I’m trying to find a quote that I heard in an undergraduate English class in the mid-80s. The gist of the quote is that fraud is a form of force.
It was attributed to John Hospers, and goes “Fraud is the . . . . . that truth gives to force.”
Can anyone help with a source, or the complete quote?
Hobbes, Leviathan.
“Force, and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues.”
If “John Hospers” has a different quote, he certainly based it upon/stole it from Hobbes.
“John Hospers” is a libertarian philosopher, assuming that term is not an oxymoron. (Is Lib lurking? :eek: )
A Google search shows that force and fraud are buzzwords that turn up frequently in his works and and in general libertarian parlance.
http://web.syr.edu/~ejwest/phi191_files/socialandeconomicjustice.pdf
I didn’t find any version of the OP’s quote, though.
And the person who uttered the quote was a libertarian who was lecturing about libertarianism, so at the time I believed the quote could have come from Hospers.
Yes. Exactly. Some libertarians claim that regulation of fraud is justified because fraud is a form of force.
Thanks!