Robert Nozick:
Distributive Justice
Robert Nozick
(1938-2002)
 Pellegrino University Professor at
y
Harvard University
 Books: Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974);
Philosophical Explanations (1981);The Examined Life
(1989); The Nature of Rationality (1993); Invariances (2001)
 A libertarian – in favour of the minimal, “night watchman”
state: “protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of
contracts, and so on, is justified; any more extensive state
will violate persons' rights...and is unjustified” (ASU, ix)
1
The Entitlement Theory I
In a wholly just world:
1) A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the
principle of justice in acquisition is entitled to that
holding.
2) A person who acquires a holding from someone else in
accordance with the principle of justice in transfer, is
entitled to that holding.
3) No one is entitled to a holding except by (repeated)
applications of 1) and 2)
The Entitlement Theory II
Since we do not live in a wholly just world, there are
actually three components to the overall theory:
1. Justice in acquisition of holdings
2. Justice in transfer of holdings
3. Rectification of injustice in holdings
A distribution is just if it has arises in accordance with
these three sets of rules – i.e. “if everyone is entitled to
what they possess under the distribution” (236)
2
Types of Theories
Nozick asserts that all theories of distributive justice can
be categorized as:
(a) Either end-result or historical, and
(b) Either patterned or unpatterned
Nozick’s entitlement theory is historical and unpatterned.
(Marxist) socialism – “to each according to his need” – is a
patterned
tt
d + end-result
d
lt th
theory.
Rawls’ theory, says Nozick, is an end-result theory
 So, the entitlement theory does not demand that the
g from jjust acquisitions,
q
, transfers and
distribution resulting
rectifications be patterned (i.e., correlated with anything
else e.g., moral merit, need, usefulness to society)
Instead people are simply entitled to whatever they justly
acquire, through acquisition or transfer, including holdings
acquired through chance or gift.
 On Nozick’s view, any distribution is just provided it has
the appropriate history, i.e., provided that it came about in
accordance with the rules of acquisition, transfer, and/or
rectification.
3
The Wilt Chamberlain Argument
 Suppose that holdings have been distributed
according your preferred pattern D1
 Suppose also that Wilt Chamberlain (19361999) is in demand as a basketball player
and people are willing to pay to see him play
 Chamberlain signs a special contract under
¢ admission charge
g
which he receives a 25¢
for each home game. 1M people come to see him play,
voluntarily paying the 25¢ charge. Chamberlain ends up
with $250,000 that year, possibly more than anyone else
in your society…
 This new distribution D2, says Nozick, is just: Everyone
g , 1M people
p p chose to trade
had control over their holdings,
some of their holdings to watch Chamberlain play. (And
who are we to tell them what they should have spent their
money on?)
No one can claim injustice: D1 was just by hypothesis, D2
arose from D1 via only just, voluntary transfers.
 A (patterned) socialist society “would have to forbid
capitalist acts between consenting adults” (240)…
4
Rights & Self-Ownership
This can be generalized:
“…no end-state principle or distributional pattern principle
of justice can be continuously realized without continuous
interference in people’s lives.” (240)
 And that is what makes it unjustifiable: Interference of this
sort violates people’s rights
The ffamous fi
Th
firstt liline off ASU (ix):
(i ) “Individuals
“I di id l h
have certain
t i
rights, and there are things no person or group can do to
them (without violating their rights.)”
More on Redistribution
 Patterned theories are recipient focused – they restrict
an individual’s right to transfer holdings to another person
f that person’s
for
’ benefit.
f
(E.g., note on the application of the difference principle
within a family, 241)
 Patterned theories always eventually necessitate redistribution (since holdings will always deviate from the
preferred
f
d pattern
tt
over time).
ti )
“Taxation of earnings from labour is on par with forced
labour.” (242)
5
Property Rights
 As Nozick mentions, property rights are normally thought
of as rights of disposition – a property right in X entitles
the right holder to determine what will be done with X.
Though side-constraints may be set by other rules
operating in a society: “My property rights in my knife
allow me to leave it where I will, but not in your chest”
(243)
 E
End-result
d
lt principles
i i l iimpose a similar
i il (b
(butt more startling)
t tli )
constraint: They give each citizen an enforceable claim on
other people’s property—their actions and labour
Lockean Acquisition
Locke: We acquire property rights in unowned things by
“mixing our labour” with those things.
Nozick: There are some problems with this view.
 What’s the scope of my acquisition? (a whole planet?)
 Why is mixing a way of gaining property rights, rather than
losing them? (e.g., a can of tomato juice poured into the
ocean))
 If we think of gaining property rights as adding value
(rather than as ‘seepage’ from self-ownership), why does
the right extend to the whole object, rather than just to the
value added?
6
The Lockean Proviso
Locke: There should be “enough and as good left for
others”
Nozick: Our acquisition ‘should not make others worse off’
 According to Nozick, this can’t be interpreted to mean that
the proviso is violated if others are worse off in terms of
their opportunities to appropriate (otherwise it leads to a
regress argument objection, 246).
Instead, it must mean that people are made no worse off
in some other respect.
What’s the “appropriate baseline for comparison”? Nozick
does not really say…
“whether or not Locke’s particular theory of appropriation
can be spelled out so as to handle various difficulties, I
assume that any adequate theory off justice in acquisition
will contain a proviso similar to the weaker of the ones we
have attributed to Locke.” (247)
 Nozick: the proviso is violated if someone appropriates all
of something necessary to life or ends up the sole owner
of some necessary resource when all other supplies have
b
been
d
destroyed.
t
d
Of special note: The (ambiguous) medical researcher
case, 248.
7
Criticisms of Rawls
 What is a theory of distributive justice supposed to
distribute?
The total benefits of cooperation? (i.e., all wealth of
society) or,
The incremental benefits of social cooperation? (i.e.,
the wealth that wouldn’t have existed apart from social
cooperation?)
 Rawls, says Nozick, does not distinguish these, but simply
assumes the first…
 Perhaps we can’t adequately discriminate individual
j
p
product’ of cooperation?
p
((I.e.,,
contributions to the ‘joint’
then we would have a practical need for some principle of
distribution.)
 But, says Nozick, we can: Prices, e.g., fairly accurately
reflect the value of the marginal product of individual
contributions.
 Moreover, Rawls assumes that individual contributions
can at least sometimes be isolated: Otherwise, how would
we know to whom we ought to offer incentives?
8
More Criticism
 The focus on groups rather than individuals in the OP,
says Nozick, is ad hoc and inadequately explained.
Moreover, why include only people in “normal range” –
“why exclude the group of depressives or alcoholics or the
representative paraplegic?” (253)
 Why assume that the least well endowed can expect the
willing cooperation of the better endowed in a
redistributive
di t ib ti scheme?
h
? R
Rawls
l says th
thatt th
the diff
difference
principle is offered as a necessary condition for the good
of all, but the better endowed will still have grounds for
complaint under the principle: a principle that favoured
them might also provide the benefits of social cooperation.
9