Libertarian philosopher Jan Narveson is the author of one of the definitive books about liberty: The Libertarian Idea. The 1989 book addresses the questions "Is libertarianism possible?" and "Is libertarianism rational?" It also applies libertarian theory to real-world political issues, including abortion, free speech, education, the War on Drugs, zoning laws, and others.

Liberty magazine called The Libertarian Idea "a major contribution to the philosophical controversy over libertarianism." The Canadian Philosophical Review described it as a "bold and highly readable book," while The Journal of Politics called it "a major work." The book was republished by Broadview Press in 2001.

In an interview in Cogito (July 1998), Narveson said the inevitable tendency of any government to amass power is one of the reasons he is a libertarian. "The state always has a down side," he said. "You try to solve a problem by putting a bunch of power into someone's hands, and that power is the power to make a lot of people do what they don't want to do in order to get what you want done. In order for him to act like this, he's got to have quite a lot of authority. Question: will he stay within the bounds of that authority and only do what he is supposed to do? Answer: not likely! The tendency of people with power to overreach the bounds of their power is very well documented and continues rampant to the present day."

A native of Minnesota, Narveson is a professor of philosophy at the University of Waterloo, Canada, where he teaches Introduction to Social and Political Philosophy, Business and Professional Ethics, Moral Issues, History of Ethical Theory, Contemporary Ethical Theory, and seminars on moral and political subjects. He has a B.A from the University of Chicago and a PhD from Harvard University.

Narveson is the author of Morality and Utility (1967), Moral Matters (1993), Political Correctness - For and Against (with Marilyn Friedman, 1995), and Respecting Persons in Theory and Practice (2002). He has contributed to Libertarianism for the 21st Century (T.R. Machan and D.B. Rasmussen, editors, 1995), The Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics (1998), and The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory (Hugh laFollette, editor, 2000). His essays have also been published in the Public Affairs Quarterly, the Journal of Social Philosophy, Biomedical Ethics Reviews, and the Journal of Value Inquiry.

Narveson is listed in Who's Who, Contemporary Authors, and Who's Who in American Education. In 1989, he was elected to membership in the Royal Society of Canada, the nation's highest recognition of scholarly achievement.

-- Bill Winter

Quotable

"The idea of libertarianism is that each person has a bunch of interests the person would like to pursue. Liberty consists in being not impeded in your pursuit of them, period. Libertarianism is essentially a social doctrine. It doesn't make any sense as a doctrine of how to live, because it doesn't tell you what to do. All it tells you is to keep out of other people's way and insist that they keep out of yours." -- Jan Narveson in an interview in Cogito (July 1998)

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