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Jason Kuznicki

Editor

Cato Unbound, Cato Institute

Jason Kuznicki has facilitated many of the Cato Institute’s international publishing and educational projects. He is editor of Cato Unbound, and his ongoing interests include censorship, church-state issues, and civil rights in the context of libertarian political theory. He was an Assistant Editor of Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Prior to working at the Cato Institute, he served as a Production Manager at the Congressional Research Service. Kuznicki earned a Ph.D. in history from Johns Hopkins University in 2005, where his work was offered both a Fulbright Fellowship and a Chateaubriand Prize.

Blog Posts

History, progress, and the fate of gay marriage

March 23, 2017
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History

I. One of my least popular beliefs is that legally recognized same-sex marriage is likely temporary. The argument is simple: the Supreme Court is divided. The justices who are in favor are the oldest members of the Court. The sitting president (or perhaps vice-president) will probably appoint their replacements. The new justices will reverse the decision, perhaps by vitiating marriage rights even for existing couples. After that, the law is a powerful teacher. Supreme Court rulings tend to be venerated, and people usually absorb the moral norms that these decisions express. The exceptions are so

What you should know about the Non-Aggression Principle

February 24, 2017
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Role of Government

You've heard libertarians talking about it. You've seen the dank memes. But what exactly is the non-aggression principle? What does it do? And why does it get talked about so much?In this post, I'll try to explain.There are many historical antecedents to the NAP, but libertarians usually trace its current formulation to Murray Rothbard, who put it as follows: "The fundamental axiom of libertarian theory is that no one may threaten or commit violence (“aggress”) against another man’s person or property. Violence may be employed only against the man who commits such violence; that is, only

Rawls the Irrelevant

February 21, 2017
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Role of Government

As editor of Cato Unbound, I don’t actively take sides. Here, though, I’m going to be a bit polemical. My thesis is simple: If you want to square libertarianism with social justice, John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice is probably not a book you should reach for. As the term is usually used, the advocates of “social justice” are not Rawlseans. You will not win them by quoting Rawls. You will not win them by thinking like Rawls. They know what they want, and Rawls isn’t it. Rawls is for the milquetoasts of the academy; social justice is radical stuff. Whatever their origins, the two have