This is philosophy bytes with me, David.
Edmonds, and me, Nigel Warburton.
Philosophy Bytes is available at www.philosophybytes.com.
Philosophy Bytes is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy.
We've already had philosophy bytes interviews about two leading political theorists of the 20th century who've always been seen as being in opposing camps.
In the right corner, Friedrich Hayek, an inspiration to Margaret Thatcher.
In the left, John Rawls, who argued that economic breaks for the best off were only justified if they had beneficial effects on the most disadvantaged members of society.
But John Tomassi believes we can and should combine elements from both thinkers.
The left has rightly stressed that a just society should look after its poorest and that all citizens should have some basic liberties, the liberty of conscience, for example, and the right to vote.
But according to Tomassi, there's a set of liberties, economic liberties, which are fundamental to how our lives go and which the left has failed to appreciate.
John Tsimasi, welcome to philosophy Bites.
Thank you, Nigel.
Happy to be here.
The topic we're going to focus on is free market fairness.
We're talking about economic freedoms.
A lot of people think there's a fundamental conflict between having a free market of any kind and fairness at all.
Yes, I think many people think that free market fairness is an oxymoron.
But I don't think that.
I think that free markets are a kind of fairness, that we decide what fairness is not by asking what markets produce, but by having philosophical arguments.
And those philosophical arguments result in a standard of evaluation that markets can satisfy.