12 books, 12 articles
1. Plato, Republic – highly influential in its presentation of justice as objective, reality as separate from perception, why philosophy is worth doing, and what inner harmony means. Widely misinterpreted as a utopian political treatise, the “ideal city” described herein is actually an analogy to the well-balanced psyche, and Plato’s account of how unjust regimes arise in books 8-9 is remarkably astute. No Plato, no philosophy major.
2. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics – virtue ethics beats deontology and utilitarianism hands down. No Aristotle, no grad school. 1177a10-22, dude!
3. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia – obvious, perhaps, but this would be where I first read convincing rebuttals of both socialism and welfare-liberalism.
4. Tibor Machan, Individuals and Their Rights – very strong case for an individualist ethic and a libertarian political model derived from it.
5. Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl, Liberty and Nature – the argument with which I’m most sympathetic, showing how a neo-Aristotelian ethic can underlie a classical-liberal rights theory. (Their forthcoming book promises to be an even better approach to this theme.)
6. Jonathan Jacobs, Being True to the World – very convincing defense of a naturalist moral realism, and how practical reason can be action guiding.
7. Steve Ditko, Static – I didn’t know whether fiction should be included here, but I really have to include this, because the chain of causality is interesting and relevant. I had never read any Rand, but I read and loved Static. When I discovered that its themes were “objectivist,” that’s when I started to pay attention to Rand’s novels, which I found very rewarding, enjoyable, and thought-provoking (and under-rated). (Static seems to be out of print – that’s a crime.)
8. David Schmidtz, The Limits of Government – why the free-rider problem is much less of a worry than it’s said to be.
9. Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation – one reason not to take Hobbesian arguments seriously.
10. Harold Berman, Law and Revolution – important history of law. What Don said.
11. F. A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty. Coercion and why it’s bad. Don’s pick, Law, Legislation, and Liberty, is better and I now refer to it much more frequently, but I wouldn’t have found that without having first read this.
12. Edith Hamilton, Mythology – this is surely the root of my interest in ancient Greek thought. Chain of causality again – Hamilton leads to Homer, Aeschylus, Thucydides.
13 (Don made it a bakers’ dozen, so I get to as well). Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars – very important influence on the development of my thinking on this issue.
The anarcho-influences which might seem to be lacking above turn out to be found in the “12 articles” section:
1. Randy Barnett, “Pursuing Justice in a Free Society, parts 1, 2” Criminal Justice Ethics Fall 85, Winter 86
2. Murray Rothbard, “Society Without a State,” Nomos XIX 1978
3. Terry Anderson and P.J. Hill, “An American Experiment in Anarcho-Capitalism,” Journal of Libertarian Studies III 1, 1979
4. John Hasnas, “The Myth of the Rule of Law,” Wisconsin Law Review, 1995
The other articles include:
5. Douglas Rasmussen, “Essentialism, Values, and Rights” (in The Libertarian Reader, Machan ed., 1982)
6. Stephen Holmes, “The Community Trap” TNR Nov 28 1988
7. Hayek, “The Errors of Constructivism” (don’t have the citation handy)
8. Leonard Read, “I, Pencil”
9. Mill, “On Liberty” (if Don can call “I, Pencil” a book, then I can call “On Liberty” an article – Mill calls it an essay!)
10. Douglas Den Uyl, “Freedom and Virtue” (in Machan 1982 supra, via Reason Papers 5, 1979)
11. Herbert Morris, “Persons and Punishment” (Monist, 52:4, 1968)
12. Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas Rasmussen,"Nozick on the Randian Argument," The Personalist 1978 (I found it in Jeff Paul's excellent anthology Reading Nozick.)
13. A. N. Prior’s Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry “Traditional Logic”
Ok, your turn. Yes, you.