This 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.

"Younkins 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