ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to arbitrate between two different forms of libertarianism, one that countenances government, and one that is purely nongovernmental anarchistic libertarianism. It explores whether libertarianism envisions a government in human affairs, or whether human societies should flourish in the absence of government, in anarchy. Anarchistic libertarianism illegitimately and self-defeatingly presupposes the prior existence of contract law in its account of how law and its enforcement would come to exist and have an ongoing role in an anarchistic society. Some non-libertarian thinkers extend the scope of rights to include access to a minimal amount of those goods which are necessary for human flourishing. The normative requirement that is natural, that is imposed by nature, is: that there be a body of law in which life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness are possible to people who can cooperate with one another to pursue their individual and collective goals.
