Tibor Machan

Tibor Machan
Born
Tibor Richard Machan

(1939-03-18)18 March 1939
Died24 March 2016(2016-03-24) (aged 77)
NationalityHungarian
American
EducationClaremont McKenna College (BA)
New York University (MA)
University of California, Santa Barbara (PhD)
EraContemporary philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolObjectivism, analytic philosophy, individualism, ethical egoism, virtue ethics, aretaic turn, eudaimonism
Main interests
Political philosophy, individual rights, egoism, meta-ethics
Notable ideas
Argument from species normality, egoism and rights, egoism and generosity

Tibor Richard Machan (/ˈtbɔːr məˈkæn/; 18 March 1939 – 24 March 2016) was a Hungarian-American philosopher. A professor emeritus in the department of philosophy at Auburn University, Machan held the R. C. Hoiles Chair of Business Ethics and Free Enterprise at the Argyros School of Business & Economics at Chapman University in Orange, California until 31 December 2014.

He was a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, a research fellow at the Independent Institute, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and an adjunct faculty member of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.[1] Machan was a syndicated and freelance columnist; author of more than one hundred scholarly papers and more than forty books, among them Why is Everyone Else Wrong? (Springer, 2008). He was, until spring 2015, senior contributing editor at The Daily Bell. He was senior fellow at the Heartland Institute in Arlington Heights, Illinois.

Machan rejected any division of libertarianism into left wing and right wing. He held that, by its nature, libertarianism is about political liberty for all individuals to do whatever is peaceful and non-aggressive. Machan was a minarchist.[2]

  1. ^ Libertarianism.org (Cato Institute) Tibor Machan
  2. ^ Machan, Tibor R. (2008). "6. Reconciling Anarchism and Minarchism". In T. Long, Roderick (ed.). Anarchism/Minarchism: Is a Government Part of a free country?. Ashgate Publishing Limited. p. 60. ISBN 978-0754660668. Against these [early individualists and anarchist libertarians] have stood, recently, Ayn Rand, and most of her students, such as David Kelley and myself, as well as other libertarians, such as John Hospers, Douglas B. Rasmussen, and Douglas J. Den Uyl, all of whom have denied the alleged anarchist implications of libertarianism.