Description
Book SynopsisThis book provides a framework for a potential paradigm of human flourishing and happiness in a free society. It is an exploratory attempt to construct an understanding from various disciplines and to integrate them into a clear, consistent, coherent, and systematic whole. Holding that there are essential interconnections among objective ideas, the book emphasizes the compatibility of Aristotelianism, Austrian economics, and Ayn Rand''s Objectivism. It argues that particular ideas from these areas can be integrated into a paradigm of human flourishing and happiness based on the nature of man and the world. Such a paradigm will help people to understand the world and to survive and flourish in it.
Trade ReviewYounkins has succeeded in assembling an internally consistent set of propositions which support the ideal of a free society and has shown through careful scholarship how each of these propositions can be derived from one possible interpretation of Aristotle, Ayn Rand or Austrian economics....Younkins’ book is engaging and I will continue to engage with it as I explore the paradox of finding economic and political conclusions. * Economic Affairs *
Edward W. Younkins’s book, Flourishing and Happiness in a Free Society, does an excellent job at integrating key insights from various philosophic and economic traditions to formulate a consistent moral framework for society. The book is best suited for those familiar with philosophy and inclined to support a minimal state . . . [H]e does a great job of educating readers who have the intellectual power to tackle difficult topics but lack prior exposure to the details of the material he discusses. * Reason Papers *
Younkins is perhaps the best intellectual integrator in our entire Austro-libertarian movement. ….[He] explain[s] in enthusiastic and loving detail how the thoughts of our intellectual parents 'link together,' and in doing so has led us into a better understanding of them than we had before. -- Walter E. Block
…An ambitious and largely successful conceptual and moral case for the free society. Closely aligned with the textual sources, his argument closes with a free-ranging discussion of the essential actions necessary to build a free society of human flourishing. -- Samuel Bostaph, Ph.D., professor and chairman, Department of Economics, University of Dallas
…An extraordinary edifice of liberty and reason…. A real contribution to human flourishing. -- Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., founder and chairman, The Ludwig von Mises Institute
A masterful feat of integration…. Informative, enlightening, and easy to read. -- Jerry Kirkpatrick, Ph.D., professor of international business and marketing, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Younkins breaks through the illusion that value-free science and value-laden moral instruction are somehow incompatible….This is an argument skeptics of liberty constantly attack and is thus continually in need of the kind of defense this book offers. -- William Kline Ph.D, associate professor of philosophy, University of Illinois
Younkins is unique in his broad grasp of Aristotelian philosophy, Austrian economics, and the Objectivism of Ayn Rand…. [This] is an exciting and wide-ranging book that will inspire economists and philosophers to bring their disciplines together to advance the state of knowledge…. -- Gary Wolfram, Ph.D., William Simon Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Hillsdale College
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Aristotle, the Aristotelian Austrians, Ayn Rand, and Beyond Chapter 1: Menger, Mises, Rand, and Beyond Chapter 2: Human Nature, Flourishing, and Happiness Chapter 3: Toward the Development of a Paradigm of Human Flourishing in a Free Society Conclusion: Creating a Good Life in a Free Society
