I have stressed areas in which de Jasay agrees with Rothbardians, but one area in which he does not concerns natural rights. De Jasay rejects natural rights. We should, he thinks, just take them as natural and leave the “rights” part out. To speak of rights wrongly insinuates that the state has granted these rights. To the response that these principles are natural in the sense that they are objectively true principles of morality, de Jasay would answer that morality is not objective. He is, I fear, a moral skeptic, a view that many economists wrongly take to be obvious. But despite this disagreement, Rothbardians will find de Jasay a thinker of great power and insight.
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