followed on the heels of my previous Mises Academy course, “Rethinking Intellectual Property: History, Theory, and Economics” (audio and slides), about which one student wrote me at the completion of the course,
Thank you so very much for all the excellent work — very few classes have really changed my life dramatically, actually only 3 have, and all 3 were classes I took at the Mises Academy, starting with Rethinking Intellectual Property (PP350) (the other two were EH476 (Bubbles), and PP900 (Private Defense)). …
My purposes for taking the classes are: 1. just for the fun of it, 2. learning & self-education, and 3. to understand what is happening with some degree of clarity so I can eventually start being part of the solution where I live — or at least stop being part of the problem.
The IP class was a total blast — finally (finally) sound reasoning. All the (three) classes I took dramatically changed the way I see the world. I’m still digesting it all, to tell the truth. Very few events in my life have managed to make me feel like I wished I was 15 all over again. Thank you. …
[M]uch respect and admiration for all the great work done by all the members of the whole team.
For more student feedback on Rethinking IP, see Kinsella’s Rethinking Intellectual Property course: Audio and Slides. The Libertarian Legal Theory course also received very positive comments and reviews.
(Student reaction to the first lecture of the Libertarian Legal Theory course can be found in Student Comments for First Lecture of Libertarian Legal Theory Course: Not Too Late to Sign Up!)
The students also evidently really enjoyed the lecture. Here are some of the comments from the chat session, near the end of the lecture (unedited except I have removed surnames):
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:12:25 PM EST] Patrick : This is excellent, best Mises class yet
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:46:52 PM EST] Karl : ok, thanks, nice class
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:47:01 PM EST] Jock : very good
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:47:40 PM EST] Robert : thanks for the lecture, it was great! see you guys next time
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:05 PM EST] Kevin : awesome – thanks!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:17 PM EST] Amanda : Thanks for a wonderful class. Good night!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:38 PM EST] Daniel: Thank you!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:41 PM EST] Roger: Terrific class, thanks!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:42 PM EST] Patrick : thank you
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:42 PM EST] Steven: Great lecture. Thanks
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:43 PM EST] George: Great class ‘night
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:44 PM EST] Mark: Very good class. Thanks!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:45 PM EST] Cheryl: Thanks!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:46 PM EST] Danny Sanchez : Thanks for attending everyone!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:46 PM EST] safariman : Good class! Thanks
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:48 PM EST] Patti : thanks. bye
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:50 PM EST] Jonathan: Thanks!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:51 PM EST] Colin: Thanks.
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:52 PM EST] Thomas : Thank You!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:56 PM EST] Erika : Thank you!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:56 PM EST] Danny Sanchez : thanks for the great lecture Stephan!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:55:02 PM EST] Derrick : Thanks
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:55:14 PM EST] Robert: thx
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:55:29 PM EST] Noam: Thanks a lot!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:55:29 PM EST] Robert: GREAT first lecture
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:55:33 PM EST] Matthew : Great lecture thanks
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:55:54 PM EST] Matt Gilliland : Thanks so much! Best Christmas present I’ve ever gotten, I think.
This echoed the type of comments students provided in real-time in the Rethinking IP course, in comments such as the following at the end of the lectures (these are from the actual IP-lecture chat transcripts):
- “Thank you, great lecture!”
- “Thanks, excellent lecture.”
- “Great job.”
- “Great lecture!”
- “Thank you, Sir. Great lecture!”
- “Thanks for an excellent talk.”
Now, that is very gratifying to a teacher. It’s immediate feedback. And it’s a good example of what I mentioned in “Teaching an Online Mises Academy Course”:
These heartfelt and spontaneous comments reminded me a bit of times past, when students would applaud at the end of a good lecture by a professor. In this sense, and contrary to what you might expect with the coarsening of manners and the increase of informality in typical Internet fora, for some reason the new, high-tech environment created by Mises Academy seems to foster a return to Old World manners and civility — which is very Misesian indeed! Perhaps it is because these students are all 100 percent voluntary, and they want to learn. They are much like students decades ago, who were grateful to get into college — before state subsidies of education and the entitlement mentality set in, turning universities into playgrounds for spoiled children who often skip the classes, paid for 10 percent by parents and 90 percent by the taxpayer.
The audio and slides for all six lectures of the Libertarian Legal Theory course are provided below. The “suggested readings” for each lecture are appended to the end of this post.
Update: the audio files may also be subscribed to in this podcast feed.
LECTURE 1: LIBERTARIAN BASICS: RIGHTS AND LAW
LECTURE 2: LIBERTARIAN BASICS: RIGHTS AND LAW (continued)
LECTURE 3: APPLICATIONS I: LEGAL SYSTEMS, CONTRACT, FRAUD
LECTURE 4: CAUSATION, AGGRESSION, RESPONSIBILITY
LECTURE 5: INTELLECTUAL ROPERTY AND RELATED
LECTURE 6: APPLICATIONS CONTINUED; COMMON LIBERTARIAN MISTAKES (FRAUD ETC.)
SUGGESTED READING MATERIAL
The “suggested readings” for each lecture are appended below.
LECTURE 1: LIBERTARIAN BASICS: RIGHTS AND LAW
SUGGESTED READINGS
- Rothbard, Ethics of Liberty, chs. 4-5, 15
- Kinsella, “Introduction to Libertarian Legal Theory” (all)
- Kinsella, “What Libertarianism Is” (all)
- “Chicago Diversions” section of Hoppe, “The Ethics and Economics of Private Property“
- Kinsella, “Utilitarianism” discussion, Against Intellectual Property, pp. 19-23
- Rothbard’s discussion of the “relevant technological unit” in “Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution“
- Kinsella, “The Division of Labor as the Source of Grundnorms and Rights”
- Kinsella, “Empathy and the Source of Rights“
- Rand, “Man’s Rights“
- Tucker & Kinsella, “Goods, Scarce and Nonscarce“
- Kinsella, “What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist”
OPTIONAL READINGS
Libertarianism
- Jacob Huebert, Libertarianism Today (print; scribd; google books) (various topics) [for lecture 1: chapter 1]
- Dean Russell, “Who Is A Libertarian?“. The Freeman (1955)
- Rothbard, For A New Liberty, ch. 1 (“The Libertarian Heritage: The American Revolution and Classical Liberalism”)
- “Libertarianism,” Wikipedia
Austrian Economics
- “Austrian School” entry, Mises Wiki
- Rockwell, Why Austrian Economics Matters
- What Is Austrian Economics? (Mises Institute)
Rights, Ethics, Philosophy
- Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, ch. 7 [optional, but highly recommended]; also chs. 1 and 2
- James A. Sadowsky, S.J., “Private Property and Collective Ownership“
- discussion of Rothbard’s conception of “relevant technological unit” in B.K. Marcus, “The Spectrum Should Be Private Property: The Economics, History, and Future of Wireless Technology“
- “Is-ought problem,” Wikipedia
Argumentation Ethics
- Kinsella, “New Rationalist Directions in Libertarian Rights Theory“
- Kinsella, “Defending Argumentation Ethics“
Anarchy
- Hoppe, “The Idea of a Private Law Society“
- George H. Smith, “Justice Entrepreneurship In a Free Market“
- Tannehills, The Market for Liberty
- Alfred G. Cuzán, “Do We Ever Really Get Out of Anarchy?“
- Randy E. Barnett, ch. 14, “Imagining a Polycentric Constitutional Order: A Short Fable,” in The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law [not online; some available on google books]
Bibliographies
- Kinsella, “The Greatest Libertarian Books“
- LewRockwell.com Bibliographies: Hans-Hermann Hoppe on Anarcho-Capitalism, David Gordon on Liberty, and Lew Rockwell on Reading for Liberty
LECTURE 2: LIBERTARIAN BASICS: RIGHTS AND LAW (continued)
SUGGESTED READINGS
- Tucker & Kinsella, “Goods, Scarce and Nonscarce“
- Kinsella, “What Libertarianism Is” (all)
- Kinsella, “The Libertarian Approach to Negligence, Tort, and Strict Liability: Wergeld and Partial Wergeld“
- Kinsella, “Why Spam is Trespass“
- Kinsella, “Stalking as a Form of Aggression“
- Kinsella, “Stalking and Threats as Aggression“
- Kinsella, “Fraud, Restitution, and Retaliation: The Libertarian Approach“
- Kinsella, “The Problem with “Fraud”: Fraud, Threat, and Contract Breach as Types of Aggression“
- Kinsella, “The Limits of Armchair Theorizing: The case of Threats“
- Kinsella, “Punishment and Proportionality: The Estoppel Approach,” pages 68-69 (re “threats”)
- Rothbard, “Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution“
- Kinsella, “What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist“
- Hoppe, “The Idea of a Private Law Society“
OPTIONAL READINGS
Scarcity and Rights
- Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, ch. 7 [optional, but highly recommended]; p. 158 note 120; also chs. 1 and 2
Rights and the Structure of Action
Argumentation Ethics
- Rothbard, “Beyond Is and Ought“
- George H. Smith, “Justice Entrepreneurship In a Free Market“
- Tannehills, The Market for Liberty
- Alfred G. Cuzán, “Do We Ever Really Get Out of Anarchy?“
- Randy E. Barnett, ch. 14, “Imagining a Polycentric Constitutional Order: A Short Fable,” in The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law [not online; some available on google books]
Legal Positivism and Logical Positivism
- Kinsella, “Logical and Legal Positivism“
-
Holmes’s bad-man theory of law
- Mises, The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science, p.5 [logical positivism]
- Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, pp. 127-36 (ch. 6) [logical positivism]
Other
-
Geoffrey Allan Plauché, Aristotelian Liberalism: An Inquiry into the Foundations of a Free and Flourishing Society ch. 4, pp. 93-94 [on “assertoric hypotheticals”]
-
Rothbard, Ethics of Liberty, ch. 15 [rights as property rights]
-
Rothbard’s conception of the Relevant Technological Unit
LECTURE 3: APPLICATIONS I: LEGAL SYSTEMS, CONTRACT, FRAUD
- Kinsella, “Legislation and Law in a Free Society,” Mises Daily (Feb. 25, 2010)
Contract Theory
- Kinsella, A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability, Journal of Libertarian Studies 17, no. 2 (Spring 2003)
Fraud
- Kinsella, “Legislation and the Discovery of Law in a Free Society,” Journal of Libertarian Studies 11 (Summer 1995)
Contract Theory
- Rothbard, Property Rights and the Theory of Contracts
- Williamson Evers, Toward a Reformulation of the Law of Contracts
- Randy Barnett, A Consent Theory of Contract (PDF)
LECTURE 4: CAUSATION, AGGRESSION, RESPONSIBILITY
- Kinsella & Tinsely, “Causation and Aggression“
- Kinsella, “The Libertarian Approach to Negligence, Tort, and Strict Liability: Wergeld and Partial Wergeld“
- Kinsella, “The Non-Aggression Principle as a Limit on Action, Not on Property Rights“
- Kinsella, “IP and Aggression as Limits on Property Rights: How They Differ“
OPTIONAL READINGS
- Adolf Reinach, “On the Concept of Causality in the Criminal Law”
- Summary of Richard Epstein’s strict liability views in Posner, Richard A., Epstein’s Tort Theory: A Critique (pp. 458-59)
- Richard Epstein, Toward a General Theory of Tort Law: Strict Liability in Context
LECTURE 5: INTELLECTUAL ROPERTY AND RELATED
Suggested Readings
- Kinsella, Against Intellectual Property
- —–, Innovations that Thrive without IP
- —–, The Patent, Copyright, Trademark, and Trade Secret Horror Files
- —–, Locke on IP; Mises, Rothbard, and Rand on Creation, Production, and “Rearranging”
- Kinsella, “Intellectual Freedom and Learning Versus Patent and Copyright,” Economic Notes No. 113 (Libertarian Alliance, Jan. 18, 2011)
- —–, “Intellectual Property and Libertarianism,” Mises Daily (Nov. 17, 2009)
- —–,“The Case Against IP: A Concise Guide,” Mises Daily (Sept. 4, 2009
- —–, “How Intellectual Property Hampers Capitalism,” Mises Institute Supporters’ Summit 2010 (Oct. 8-9 2010, Auburn Alabama)
- —–, “Goods, Scarce and Nonscarce” (with Jeffrey A. Tucker), Mises Daily (Aug. 25, 2010)
- —–, “Reducing the Cost of IP Law,” Mises Daily (Jan. 20, 2010)
- Other materials at the C4SIF resources page
LECTURE 6: APPLICATIONS CONTINUED; COMMON LIBERTARIAN MISTAKES (FRAUD ETC.)
- Kinsella, Rothbard on Corporations and Limited Liability for Tort
- —–, Legitimizing the Corporation and Other Posts
- —–, Corporations and Limited Liability for Torts
- —–, In Defense of the Corporation
Other
- Kinsella, How We Come To Own Ourselves
[PFS]
See also Danny Sanchez’s post Study Libertarian Legal Theory Online with Stephan Kinsella. ↩
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For those who want to listen to Stephan’s course as podcast, I have created podcast feed for course here: http://vahur.com/libertLT.xml
In iTunes (Windows) you can subscribe to podcast by copying the feed address to
iTunes>Advanced>Subscribe to Podcast…