Reply to Frank van Dun's "Natural Law and the Jurisprudence of Freedom"

In his article “Natural Law and the Jurisprudence of Freedom,” my friend and colleague Frank van Dun offers two options as my possible categorizations of his views: “anti-libertarian” or “confusion and inconsistency on the part of a libertarian sympathiser.”1 Given these two sharp alternatives, I choose the second, for I certainly do not consider him “anti-libertarian.” To the contrary, I consider him one of the leading libertarian theorists of the present day. Nor do I see “confusion and inconsistency on [his] part.” I should rather say that the two of us have different visions of libertarianism, and—I am sure I speak for both of us here—that we welcome this opportunity afforded us by The Journal of Libertarian Studies to further explore these important issues. Hopefully, together, we can get one small bit closer to the truth in this way.

Volume 18, Number 2 (2004)