Positive Liberty

“A Plea for Alcibiades, or, How to Philosophize with a Bottle,” over at the League. It will help if you’ve already read Plato’s Symposium.

The Prince, Chapter 6, “Of New Dominions Which Have Been Acquired By One’s Own Arms and Ability.”*

Today we come to a change in focus, essentially a new section, in The Prince. The first 5 chapters focused on the different types of principalities and how they can be established and held. The answer to the last question seems to be, “ruthlessly wipe out every possible claimant to princehood. In this new section Machiavelli focuses not so much, as the title of this chapter would lead one to believe, on the new dominion/territory itself, but on the person who has acquired it, and the means of acquiring it. In this chapter the focus is on acquiring territory through one’s own skill, chapter 7 is about acquiring territory through luck or through the assistance of the real conquerors, chapter 8 is about acquiring territory through “villiany,” chapter 9 discusses those coming to power though “the favour of his fellow citizens” in a civic principality, 10 is a sidestep to compare the strength of different types of principalities, 11 discusses ecclesiastical principalities, and that completes the second section (as I would divide it, anyway), because after that he changes focus to discuss different types of armies. Continue Reading »

Okay, so it isn’t Scientific American, let alone a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal, but Popular Science has just put its entire 137-year archive online for free browsing. Pretty damned cool.

Later today I will be taking my younger son to see the Tim Burton / Johnny Depp version of Alice in Wonderland. It may be a good movie or a bad movie or an in-between movie, but I won’t subsequently criticize it for not being true to the source material. Doing so would be criticizing a dog for being an unsatisfactory cat. Besides, one does not hire Johnny Depp for what would then be little more than a cameo role.

Carroll’s masterpieces are surely the most celebrated works of children’s literature among the philosophically inclined, for their author (nee Charles Dodgson) was both a mathematician with an interest in logic and, more importantly, a man with a gift for elegant and eloquent absurdities. It is, I suspect, the combination of the two that made Carroll such a rara avis. Continue Reading »

The Prince chapter 5: “The Way to Govern Cities or Dominions that, Previous to Being Occupied, Lived Under Their Own Laws.”

Back in chapter 1, Machiavelli divided states into two types, republics and monarchies, then subdivided monarchies into two types, ancient and new, further subdivided those new monarchies into their own two sub-subtypes, entirely new ones or ones grafted onto existing possessions, and then, finally, made one more subdivision of those grafted-on territories into a final two sub-sub-subtypes, those previously ruled by another prince and those that were self-governing republics. This is, I think, truly a case of a picture being worth a thousand words, so a diagram is helpful.

The Republic cell is left undivided, not because they are all identical, but because, as Machiavelli noted in chapter 2, he is not discussing Republics in this work. The subdividing of principalities here is not mere idle pondering of logical distinctions, but was an outline for the reader. Continue Reading »

In a preliminary effort to address this question, philosophers Eric Schwitzgebel and Joshua Rust lured 277 attendees of the 2007 Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association to answer questionnaires asking respondents (1) to compare the moral behavior of ethicists in general to that of non-ethicist philosophers and “non-academics of similar social background” and (2) similar questions about the moral behavior of an arbitrarily selected ethics specialist in their own department. [1]

The authors acknowledge that their survey results hardly constitute solid evidence of ethicists’ actual moral behavior both because the “survey is only an imperfect measure of opinions; and opinion is only an imperfect index of behavior.” No doubt those better versed in inferential statistics could find any number of faults in their methodology and question whether the sample surveyed is in any reliable sense statistically representative of the population of ethicists or philosophers at large.

Such caveats and disclaimers acknowledged, the “results [to me unsurprisingly] suggest that non-ethicist philosophers do not tend to see ethicists, in general, as particularly well behaved. Indeed, a substantial minority of non-ethicists asserted that ethicists on average behave morally worse than non-ethicists.” Comparable results obtained in the survey rating the behavior of specific ethicists in the responders’ particular departments.

The results also appear to somewhat gainsay a longstanding philosophical tradition of belief that ethical reflection is positively correlated with ethical behavior. Socrates found it all but inconceivable that anyone could knowingly act badly. While neither Kant nor Mill make quite so extravagant a claim, both they and many other moral philosophers, past and present, have claimed or at least wished to believe that the study of ethics was instrumentally ethically valuable. Indeed:

We the authors also find this view attractive. If we suppose that professional ethicists are more inclined to or skilled at such reflection than non-ethicists (especially non-academics), and if there is no reason to suspect that ethicists enter the field with a prior inclination towards delinquency, then it seems to follow that ethicists will tend to behave morally better than non-ethicists. But about two-thirds of the non-ethicists and about half of the ethicists surveyed did not endorse this conclusion. Perhaps this skepticism betrays some disillusionment with the Socratic and Enlightenment ideals that many of us are otherwise so eager to share with our students.

Somewhat flippantly, I suppose it should be noted that there is no reason to believe that epistemologists are more knowledgeable than non-epistemologists (even perhaps about what constitutes knowledge) or that metaphysicians have any surer grasp of reality than the rest of us, so why, mutatis mutandis, should ethicists be any different? More seriously, there is also the logically prior question of free will which, especially among contemporary philosophers inclined to skepticism about compatibilism, may undermine the very question whether anyone is ever really more or less ethical in any meaningful sense than anyone else. At least in the opinion of APA convention attendees.

Moreover, again noting that the survey was conducted among professional philosophers, there is almost certainly a question of diminishing returns in play here. Probably every holder of a PhD in philosophy has studied ethics to a greater extent than the average non-philosopher, and it may well be that, at least in the opinion of those non-ethicist philosophers, their non-specialist study sufficed for purposes of contributing to their own rectitude. Indeed, and as the authors acknowledge, there are persuasive philosophical arguments why beyond a certain point the study of ethics may have a negative effect on one’s behavior at least in some circumstances.

In any case, Enlightenment ideals aside, Socrates was surely wrong as anyone who, e.g., continues to smoke cigarettes despite knowing full well the health risks amply demonstrates. And, yes, Kantians lie and utilitarians act in ways not motivated by non-tautological utilitarian grounds, and so forth.

It is not an argument against reason to note that even reason has its limitations and that, as Pascal observed, the heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

That is not, I know, sufficiently discursive to be philosophically persuasive. But it is true.

__________

1. Schwitzgebel, Eric and Rust, Joshua 2009: ‘The Moral Behavior of Ethicists: Peer Opinion’. Mind, 118, pp. 1043-1059. [Unavailable online except by subscription.]

The Prince chapter 4: “Why the Kingdom of Darius, Occupied by Alexander, Did Not Rebel Against the Successors of the Latter After His Death.”

The best thing about approaching The Prince this way is that it forces me to slow down and think about what it means. If I were reading straight through, I might do just that–read straight through. But by focusing on each chapter individually, I slow down and take more time to think about it before I move on. And writing about each one helps tremendously, too, because as E.M. Forster is supposed to have said, “How can I know what I think until I see what I write?” Any good scholar can agree with this sentiment, I am sure (and may eternal damnation be the lot of those who don’t, for they are a scourge upon society). Which is to say, that taking time to write about these chapters requires that I think about them, in order to put my thoughts together at least semi-coherently, and if only I had time to do so with everything I read, I would be a much more well-educated person.

Anyway….on to ol’ Nick. Continue Reading »

Chapter 3: Of Mixed Monarchies

By “mixed” monarchies, Machiavelli means those that are composed of possessions accumulated at different times, so that they do not have a long tradition of unity. They are very problematic, he says, because “men change masters willingly, hoping to better themselves.” This may, at first blush, seem to contradict his thoughts on how unwilling people are to upset the settled tradition of a hereditary family, but the difference is in the lack of tradition in these new possessions. If there is no tradition to cling to, and the new Prince is unsatisfactory, there is every incentive to revolt, in the hope of achieving a better condition. They “deceive themselves,” however, and usually go “from bad to worse.” These sentiments are strikingly reminiscent of Burke, who would surely sympathize.

Holding Conquered Provinces
But even though those who rebel may be deceiving themselves about their chances of bettering their lot, Machiavelli is not writing to them—they are not the subject of their advice. It is the Prince whom he is warning here. Continue Reading »

In commemoration of today’s opening of the film, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, I’d like to take a moment to note for those who haven’t been paying attention to this particular market niche that we seem to be in a golden age of children’s literature. I use the term “children’s” loosely, to refer to literature that’s not primarily directed at adults, and there’s a lot of it out there these days. The reason, I think, is because the market for kids books is so strong–particularly with the money to be made from film adaptations–that good authors can become fabulously wealthy. Continue Reading »

The Prince, chapters 1 and 2.

I’ll begin my discussion of The Prince by covering two chapters, because they are so very short. Most weeks I’ll likely cover only one, so that these posts don’t become egregiously long and rambling.

Chapter 1: How Many Kinds Of Principalities There Are, And By What Means They Are Acquired
The first chapter of The Prince threw me for a loop the first time I read it. It’s only four sentences long, and says nothing substantive–it just notes that a) all states are either republics or principalities, b) principalities are either hereditary or new, c) new principalities are either brand new, or they are new possession annexed to an existing hereditary principality, and d) these acquired possessions are either used to living under a prince or they are used to being a republic.

I found this confusing because it just seemed like a ever-expanding list of types of states. But the second time I read it I realized that it is actually a nested list, and with each step he goes deeper, making finer distinctions, so that the reader understands that all principalities are not alike, nor even are all new principalities alike, and implicitly noting that the differences between them are important. This is, after all, a work of practical theory. No airy, wishful, handwaving here, he is telling us that to properly manage a principality, you need to understand the details of what type of state it is. And note also that republics are discarded after the first distinction. This work is not meant for the governor of a republic, which should be a warning to all those who casually believe that Machiavelli is writing about leadership in general. There are lessons to be learned here, but they may not apply to our contemporary democracies.

Chapter 2: Concerning Hereditary Principalities
Machiavelli works himself up to a whole five sentences in this chapter, the sum total of his argument being that it is easier for a Prince to hold onto a hereditary state than a newly acquired one, because the people are already accustomed to his family’s rule. Barring an “extraordinary and excessive force” from outside–i.e., Germany marching into Poland–all a hereditary Prince has to do is not mess with the country’s traditions and avoid “extraordinary vices [that] cause him to be hated.” The later is probably easier said than done, as those born to wealth and power often seem naturally inclined to extraordinary vices. Never actually having been constrained, they lack the common person’s intuitive understanding of social propriety (I’m looking at you, Charlie Sheen).

“Extraordinary” is a key qualifier here, I think. He doesn’t expect Princes to lack vice, and the chapter can be read to say that tradition and custom are strong enough that the Prince’s subjects will allow some, perhaps considerable, degree of self-indulgence, rather than engage in the effort and risks of a revolt. The attachment to tradition does seem to be a major factor in human behavior, both social and political. From the family that gets together every Christmas despite not really liking each other all that much, to the continuing support for now-politically powerless royal families, as in, for example, Britain, Denmark, and the Netherlands.

I, too, believe in the value of tradition. A tradition shouldn’t be overthrown lightly because it’s quite plausible that its longevity is closely related to its utility. Of course tradition should not be fetishized, either. It’s not beyond the bounds of reason that a particular tradition could have disutility, and is only clung to through superstition. And it’s more than a little probable that some traditions’ utility accrues only to a subset of the population, while creating disutility for the rest. Nevertheless, some people will fetishize tradition, a fact that an adept political analyst will not ignore.

There is also a veiled warning to those who try to take new possessions. The hereditary Prince, he notes, has “less necessity to offend,” the subjects, meaning that an invading Prince must of necessity, cause offense. And how could it not be so? And yet time after time invaders seem to be surprised that their actions–waging war, blowing things up, disrupting the economy, changing the political institutions–cause offense (we’re all looking at you, Dick Cheney).

Next Week:Chapter 3

For a number of reasons I have been stimulated to re-read Machiavelli’s The Prince, which I have read twice, but only when I was much younger, with less education and less experience than I now have, and, in both cases, read hurriedly. And it is my experience that a worthwhile book requires several readings, separated in time with other relevant reading in between to provide greater context and connectivity, to be even reasonably well understood.

It is a relatively short work, so it seemed appropriate to blog my way through it, to share my thoughts with others and to get their thoughts in return. I will not make an attempt at exhaustive explication, detailed analysis, or thorough and original interpretation, but will, a chapter or two at a time, comment on what happens to strike me as I am reading. It would be lovely to make this a weekly event—and who couldn’t get amped for Prince Mondays?!—but being both busy and bipolar, please don’t hold your breath in anticipation. However, if you’re at all interested, read on for the first installment, in which I give a backgrounder on our author, Nicollo Machiavelli. Continue Reading »

Will Wilkinson discusses a bugaboo of Objectivist ethics — the happy parasite. The more I think about the problem, the more I wonder what all the fuss is over. The happy parasite isn’t a refutation of the Objectivist ethics as I understand it.

Objectivism (among many other systems) claims that the virtuous life leads to happiness. “Leads,” though, is a hazy word. Clearly, the set of virtuous lives and that of happy lives aren’t identical. Some suffering falls at random, so “virtuous people,” as a set, overincludes.

Does the set of virtuous people underinclude? Are there any happy parasites? Will says yes, and obviously so, and that this is a serious problem for Objectivists:

Ann is a bureaucrat. A political liberal, she believes in her work at HHS and finds it extremely satisfying. She is convinced that government can make the world a better place and she works hard every day to do her part making sure that it does. She can see how the program she works for helps families in need, she feels like she’s making a difference, and that’s meaningful to her. Ann has a devoted husband (who is a lawyer for the EPA) and two delightful children. They go to church every Sunday where they learn about to importance of love for all people and the immense importance of service to others. Of Ann’s many activities, she finds most nourishing volunteering with her children at a community soup kitchen. She’s proud of how her kids have so enthusiastically embraced their obligation to help those who need help. She’s especially proud of how they have come, like her, to value hard work, independent-mindedness, honesty, and integrity. Ann and her husband are paid well by the government, and they’re good with money. They’re very comfortable and have a terrific work-life balance. They’re also active, fit, and very healthy. Ann loves her life. She has a lot of energy, is in a good mood most of the time, has very few regrets. When she becomes frustrated or sad, she bounces back quickly. When she reflects on her life, she is extremely grateful for everything she has.

Is Ann happy?

Of course she is. If your theory about the conditions under which people can be happy says “No,” your theory is busted.

Is this story realistic?

I think so. Washington, DC is full of people and families much like this.

I conclude that “parasitism” (i.e., living off of the proceeds of a system of state coercion) is compatible with virtue and happiness.

I have several problems with this.

First, it’s important not to lose sight of what “virtue” is. Virtue should be understood as a settled disposition or habit of mind that conduces to the good life. The good life often, but not always, produces happiness. This is the Aristotelian approach to the concept, and to the extent that Rand made stronger claims about virtue, perhaps she erred. There is just too much empirical data going against the one-to-one hypothesis, as Will points out.

But did Rand in fact make stronger claims? I don’t think she did. In “The Objectivist Ethics,” she writes:

If you achieve that which is the good by a rational standard of value, it will necessarily make you happy; but that which makes you happy, by some undefined emotional standard, is not necessarily the good. To take “whatever makes one happy” as a guide to action means: to be guided by nothing but one’s emotional whims.

Which suggests that it’s possible to be happy for a time even when not following a fully or perfectly rational moral code. In this, Rand is consistent with Aristotle and differs sharply with what is said of her by her critics.

Also note that many things in Ann (not Ayn)’s moral code appear to be quite rational, and that there’s a clear link between these things and her happiness. Will these good tendencies last for the rest of her life, and give her lifelong happiness? I think the Objectivist response would be that it’s too soon to tell, but we have some reason to worry.

That’s because Ann isn’t fully virtuous. To say that she is requires defining coercion as participating in virtue, which I can’t really imagine Will doing. Surely Ann is only partially (if highly) virtuous?

To the extent that Ann’s behavior either induces or stems from habits of mind or dispositions leading away from the good life, we can expect her happiness to be imperiled. We can’t expect unhappiness to arrive on day one of her job at HHS. In fact, the day of reckoning might never come at all. But the risk exists.

If this seems too weak for you, then consider taking up deontology instead, or maybe utilitarianism. Virtue ethics is entirely about tendencies and inclinations, and their cultivation or inhibition within the individual. It’s not a magic ritual or a mathematical formula for automatic bliss or automatic goodness. I don’t see it as being remotely imperiled, even in its egoist form, by the existence of happy people who practice a degree of coercion.

(Quibble the first: Rand had a virtue ethics and a deontologist politics. Yes, there’s a possible conflict here. But I don’t quite think it’s the conflict we’re interested in at the moment.)

(Quibble the second: Is there any empirical research on the happiness of government workers relative to similarly situated private-sector workers? It would seem to be germane, but I’m not the expert in this particular field.)

Ah yes, Ayn Rand. There’s never any getting away from her, is there?

This month’s Cato Unbound looks at what’s still standing in her moral and political thought, though I’m afraid I know what the conventional wisdom is.

Sadly, this conventional wisdom has almost nothing to do with Ayn Rand’s philosophical content, and just about everything to do with her philosophical style. For every ten thousand people who have read Atlas Shrugged, there might be one who has read Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, and this is a crying shame.

It’s so hard to get past the habits of mind on contagious display in Atlas. Some are obnoxious, while some — I’d say — are praiseworthy. Here, Freddie (whom you’ve met at the League) explains the downside:

[An Objectivist acquaintance of the author's] has developed a certitude, and a rejection of any contrary opinion, and a pitched, proud disrespect for anyone who doesn’t agree with the entire suite of his intellectual project. In this, he is perfectly typical of the other Objectivists that I have read or interacted with. He is, as far as I understand, quite a popular vlogger among the Objectivist set. The willingness to listen, the curiosity, the belief in the friendship inherent in the exchange of ideas, all seem gone. In their place stand a crude, angry and embittered certitude. Whatever questions he had then he has long since answered now.

And it’s this, ultimately, that makes Rand so corrosive, so deadening to the heart of the intellectual project. People far abler than I have prosecuted the case against Rand, and I don’t intend to rehash it here. But this tendency of her writings and her philosophy to compel people to slap concrete on the foundation of their own ideas, to build a moat around their intellectual life, to categorize the whole world into the tiny fraction who are worthy and the great horrid mass that are simply not to be listened to in any circumstance… this is the greatest failing of the woman and her teachings. There are a worse things to inspire people towards– genocide, war, ethnic cleansing– but still, a philosopher whose greatest contribution is a vast incuriosity is a dismal thing.

And, you know, if you peruse Mr. Cropper’s videos for awhile you’ll learn that he thinks poor people choose to be in poverty and deserve it, that we should not feed the starving, that the American Indians were a collection of idiots who were rightly colonized by a superior power, that war is often preferable to peace, that religion is a mental disease, that modern cosmology and particle theory are a scientific conspiracy, that we won the Vietnam war, that we are and should be at war with Islam (because Muslims are inherently irrational and hateful), that nuclear armed nations should enforce their advantage in the capacity for physical violence against other nations without conscience, that global warming is a myth, that child labor should be reinstated as it is a moral and rational edifice, that poetry always must rhyme or is not poetry, and his most cherished and frequently expressed idea, that the edifice of modern higher education is in total a conspiracy against the people, perpetrated by educators who knowingly disseminate nonsense, and that this is the reason for his failure to ascend to the pinnacle of intellectual achievement. Some of these can be directly attributed to Rand’s philosophy; many can’t. But the framework that creates them can indeed be blamed on a corpus that tells people, again and again and again, that the more they are disagreed with, the more it proves their genius; that it is a mark of honor to generate contrary opinion but not to listen to it; that nothing is at last as valuable as an idea that is an affront to the lice, the vermin, the trash.

I’ve certainly met many people of this stripe, and I am sometimes accused of being one. Perhaps I am. My own engagement with Ayn Rand left me quite nearly an Objectivist. I realize that this is deeply annoying to many people. Yet I remain so today, quite nearly an Objectivist.

… except that, as a former Catholic, I noticed that, in order to become quite nearly an Objectivist, I had had to admit that I’d been wrong about many, many, many things. Can the same person who had just been wrong about so much now be right about everything? That would rather defy the odds, wouldn’t it?

And it would also bear a stunning resemblance to… Christian conversion narratives. Which I’d also just rejected. The sudden seizure of a new philosophical outlook, whether Christian, Objectivist, or anything else, ought to instill humility. Typically it instills just the opposite, and Objectivism is typical in spades.

And there’s this, from Roderick Long’s essay at Cato Unbound:

Like many others, I discovered Ayn Rand around the age of 15; her writings were my introduction to the field of philosophy, thereby setting me on the path to my present career. And while my views over the years have increasingly diverged from hers in numerous details, the fact that I remain an Aristotelian in philosophy and a libertarian in politics surely bears the impress of her influence.

The impress of her influence: A delicious phrase, because it encapsulates all those things hovering about philosophy that we can’t pin down in the form of true propositions and valid inferences. Some of these things, like the general trajectory of Long’s career, and my own, aren’t obviously or necessarily bad. Others, like Freddie’s “vast inucriosity,” make me want to weep.

I am tempted to say that any systematic philosophy, Rand’s included, is going to be of two parts — the propositions and inferences of the system on one side, and a cast of mind on the other. Is the latter doing more of the work? Perhaps it is, even in those who aren’t turned into fanatics.

It’s hard to explain otherwise how I have come to believe so much that Rand believed, in so many different areas, and yet how much of it is regarded as nonsense by so many others. (This also gets at the heart of our recent discussions about “rational” people in the rational basis test. Rational people are Buddhists, Christians, atheists, and so forth. And Objectivists, even.)

But hey, check out this nonsense. Or, my creed:

• There are no higher or lower forms of reality; no higher or lower planes; no heavens or hells. No souls or gods. What is, is, and it’s metaphysically all of a connected, similar stuff.
• We can know what is, and we can know it in a sense that profoundly matters. Logic and scientific reason tell us what is real, and other guides, including emotion and revelation, are not to be trusted.
• Indeed, determining what is, to the best of our ability, is the wonderful thing about being a human. It’s possibly the only remarkable one. It’s the peculiar trick that enables our survival. It is also the key to our proper life. The examined, rational life is the proper life.
• To create comes next. Creation — acting according to our reasoned plans — allows us to survive. We are not to imagine that there is any conflict between contemplation and action. This is contra Aristotle, pro Rand, and much to the latter’s credit. Contemplation and action are made for one another.
• Exchange is a special case of creation, for reasons too complicated to explain here. Man benefits greatly from the techniques of creation and exchange, but they work best in a free-market, rights-respecting society. They work much less well in all other types of societies.
• And when you have survived, and succeeded in what you set out to do, and lived the life worth living, it is not wrong to feel pride, and happiness, and even just plain physical pleasure. The people who oppose these things on principle are to be mistrusted, also on principle.

That, at any rate, is what I believe.

I still don’t think I can call myself an Objectivist, however. I’m not ready to throw out quantum physics (of which I know virtually nothing). I don’t think that higher education is a vast conspiracy. I’m a total squish on global warming. If I were forced to, I’d pick the European culture over the Native American, but not via bloodbath. Some unrhymed poetry is pretty damned good.

Oh, and I want to vomit when I read stuff like this:

Of course, if a POW is truly innocent—that is, a genuine opponent of his regime who was forced to fight for it—he will eagerly provide the victim nation with all the information to which he is privy; no torture will be necessary. Thus, torture is potentially necessary only for the guilty. Those who wish to hide information that could protect the lives and rights of Americans in the name of fidelity to the triumph of Islam have forfeited all rights and deserve any form of abuse that can possibly be used to extract information.

Gapingly silent on all those logically possible innocents with nothing to offer. Gapingly silent on the epistemological question of when you’ve discovered enough, or on how you know that torture even works (elsewhere in the piece, he blunders into the question, then wanders off without answering it). A vast incuriosity indeed, and a culpable one.

So I’m not an Objectivist. I’d get kicked in the butt for saying so — by all those lacking the intellectual searchingness that makes logic something more than verbal decoupage. By those, in other words, who have absorbed all of the bad inarticulable parts of Rand, and who seem to know none of the good inarticulable parts.

(Qua decoupage, a true Objectivist wouldn’t even call it “art.” But you’ll notice that my credo was conspicuously silent on aesthetics. And until now, this essay contained not a single qua!)

Apparently, those who can’t learn from their own mistakes are doomed to repeat them.

I bet you didn’t know I have my own nonprofit publishing company, did you? In the last three years, it’s only published one book. It was roughly the size of a phone book, it’s been in the public domain for about a century, and it’s in French. Not much consumer appeal, I know. Sales figures show that I bought the only copy, which I promptly scribbled all over (also in French).

This year, not quite in time for all your Martin Luther King Jr. Day shopping needs, I present the second title to appear at Kuznicki’s World-Historical Reprint Emporium: Ancient Law by Henry Sumner Maine — yours for the low, low price of just ten dollars plus shipping. It’s even in English.

Many thanks are due.

First, I’d like to thank Liberty Fund for making the text available in html. Libertarianism has undoubtedly become the most bookish of ideologies, even including conservatism. Liberty Fund does the vital work of connecting new generations of scholars with the classics to deepen their knowledge and carry on the traditions of a vast, worldwide movement that has done more to benefit humanity than any other.

Second, I’d like to thank Lulu.com, which is a completely awesome resource for amateur publishers who enjoy the sheer craft of putting a book together. This edition isn’t perfect, but Lulu, among its many other services, makes it easy to revise and improve. Depending on how my finished copy looks, I may want to re-issue it with ultrawide margins, just for all the scribbling I tend to do.

Third, I’d like to thank Mark Tansey, whose Triumph Over Mastery (1986) I used without permission on the cover. Tansey is one of my all-time favorite artists, and I am making no money on this image. But I would strongly encourage everyone who buys my edition of Ancient Law to purchase this book, too.

I’ll have more thoughts about Ancient Law after I’ve finished reading. And scribbling.

(Hu… what? Self publishing? Well, yes. But it’s only pathetic if you have delusions of grandeur about it. Few people think their knitting is going to make them the next Versace, and this puts the knitters ahead in my view.)