John Tomasi, a professor of political science at Brown University, will give the next lecture in the Hayek Lecture Series on Thursday, November 15, at 4:00 p.m. in 217 Perkins Library. The lecture, which is open to the public, is titled "Politics and Economics." It is sponsored by the Center for the History of Political Economy; the Program in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics; and the Program in American Values and Institutions (the Gerst Program), all at Duke University.
Professor Tomasi, who is also the director of the Political Theory Project at Brown, is the author of Liberalism beyond Justice: Citizens, Society, and the Boundaries of Political Theory (Princeton University Press, 2001) and Free Market Fairness (Princeton University Press, 2012).
In Free Market Fairness, Professor Tomasi addresses the question, Can libertarians care about social justice? His answer is not only that they can but that they should. Drawing on the moral insights of defenders of economic liberty such as F. A. Hayek and advocates of social justice such as John Rawls, Professor Tomasi presents a new theory of liberal justice. The theory, free market fairness, is committed to both limited government and the material betterment of the poor.
The Hayek Lecture Series is supported by a grant from the Thomas W. Smith Foundation.