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8 Libertarian Papers 1 (2016)

handle is hein.journals/libpa8 and id is 1 raw text is: LIBERTARIAN PAPERS THE POSSIBILITY OF THICK LIBERTARIANISM BILLY CHRISTMAS* Introduction THE CENTRAL COMMITMENT of libertarianism is the Non-Aggression Principle' (henceforth NAP): the prescription that no one initiate force against the person or property of another (Rothbard, 2006, 27-53).2 Aggression is defined as the initiation of force or nonconsensual crossing of a property boundary.3 Therefore, if a boundary crossing is consented to, it is not aggressive. Likewise, if a boundary crossing is defensive, then it does not constitute an initiation of force, and it is therefore legitimate since it is not aggressive. There are no precontractual enforceable obligations in addition to *Billy Christmas is a PhD candidate in politics at the University of Manchester. The author wishes to thank two anonymous referees for their thoughtful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. CITATION INFORMATION FOR THIS ARTICLE: Billy Christmas. 2016. The Possibility of Thick Libertarianism. Libertaran Papers. 8 (1): 1-21. ONLINE AT: libertarianpapers.org. THIS ARTICLE IS subject to a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (creativecommons.org/licenses). 1 This is true, at least, of Austro-libertarianism: other approaches to libertarian political philosophy may emphasize different principles or claim different principles to be more foundational. 2 In libertarian legal theory, the NAP may be viewed not as a moral constraint on individual action but as a constraint on law. The NAP being a restraint on individual action entails that it is also a restraint on law, but the entailment does not go the other way around. For the purposes of this paper I will refer to the NAP as a constraint on individual action, and therefore employ the language of moral and political philosophy rather than jurisprudence, in relation to the NAP. Vhere legitimate property rights are acquired by original appropriation or consensual transfer. 1 VOL. 8, No. 1 (2016)

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