While some proponents of the prohibition do indeed claim such a status for it, many do not, and accordingly it is sometimes suggested that "non-aggression principle" or "zero aggression principle" is a more accurate label than "non-aggression axiom." Does that mean he was wrong to call it an axiom? Not according to Roderick Long:Īnother objection focuses on the term "axiom," which is sometimes taken to imply that the prohibition of aggression enjoys a special epistemic status analogous to that of the law of non-contradiction, e.g., that it is self-evident, or knowable a priori, or a presupposition of all knowledge, or that it cannot be denied without self-contradiction. Nor did he say that the denial of the axiom results in a contradiction.Īs Rothbard wrote, "If the central axiom of the libertarian creed is nonaggression against anyone's person and property, how is this axiom arrived at?" Clearly, then, he regarded it as a derived principle. Although he used the word axiom, rather than principle or maxim or (as I prefer) obligation, he did not mean that the idea of nonaggression was self-evident, a priori, or self-justifying. Indeed, the material in For a New Liberty foreshadows what we find in greater detail in the later Ethics of Liberty.Īs we saw in the later book, Rothbard believed that what he called the "nonaggression axiom" had to be derived. In rereading the book for the first time in decades, I found the foundational material especially interesting.
The book is an excellent discussion of libertarian principles and applications, and it is still worth reading today. In 1973, nine years before he published his magnum opus in political philosophy, The Ethics of Liberty, Murray Rothbard issued a comprehensive popular presentation of the libertarian philosophy in For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, first published by the mainstream publisher Macmillan.
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