Among these questions of value were: What is justice? What promotes the greatest happiness? Why is it in your interest to be moral? Does objective truth lead to an authoritarian system?

Plato’s most famous dialogue is The Republic. He had a view of the ideal state or government. Plato, through the words of Socrates, saw appetite/spirit/reason to be analogous to the castes of society. The appetite part of the soul corresponded to Productive workers. The spirit part of the soul corresponded to Protective warriors or guardians. The reason part of the soul corresponded to the few Governing rulers or philosopher kings.

Socrates was able to see two worlds: the apparent world which constantly changes, and the unchanging and unseen world of forms, which may be the cause of what is apparent. Plato’s just city is composed of mainly people who are unjust. Gordon thinks this is a fallacy in Plato’s Republic. Plato’s ideal city was not desirable at all.  

Lecture 1 of 10 from David Gordon's The History of Politcal Philosophy: From Plato to Rothbard.

After Plato’s death, Aristotle shifted from Platonism to empiricism. Aristotle’s two main works in philosophy were about ethics [Nicomachean Ethics] and politics [Politics]. Aristotelian ethics were more practical than theoretical. He aimed at becoming good and doing good as an individual. Reason is the distinguishing characteristic of human beings. 

Aristotle’s work Politics addressed the city (polis), which he viewed as organic. He stated that “man is by nature a political animal.” Kingship, aristocracy and polity are the three good groups of the polis. The aim of the city was to allow some citizens the possibility to live a good life and to perform beautiful acts. Aristotle did favor government education. He, also, felt that some men were slaves by nature and were better off being ruled by others.

Lecture 2 of 10 from David Gordon's The History of Politcal Philosophy: From Plato to Rothbard.

Gordon explores Aquinas’s views on individual rights, private property, just prices, interest and usury, and the proper limits of government. He also considers Aquinas’s strict requirements for just war, his defense of resistance to tyranny, and his contributions to the classical liberal tradition.

Lecture 3 of 10 from David Gordon's The History of Politcal Philosophy: From Plato to Rothbard.

Hobbes met not only Descartes but also Galileo. He thought space and time to be imaginary. He saw humans as being matter and motion, obeying the same physical laws as other matter and motion. He thought one could square the circle. 

Lecture 4 of 10 from David Gordon's The History of Politcal Philosophy: From Plato to Rothbard.

Locke thought the mind was a blank slate, contrary to Cartesian philosophy based on pre-existing concepts. The earth is given to humans in common. Locke’s doctrine that governments need the consent of the governed is central to the Declaration of Independence. He advocated separation of powers and believed that revolution was not only a right but an obligation sometimes.

Locke had close ties to Shaftesbury, founder of the Whig movement. The overthrow of King James II by William III with his wife Mary II of England was the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding and the Two Treatises of Civil Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration were written after his return from exile.

Lecture 5 of 10 from David Gordon's The History of Politcal Philosophy: From Plato to Rothbard.

Rousseau was proud to have been born in Geneva. When he made his way to Paris he was a popular composer of operas, a novelist, and a botanist. Paranoid, Rousseau was a strange man with an unconventional married life. Although he wrote about child-centered learning, he had little regard for his own children.

Rousseau felt that a positive self-love, amour de soi, is transformed into pride, or amour –propre, through the negative influence of society. Rousseau speculated that man lived in love and compassion until division of labor and private property led to economic inequality and conflict (Discourse on Inequality). Rousseau posited that people could remain free while they gave up any claim of any natural right for the general will.

Religiously, Rousseau was condemned in Geneva for his tolerance which was viewed as indifference – a heresy. Rousseau asserted that true followers of Jesus would not make good citizens.

Lecture 6 of 10 from David Gordon's The History of Politcal Philosophy: From Plato to Rothbard.

His classical republican theory was extended in the Science of Right, the first part of the Metaphysics of Morals (1797).

He was very influenced by Rousseau. He felt he was modifying Plato when he sought what could be universalized. In regards to property, he had quite libertarian views.

In Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch, Kant listed several conditions that he thought necessary for ending wars and creating a lasting peace. They included a world of constitutional republics. He was extremely critical of war and colonialism. He wanted a federation, not a global government. However, he thought that resistance, e.g. revolution, to the state is never justifiable.

G.W.F. Hegel, 1770-1831, was definitely not a classical liberal. Arthur Schopenhauer had nothing positive to say about him. Hegel’s general philosophy was difficult to understand.  Elements of the Philosophy of Right, his political philosophy, published in 1820, made the distinction between civil society and state. Yet, Hegel's distinctions as to what he meant by civil society are often unclear.

Abstract right was a concept of Hegel’s that did align with classical liberalism. He favored property rights. But, the state could overrule these. In the section on personal morality in Philosophy of Right Hegel is criticizing Kant. Hegel felt war was sometimes necessary. He considered a monarchy to be the best state.

Lecture 7 of 10 from David Gordon's The History of Politcal Philosophy: From Plato to Rothbard.

Herbert Spencer, 1820-1903, was a prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era. As a polymath, he had an enormous range of knowledge. He achieved unparalleled popularity. Spencer was a Utilitarian, feeling that the promotion of human survival would maximize human utility. Spencer is associated with Social Darwinism, perhaps because he supported competition, but he did not embrace Darwinist science.

Lysander Spooner, 1808-1887, was an American individualist anarchist and abolitionist. His key contribution was to demolish consent theories. In the No Treason pamphlets he asks for names of those who have actually consented to the Constitution.

Lecture 8 of 10 from David Gordon's The History of Politcal Philosophy: From Plato to Rothbard.

Two additional books, Political Liberalism and The Law of Peoples, rounded out his liberal political philosophy.

His view was to maximize utility, although utilitarianism does not take into consideration the differences of individuals. He used a thought experiment he called the original position. It eliminated certain features, e.g. biases, allowing the person to deliberate behind a veil of ignorance. He knows only that he has the capacity to create a life plan, and he has the capacity to develop a sense of justice. Thus, each will deliberate in order to design a social structure that will secure him maximal advantage.

Rawls derives two principles of justice from the original position. The first is equal basic liberties for all citizens. The second answers how these gains are distributed among people without property rights. Everything is up for distribution. This second principle ensures that those with comparable talents and motivation face roughly similar life chances and that inequalities in society work to the benefit of the least advantaged. This is a topic of much debate.

Lecture 9 of 10 from David Gordon's The History of Politcal Philosophy: From Plato to Rothbard.

Most controversially, Nozick argued that a consistent upholding of the non-aggression principle would allow and regard as valid consensual or non-coercive enslavement contracts between adults. He rejected the notion of inalienable rights advanced by Locke and most contemporary capitalist-oriented libertarian academics, writing in Anarchy, State and Utopia that the typical notion of a "free system" would allow adults to voluntarily enter into non-coercive slave contracts.

Murray Rothbard, 1926-1995, wrote The Ethics of Liberty as his main political philosophy work. He accepted the labor theory of property, arguing that mixing labor with unowned land made the land private property which could then trade hands by trade or gift. He rejected the Lockean proviso that individuals could only homestead land where “there is enough, and as good, left in common for others.”

Rothbard was concerned with how we know what is right or good. His is Aristotle’s natural law reasoning. He rejected Mises conviction that ethical values remain subjective. Rothbard concludes that interventionist policies do benefit some people, including certain government employees and welfare beneficiaries.

Lecture 10 of 10 from David Gordon's The History of Politcal Philosophy: From Plato to Rothbard.