The History of Political Philosophy: From Plato to Rothbard Mises Institute

Robert Nozick, 1938-2002, was a professor at Harvard whose best known book is Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) – a libertarian answer to Rawls’ A Theory of Justice (1971). Murray Rothbard, 1926-1995, wrote The Ethics of Liberty as his main political philosophy work.

John Stuart Mill, 1806-1873, was the most famous classical liberal. Herbert Spencer, 1820-1903, was a prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era. Lysander Spooner, 1808-1887, was an American individualist anarchist and abolitionist.

John Rawls, 1921-2002, was the most influential figure among American philosophers. His first, and main, work, A Theory of Justice (1971), made him famous. It aimed to resolve the seemingly competing claims of freedom and equality.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712-1778, influenced the French Revolution with his political philosophy and his social contract theory. The perspective of many of today’s environmentalists can be traced back to Rousseau, espousing that all degenerates in man’s hands. The Social Contract (1972), his most important work, outlines the basis for a legitimate political order within a framework of classical republicanism.

Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804, was called the most evil person by Ayn Rand. His classical republican theory was extended in the Science of Right, the first part of the Metaphysics of Morals (1797). G.W.F. Hegel, 1770-1831, was definitely not a classical liberal.

Thomas Hobbes, 1588-1679, best known work is Leviathan (1651) which established social contract theory. His liberal thinking included: The right of the individual; the natural equality of all men; the artificial character of the political order; the view that all legitimate political power must be representative; and a liberal interpretation of law.