Others held that rights were merely a short-hand way of recognizing that living in a peaceful society logically requires one to refrain from coercing others against their will. For Machan, who grounds his support of individual rights in the natural-law tradition, a social contract is insufficient to ground liberty, for unless there is some prior norm that binds an agreement, the agreement fails to obligate. Since Tibor seems often to have run afoul of them, I am not optimistic about the prospects of others doing better. Still, one must try. Read the transcript and find out for yourself.
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