I was involved in a pretty good thread at The Art of the Possible during which I brought up the ideas of Jeffrey Friedman, who unfortunately does not have a blog for me to link to. Dain, who appears to be considerably more familiar with Friedman’s ideas, then pointed out this lengthy intro to his basic ideas, which might be referred to as “post-libertarian”. Friedman is the editor of Critical Review, whose recent issue featuring Bryan Caplan reviewing Tetlock I covered here.
April 19, 2008
Entitled to an Opinion 
April 20, 2008 at 10:15 am
In my limited reading of Rawls, my impression has always been that the original position was most consistent with capitalism (and that libertarian philosophers wasted a lot of energy by not exploring this possibility). This is my first brush with Friedman’s nuanced argument. Thanks.
April 20, 2008 at 12:18 pm
He seems to have been trying to justify the status quo, which was basically a capitalist system. Elsewhere he wrote a sort of proof that baseball was the ideal sport.
April 20, 2008 at 9:02 pm
[…] points to an attempted synthesis/critique of Nozick and Rawls that is, without a doubt, long. It part I […]
April 21, 2008 at 8:22 am
My understanding is that Rawlsian justice is more commonly interpreted as promoting radical redistributions of wealth due to meritocratically determined (an hence unjust) differences in ability, which is why libertarians have expended such energy attacking him on conceptual grounds rather than arguing that the original position as ultimately supportive of capitalism.
April 21, 2008 at 4:45 pm
I think this article is another good overview of Friedman’s thought written for a more academic audience.
April 21, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Thanks for the link!
July 30, 2009 at 6:51 pm
[…] points to an attempted synthesis/critique of Nozick and Rawls that is, without a doubt, long. The part I […]