Richard Allen Epstein

Papers presented at a symposium held Oct. 25-26, 1991, at the University of Chicago Law School. Also published as v. 59, no. 1 (winter 1992), of the University of Chicago law review.

In Principles for a Free Society, distinguished legal scholar Richard Epstein staunchly defends the principles of limited government, showing how it can and will work to the advantage of almost all of our society. But the balance between a powerful economic engine and individual liberty requires careful dilution of pure laissez-faire policies. A seminal theoretician, Epstein carefully analyzes the interaction of law and social norms and highlights the handful of restraints that provide a moral foundation to a resilient, adaptive capitalist system. His central mission is "to explain how a concern with the common good does not eviscerate the traditional protections otherwise provided to individual liberty and private property."

"Many of the modern attacks on the classical liberal system seek to undermine the moral, conceptual, cognitive, and psychological foundations on which it rests. Epstein rises to this challenge by carefully rebutting each of these objections in turn. For instance, Epstein demonstrates how our inability to judge the preferences of others means we should respect their liberty of choice regarding their own lives. And he points out the flaws in behavioral economic arguments which, overlooking strong evolutionary pressures, claim that individual preferences are unstable and that people are unable to adopt rational means to achieve their own ends. Freedom, Epstein ultimately shows, depends upon a skepticism that rightly shuns making judgments about what is best for individuals, but that also avoids the relativistic traps that all judgments about our political institutions have equal worth."--Jacket.