Abstract

Within the philosophical literature, libertarianism is typically understood as a theory of justice based on the allocation of two sets of robust individual rights. Ownership rights, both over the self and external resources, constitute the first and most basic set of libertarian rights. Enforcement rights constitute the second set. Their aim is to prevent and rectify violations to individuals’ ownership rights. These two basic sets of rights, and the difficulties involved in their specification, have been widely discussed by proponents and critics of libertarianism alike. The purpose of this article is to explore a third set of rights that is not typically understood to constitute an essential element of the libertarian theory of justice: exception rights. ¹