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Table of Contents
Rawls ............................................................................................................................................................ 2
Good.......................................................................................................................................................... 2
Bad ............................................................................................................................................................ 8
Nozick ......................................................................................................................................................... 11
Good........................................................................................................................................................ 11
Bad .......................................................................................................................................................... 16
“…within black holes or whatever.”
-Robert Nozick
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SCFI 2012 Justice File
Rawls
Good
SHARED CONCEPTION OF JUSTICE IS NECESSARY FOR WELL-ORDERED SOCIETY
John Rawls, Philosopher, A THEORY OF JUSTICE, 1971, p. 5.
If men’s inclination to self-interest makes their vigilance against one another necessary, their public
sense of justice makes their
secure association together possible. Among individuals with disparate aims and purposes a shared
conception of justice establishes the bonds of civic friendship; the general desire for justice limits
the pursuit of other ends. One may think of a public conception of justice as constituting the
fundamental charter of a well-ordered human association.
JUSTICE IS GROUNDED IN SHARED CONCEPTIONS
John Rawls, Philosopher, POST-ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY, 1985, p. 201, 202
When fully articulated, any
conception of justice expresses a conception of the person, of the relations
between persons, and of the general structure and ends of social cooperation. To accept the
principles that represent a conception of justice is at the same time to accept an ideal of the person.
In acting from these principles we realize such an ideal. A well-ordered society is effectively regulated by a public
conception of justice. That is, it is a society all of whose members accept, and know that the others
accept, the same principles (the same conception) of justice. It is also the case that basic social institutions and
their arrangement into one scheme (the basic structure) actually satisfy, and are on good grounds believed
by everyone to satisfy, these principles.
SOCIAL JUSTICE FAIRLY DISTRIBUTES THE BENEFITS AND BURDENS OF SOCIETY
John Rawls, Philosopher, A THEORY OF JUSTICE, 1971, p. 4.
There is a conflict of interests [among members of a society] since persons are not indifferent as to
how the greater benefits produced by their collaboration are distributed, for in order to pursue
their ends they each prefer a larger to a lesser share. A set of principles is required for choosing
among the various social arrangements which determine this division of advantages and for
underwriting an agreement on the proper distributive shares. These principles are the principles of
social justice: they provide a way of assigning rights and duties in the basic institutions of society
and they define the appropriate distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation.
JUSTICE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT VALUE OF SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
John Rawls, Philosopher, A THEORY OF JUSTICE, 1971, p. 3.
Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is to systems of thought. A theory however
elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no
matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. Each
person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole
cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a
“…within black holes or whatever.”
-Robert Nozick
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greater good shared by others.
JUSTICE REQUIRES THAT PEOPLE TREAT OTHERS WITH LOVING RESPECT
Leonard, C. Feldstein, NQA, THE VALUE OF JUSTICE, 1979, p. 60.
In short, justice requires that truth of others be grasped as a representation of the interplay of the
powers of both, a representation which is self-emending. In consequence, justice presupposes the
idea of participatory truth: namely, that kind of mutual entrusting which is suffused by hope and,
in the last analysis, identical with love, though love in a narrower sense than the kind of love which
qualifies integrity, and in its supreme form pervades wisdom.
In consistency with reflective equilibrium, actors deliberate correct principles behind a veil of
ignorance where rights are distributed where we do not know our social status, gender, race, and
other characteristics. This creates an unbiased agreement. Lyons writes:1
Other important conditions laid down by Rawls are designed not only to simplify the choice problem but also to guarantee the moral quality of the outcome. For example,
Rawls imposes certain constraints "associated with the concept of right" (130ff) and restricts the
alternative principles for consideration by the parties to "recognizably ethical" conceptions (125). Also, the
such as the principles of (true) social theory; but they
specific interests,
parties
are assumed to have whatever general information is relevant to their deliberations,
are deprived of specific information about their society, their own status in it, their
and their natural endowments - Rawls calls this a "veil of ignorance" (136ff). Given this knowledge and lack of knowledge ,
each party must reason
from the same premises; so, if any one forms a preference, universal agreement on
the point is presumably guaranteed (140). Also, moral principles are supposed to be "general," and the veil of ignorance helps to
meet this constraint by
prevent[s] the contractors from rigging principles to serve their special
interests (131). They are, as it were, forced to decide impartially (
190).
After the parties have chosen principles to govern in
ideal cir- cumstances, they are to lay down guidelines for less happy condi- tions-when, for example, institutions do not satisfy the shared conception of justice, or different
conceptions compete for accept- ance in society, or some persons pose a serious threat to the security of others (chap. iv). Rawls informally extends his argument to cover such
cases. The results are highly complex, and it can be said that they express a bias toward liberty (152). But it would appear that Rawls's general conception of justice is most
generally supposed to apply.
Indeed, the veil of ignorance is the only method to express the moral equality of persons by
reducing them to their moral capacities. Freeman:
Another reason for Rawls's “thick” veil of ignorance is that it is designed to be a “position of equality” (TJ, 12/11) that represents persons purely in their capacity as free and equal
moral persons. The
parties in the original position do not know any particular facts about themselves or society; they all have the same general information made
available to them. They
are then situated equally in a very strong way, “symmetrically” (JF 18)and purely as free and equal moral persons. They
know only characteristics and interests of themselves in their capacity as moral
persons—their interests in developing the moral powers of justice and rationality, their need for the primary social goods, and so on. The moral
1 David Lyons [Cornell University professor]. Rawls Versus Utilitarianism. The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 69, No. 18, Sixty-Ninth Annual
Meeting of theAmerican Philosophical Association Eastern Division (Oct. 5, 1972), pp. 535-545
“…within black holes or whatever.”
-Robert Nozick
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powers are the “ basis of equality, the features of human beings in virtue of which
they are to be treated in accordance with the principles of justice” (TJ, 504/441). Knowledge of the moral
powers and their essential role in social cooperation, along with knowledge of other general facts, is all that is morally relevant, Rawls believes, to a decision on principles of
justice that are to reflect people's status as free and equal moral persons.
A thick veil of ignorance thus represents the equality
of persons purely as moral persons, and not in any other contingent capacity or social role. In this regard the veil interprets the Kantian
idea of equality as equal respect for moral persons (cf. CP 255).
This is the only method gives an actor a reason to be moral and provides a reason to provide
good principles for society. Habermas explains Rawls2:
Rawls conceives of the original position as a situation in which rationally choosing representatives of the citizens are subject to the specific constraints that guarantee an impartial
judgment of practical questions.
The concept of full autonomy is reserved for the citizens who already live
under the institutions of a well-ordered society. For the construction of the original position, Rawls [The Veil] splits this
concept of political autonomy into two elements: the morally neutral characteristics of
parties who seek their rational advantage, on the one hand, and the morally substantive situational
constraints under which those parties choose principles for a system of fair cooperation,
on the other. These normative constraints permit the parties to be endowed with a minimum of properties, in particular, “The capacity
for a conception of the good
questions of particular plans of life,
(and thus to be rational). “Regardless of whether the parties entertain exclusively purposive-rational considerations or also address ethical
they always reach their decisions in light of their value orientations
(that is from the perspective of the groups of citizens they represent).
They need not regard matters from the moral point of view which would require them to
take account of what is in the equal interest of all, for this impartiality is exacted by a situation that throws a veil of
ignorance over the mutually disinterested, though free and equal parties.
Because the latter do not know which positions
they will occupy in the society that it is their task to order, they find themselves
constrained already by their self-interest to reflect on what is equally good for all.
This solves for takes into account our inability to determine which society we start in. Rawls:
Justice as fairness begins, as I have said, with one of the most general of all choices which persons might make
together, namely,
with the choice of the first principles of a conception of justice which is
to regulate all subsequent criticism and reform of institutions. Then, having chosen a conception of justice, we
can suppose that they are to choose a constitution and a legislature to enact laws, and so on, all in accordance with the principles of
justice initially agreed upon.
Our social situation is just if it is such that by this sequence of
hypothetical agreements we would have contracted into the general system of rules
2
Jurgen habermas. Reconciliation through the public use of reason: Remarks on John Rawls’s
Political Liberalism. The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 92, No. 3 (Mar., 1995) 109-131.
“…within black holes or whatever.”
-Robert Nozick
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which defines it. Moreover, assuming that the original position does determine a set of principles (that is, that a particular
conception of justice would be chosen), it will then be true that whenever social institutions satisfy these principles those engaged in
them can say to one another that they are cooperating on terms to which they would agree if they were free and equal persons whose
relations with respect to one another were fair. They could all view their arrangements as meeting the stipulations which they would
acknowledge in an initial situation that embodies widely accepted and reasonable constraints on the choice of principles. The general
recognition of this fact would provide the basis for a public acceptance of the corresponding principles of justice .
No society
can, of course, be a scheme of cooperation which men enter voluntarily in a literal sense; each
person finds himself placed at birth in some particular position in some particular society, and the
nature of this position materially affects his life prospects. Yet a society satisfying the
principles of justice as fairness comes as close as a society can to being a voluntary scheme, for
it meets the principles which free and equal persons would assent to under circumstances
that are fair. In this sense its members are autonomous and the obligations they recognize self-imposed.
Health care precludes the ability to have a productive life. Henneberger explains Daniels3:
Good health is fundamental in most conceptions of the good life. Health allows one to live a life that coincides with a normal human
life span. However, this is not the only reason why health is important.
participate in activities and
Good health is generally necessary in order to
be the subject of experiences. As Norman Daniels argues it is not the notion
that good health is important for happiness that makes healthcare a special need but the
importance of good health in opportunity 14 (Daniels, 387). A lack of health limits one’s function precluding
the activities and experiences which are vital to the human experience.
Healthcare is the best means by which
to correct and prevent ill health. Though our treatments are not perfect in restoring health they are often
effective in bringing back some degree of function, if only temporarily. Healthcare includes three
categories of medical intervention: preventive, therapeutic, and palliative. None of the three is essential for all people; there are
certainly individuals who never receive any sort of treatment and are of good health for the length of a normal human lifespan. Most,
however, will experience all types of care to some extent. Preventive care can be as simple as education in healthful living, therapeutic
care could just be setting a broken bone, and palliative care includes the administration of painkillers as basic as aspirin. Additionally,
each category can be extended to include the most advanced procedures available.
Most individuals will experience
the need for a level of care between these two extremes dependent upon their allotment in the natural lottery. As a
consequence of the social lottery, however,
they may not be able to afford the necessary healthcare.
The veil of ignorance guarantees health care if the actor became unable to afford it.
Henneberger 2:
3
Healthcare and Justice: A Moral Obligation? Ian Henneberger Connecticut College, ian.henneberger@conncoll.edu
“…within black holes or whatever.”
-Robert Nozick
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Advantaged persons in the framework of social cooperation should have little difficulty securing
healthcare for themselves. If not born into wealth they could at least parlay their talents into the funds necessary for
care.
Individuals poorly endowed in reality, however, have little hope of obtaining
healthcare. Blinded by the 16 veil of ignorance those in the original position would assent to
principles of justice which ensure access to healthcare in the event that they are in
actuality
poorly endowed. The difference principle provides the means to make this provision as it sets aside compensating
benefits for these individuals. One could imagine this coming in the form of taxes levied against those who have used their talents to
create exceptional personal wealth. Their opportunity to succeed is partially dependent upon the less well off and therefore they must
offer compensation. Individuals
in the original position would agree to a stipulation that
compensating benefits are put towards healthcare.
Health care is necessary to stop unjustified inequalities. Coogan4 :
Rawls himself does not discuss health care and attempts at expanding his theory to include health care considerations are inadequate.
However, to escape the critique raised by Sen and Nussbaum, an acceptable justification for the public provision of health care must
be found within Rawls’s theory. Recall that Sen and Nussbaum point out that
individuals vary in their ability to
use means, or the primary goods, to achieve their ends, or conception of the good. Many of these
variations arise from specific health needs. In order to mitigate the inequalities that
result from
variations in individuals’ ability to make use of their share of goods, basic
health needs must be met. The most direct and defensible account of health care justice under the Rawlsian
framework is to
[must] include health care itself as a primary good. Extending the list of primary good
is reasonable, because Rawls conceived of the list as flexible and in several places notes that extending them may be necessary. Health
care is an appropriate addition to the list because it fits within the larger objectives of the theory and within the definition of primary
goods.
Furthermore, this approach is preferable to other attempts at determining a system of just health care
with Rawls’s principles because
it allows for an expanded conception of health care, one that
will best ensure that the minimum standard of equality in health care is met.
ECONOMIC JUSTICE IS BASED ON FAIRNESS, FREEDOM AND EQUALITY
Peter D. McLelland, Cornell University, THE AMERICAN SEARCH FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE,
1990 p. 295.
At the core of American beliefs about the justice of their economic system is the premise that the
race is reasonably fair, with fairness viewed as largely a matter of assuring the freedom and
equality of the participants both at the starting line and on the course. The meaning of both terms
(freedom and equality) can change as our understanding of human nature changes, and with these
alterations can come new priorities and policies in the name of either freedom or equality. Admittedly many
4
Rawls and Health Care Elizabeth H. Coogan Colby College
“…within black holes or whatever.”
-Robert Nozick
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SCFI 2012 Justice File
improvements in the fairness of the race--both those accomplished in the past and those yet to be addressed at present--require no overhaul of
intellectual framework but simply facing up to the practical implications of old priorities. The
reining in of the unfair use of
undue power, the attack on discriminatory practices in the marketplace--these can be undertaken
and have been undertaken because of a recognized inconsistency between certain economic
behavior and longstanding notions of freedom and equality ad those notions pertain to desirable
conditions for fairness in an economic race.
LAWS DERIVE AUTHORITY FROM JUSTICE
Moitimer I. Adler, Chairman of the Board of Editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica, SIX GREAT
IDEAS, 1981, p. 197.
The man made law of the state derives its authority from justice in each of three ways: (1) by the
enactment of measures that protect natural rights; (2) by legislation that prescribes or safeguards
fairness in transactions among individuals; (3) by regulating matters affected with the public
interest for the general welfare of the community.
ECONOMIC JUSTICE ESTABLISHES A MORE MORALLY VIRTUOUS SOCIETY
Gerald M. Mara, Associate Dean for Research in the Graduate School of Political Science at Georgetown University, THE DEEPER
MEANING OF ECONOMIC LIFE, 1986, p. 174.
The morally virtuous person's attitude toward material accumulation will reflect the decidedly
partial or subordinate character of economic goods. The proper attitude toward material things in
neither greed nor asceticism, but a certain kind of moderation as regards one's own needs and a
certain kind of magnanimity and generosity toward others. Thus, governmental policies to alleviate
misery are not understood simply as social engineering, but also as part of a city's overall efforts to
assist in the development of a more morally virtuous character.
SEEKING COMPETITIVENESS LEADS TO POOR ECONOMIC POLICY
Paul Krugman, Professor of economics at MIT, FOREIGN AFFAIRS, March/April 1994, p.
41.
Thinking and speaking in terms of competitiveness poses three real dangers. First, it could result in
the wasteful spending of government money supposedly to enhance US competitiveness. Second, it
could lead to protectionism and trade wars. Finally, and most important, it could result in bad
public policy on a spectrum of issues. A much more serious risk is that the obsession with competitiveness will lead to trade
conflict, perhaps even to a world trade war. Most of those who have preached the doctrine of competitiveness have not been old-fashioned
protectionists. They want their countries to win the global trade game, not drop out. But what
if, despite its best efforts, a
country does not seem to be winning, or lacks the confidence that it can? Then the competitive
diagnosis inevitably suggests to close the borders is better than to risk having foreigners take away
high-wage jobs and high-value sectors.
“…within black holes or whatever.”
-Robert Nozick
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Bad
RAWLS’ TEST FOR JUST ACTIONS ALLOWS FOR IMMORAL ACTIONS
Vinit Haksar, University of Edinburgh, ANALYSIS, Vol. 32, 1972, p. 150-1.
Rawls allows, as I said at the beginning of this paper, the possibility that some practices are unjust but on the
whole moral. But if we use his method of testing the justice of practice, it could happen that people
in a position of equal liberty opt for practices that are unjust but on the whole moral. For once one
allows that choices in the state of equal liberty are subject to moral constraints, people may at least
sometimes opt for a practice that is on the whole morally desirable, even if it is unjust. So an unjust
but morally desirable practice may be considered just by Rawls’ test, which is absurd.
RATIONAL CHOICES ARE NOT THE SAME AS ETHICAL CHOICES
John Schaar, NQA, SOCIAL THEORY AND PRACTICE, Vol. 3, 1974, p. 79.
Rawls has not escaped the curse of all egoistic arguments for moral principles: “One can neither
draw blood from a stone nor extract moral principles from the decisions of rational egoists.” We
might, on various occasions and by various criteria, describe the decisions of such actors as prudent
or reasonable, but it strains language to call them moral. Rawls does strain language in exactly this
way when he subsumes ethical choices under the theory of rational choice. There are connections,
of course, but not identity: the theory of justice is part of, but also something more than, the theory
of rational choice.
RAWLS ALLOWS FOR JUST ACTIONS TO ALSO BE IMMORAL
Vinit Haksar, University of Edinburgh, ANALYSIS, Vol. 32, 1972, p. 151.
The chief criticism that I have made against Rawls in this paper does not arise from the fact that what is prima facie just may not be really just.
My criticism arises from the fact if
the choices of the people in a state of equal liberty are subject to moral
constraints, then Rawls’ test will cease to be a test of justice, since his system allows that what is
really just may be really immoral on the whole. Also, it is worth distinguishing my criticism from another criticism that
some moralists may make against Rawls’ system, viz, that Rawls’ system is morally repugnant merely because it
allows the possibilities that practices that are unjust may be moral, and that practices that are just
may be immoral.
Rawls’ conception of rights flawed – fails to explain why small incursions on liberty would
threaten citizenship.
Taylor, professor of philosophy @ Princeton. 2003.
Robert. “Rawl’s Defense of the Priority of Liberty: A Kantian Reconstruction.” Princeton University
Press. Philosophy & Public Affairs 31, No. 3, Pg 5. Project MUSE.
Up to this point, Rawls has said nothing about the priority of the basic liberties; rather, he has focused exclusively on their equal
provision. Only at the end of his main presentation of the Self-Respect Argument does he briefly discuss the Priority of Liberty: When it is
the position of equal citizenship that answers to the need for status, the precedence of the equal liberties becomes all the more
Having chosen a conception of justice that seeks to eliminate the significance of relative
economic and social advantages as supports for men’s self-confidence, it is essential that the
necessary.
“…within black holes or whatever.”
-Robert Nozick
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priority of liberty be firmly maintained (p. 478).These two sentences provide a good illustration of
what I earlier called the Inference Fallacy: Rawls tries to derive the lexical priority of the basic liberties from the central
importance of an interest they support—in this case, an interest in securing self-respect for all citizens. Without question, the Self-
makes a strong case for assigning the basic liberties a high priority: otherwise,
economic and social inequalities might reemerge as the primary determinants of status and
therefore of self-respect. It does not explain, however, why lexical priority is needed. Why, for
example, would very small restrictions on the basic liberties threaten the social basis of selfrespect, so long as they were equally applied to all citizens? Such restrictions would involve no
subordination and, being very small, would be unlikely to jeopardize the central importance of
equal citizenship as a determinant of status.
Respect Argument
Rawls fails to provide warrants for the absolute preservation of basic liberties over other
ends.
Taylor, professor of philosophy @ Princeton. 2003.
Robert. “Rawl’s Defense of the Priority of Liberty: A Kantian Reconstruction.” Princeton University
Press. Philosophy & Public Affairs 31, No. 3, Pgs 20-21. Project MUSE.
Although Rawls briefly discusses and defends the Priority of Liberty early in Political Liberalism (PL, pp. 41, 74, 76), his most sustained
arguments for it are to be found late in the book, in the lecture entitled “The Basic Liberties and Their Priority.” All of these arguments
are framed in terms of Justice as Fairness rather than liberal political conceptions of justice more generally, a point to which we will
return below. The three arguments for the Priority of Liberty that we identified in Theory can also be found in Political Liberalism, and
both their strengths and weaknesses carry over into the new context.18 At least two new arguments can be found, however, arguments
that I will refer to as the Stability Argument and the Well-Ordered Society Argument, respectively. As I will now show, both of these
arguments are further illustrations of the Inference Fallacy. The Stability Argument has a structure similar to that of the Self- Respect
Argument. In it, Rawls
notes the “great advantage to everyone’s conception of the good of a . . . stable
scheme of cooperation,” and he goes on to assert that Justice as Fairness is “the most stable
conception of justice . . . and this is the case importantly because of the basic liberties and the
priority assigned to them.”Taking the second point first, Rawls never makes clear why the Priority of Liberty
is necessary for stability, as opposed to strongly contributory to it. Very small restrictions on the
basic liberties would seem unlikely to threaten it, and some types of restrictions (e.g., imposing fines for
the advocacy of violent revolution or race hatred) might actually enhance it. Even if we assume, however, that the Priority of
Liberty is necessary for stability, this fact is not enough to justify it: as highly valued as stability is, sacrificing the basic
liberties that make it possible may be worthwhile if such a sacrifice is necessary to advance other
highly valued ends. Pointing out the high priority of stability, in other words, is insufficient to justify
the lexical priority of the basic liberties that support it—only the lexical priority of stability would do
so, yet Rawls provides no argument for why stability should be so highly valued.
Rawls’ conception of personal freedom cannot resolve utilitarian democratic ideals.
Taylor, professor of philosophy @ Princeton. 2003.
Robert. “Rawl’s Defense of the Priority of Liberty: A Kantian Reconstruction.” Princeton University
Press. Philosophy & Public Affairs 31, No. 3, Pgs 22-23. Project MUSE.
Rawls speculates that “the narrower the differences between the liberal conceptions when correctly based on fundamental ideas in a
democratic public culture . . . the narrower the range of liberal conceptions defining the focus of the consensus.”25 By “correctly based,”
Rawls appears to mean at least two things: first, that the conceptions should be built on the “more central” of these fundamental ideas;
second, that these ideas should be interpreted in the right way (PL, pp. 167–68). For example, Rawls
asserts that his
“conception of the person as free and equal” is “central to the democratic ideal” (PL, p. 167). This
idea is in competition with other democratic ideas, however (e.g., the idea of the “common good”
as it is understood by classical republicans), as well as with other interpretations of the same idea
(e.g., the utilitarian understanding of “equality” as the equal consideration of each person’s
welfare). A necessary condition, then, for Justice as Fairness to be the focus of an overlapping
“…within black holes or whatever.”
-Robert Nozick
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consensus would be for adherents of all reasonable comprehensive doctrines to endorse this idea,
along with the interpretation Rawls gives it, as more “central to the democratic ideal” than other fundamental
ideas. If they were to accept not only this idea but also its companion idea of society as “a fair system of cooperation,” then the
procedures of political constructivism (including the Original Position) would presumably lead them to select Justice as Fairness as their
political conception of justice.
DISTRIBUTION OF JUSTICE MUST BE EQUAL
Anthony Flew, NQA, EQUALITY IN LIBERTY AND JUSTICE, 1989, p. 147.
What is primarily preposterous is to present this (if not exactly self-denying then at any rate) individualitydenying ordinance as a first and necessary step towards developing a conception of, in particular,
justice. Certainly, if all possible grounds for any morally irrelevant, then indeed—always allowing that
anyone is still to be allowed to deserve or to be entitled to anything at all—it does become obvious
that everyone’s deserts and entitlements must be equal. Yet it is precisely and only upon what
individuals severally and individually are, and have doe or failed to do, that all their several and
surely often very unequal particular deserts and entitlements cannot but be based. It is, therefore,
bizarre so superciliously to dismiss it all as ‘from a moral point of view’, irrelevant.
“…within black holes or whatever.”
-Robert Nozick
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Nozick
Good
Morality comes before politics
Nozick5 writes:
Some anarchists have claimed not merely that we would be better off without the state, but that any state necessarily violates people’s moral
Moral
philosophy sets the background for, and boundaries of, political philosophy. What persons may
and may not do to one another limits what they may do through the apparatus of a state, or do to
establish an apparatus. The moral prohibitions it is permissible to enforce are the source of
whatever legitimacy the state’s fundamental coercive power has. (Fundamental coercive power is power not resting
upon any consent of the person to whom it is applied.) This provides a primary arena of state activity, perhaps the
only legitimate arena. Furthermore, to the extent moral philosophy is unclear and gives rise to disagreements in people’s moral
rights and hence is intrinsically immoral. Our starting point then, though nonpolitical, is by intention far from non-moral.
judgments, it also sets problems which one might think could be appropriately handled in the political arena.
Moral theory is not concerned with positive obligations, but rather about negative ones
Nozick, professor at Harvard, writes6:
Isn't it irrational to accept a side constraint C, rather than a view that directs minimizing the violations of C? (The latter view treats C as a
condition rather than a constraint. ) If nonviolation of C is so important, shouldn't that be the goal? How can a concern for the nonviolation of C
lead to the refusal to violate C even when this would prevent other more extensive violations of C? What is the rationale for placing the
nonviolation of rights as a side constraint upon action instead of including it solely as a goal of one's actions? Side
constraints upon
action reflect the underlying Kantian principle that individuals are ends and not merely means; they may
not be sacrificed or used for the achieving of other ends without their consent. Individuals are
inviolable. More should be said to illuminate this talk of ends and means. Consider a prime example of a means, a tool.
There is no side constraint on how we may use a tool, other than the moral constraints on how we may use it upon
others. There are procedures to be followed to preserve it for future use ("don't leave it out in the rain"), and there are more and less efficient
ways of using it. But there is no limit on what we may do to it to best achieve our goals. Now imagine that there was an overrideable
constraint C on some tool's use. For example, the tool might have been lent to you only on the condition that C not be violated unless the gain
from doing so was above a certain specified amount, or unless it was necessary to achieve a certain specified goal. Here the object is not
completely your tool, for use according to your wish or whim. But it is a tool nevertheless, even with regard to the overrideable constraint. If
we add constraints on its use that may not be overridden, then the object may not be used as a tool
in those ways. In those respects, it is not a tool at all. Can one add enough constraints so that an object cannot be used as a tool at all, in any
respect? Can behavior toward a person be constrained so that he is not to be used for any end except as he chooses? This is an impossibly stringent condition if it requires everyone who provides
us with a good to approve positively of every use to which we wish to put it. Even the requirement that he merely should not object to any use we plan would seriously curtail bilateral exchange,
not to mention sequences of such exchanges. It is sufficient that the other party stands to gain enough from the exchange so that he is willing to go through with it, even though he objects to one
or more of the uses to which you shall put the good. Under such conditions, the other party is not being used solely as a means, in that respect. Another party, however, who would not choose to
interact with you if he knew of the uses to which you intend to put his actions or good, is being used as a means, even if he receives enough to choose (in his ignorance) to interact with you. ("All
along, you were just using me" can be said by someone who chose to interact only because he was ignorant of another's goals and of the uses to which he himself would be put.) Is it morally
incumbent upon someone to reveal his intended uses of an interaction if he has good reason to believe the other would refuse to interact if he knew? Is he using the other person, if he does not
reveal this? And what of the cases where the other does not choose to be of use at all? In getting pleasure from seeing an attractive person go by, does one use the other solely as a means? 1Does
someone so use an object of sexual fantasies? These and related questions raise very interesting issues for moral philosophy; but not, I think, for political philosophy. Political philosophy is
A specific side constraint upon action
toward others expresses the fact that others may not be used in the specific ways the side constraint
excludes. Side constraints express the inviolability of others, in the ways they specify. These modes of inviolability are expressed by the
concerned only with certain ways that persons may not use others; primarily, physically aggressing against them.
following injunction: "Don't use people in specified ways." An end-state view, on the other hand, would express the view that people are ends and not merely means (if it chooses to express
this view at all), by a different injunction: "Minimize the use in specified ways of persons as means." Following this precept itself may involve using someone as a means in one of the ways
5 Robert, former Professor of Philosophy at Harvard, “Anarchy, State, and Utopia,” 1974. P. 6
6 Robert, former Professor of Philosophy at Harvard, “Anarchy, State, and Utopia,” 1974. p. 30-33.
“…within black holes or whatever.”
-Robert Nozick
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specified. Had Kant held this view, he would have given the second formula of the categorical imperative as, "So act as to minimize the use of humanity simply as a means," rather than the one
he actually used: "Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end." f
Side constraints express the inviolability of other persons. But why may not one violate persons for the greater social good? Individually, we each sometimes choose to undergo some pain or
sacrifice for a greater benefit or to avoid a greater harm: we go to the dentist to avoid worse suffering later; we do some unpleasant work for its results; some persons diet to improve their health
or looks; some save money to support themselves when they are older. In each case, some cost is borne for the sake of the greater overall good. Why not, similarly, hold that some persons have to
there is no social entity with a good that undergoes
some sacrifice for its own good. There are only individual people, different individual people, with
their own individual lives. Using one of these people for the benefit of others, uses him and benefits
the others. Nothing more. What happens is that something is done to him for the sake of others. Talk of an overall social good
covers this up. (Intentionally?) To use a person in this way does not sufficiently respect and take account
of the fact that he is a separate person, that his is the only life he has. He does not get some
overbalancing good from his sacrifice, and no one is entitled to force this upon him—least of all a
state or government that claims his allegiance (as other individuals do not) and that therefore scrupulously must be neutral
bear some costs that benefit other persons more, for the sake of the oveiall social good? But
between its citizens.
A government’s role is only that of a minimalist state
Nozick7 writes:
Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their
rights). So strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do. How much
room do individual rights leave for the state? The nature of the state, its legitimate functions and its justifications, if any, is the central concern of
this book; a wide and diverse variety of topics intertwine in the course of our investigation. Our main conclusions about the state are that a
minimal state, limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement
of contracts, and so on, is justified; that any more extensive state will violate persons’ rights no to be
forced to do certain things, and is unjustified; and that the minimal state is inspiring as well as right. Two noteworthy
implications are that the state may not use its coercive apparatus for the purpose of getting some citizens
to aid others, or in order to prohibit activities to people for their own good or protection. Despite the
fact that is only coercive routes toward these goals that are excluded, while voluntary ones remain, many persons will reject our conclusions
instantly, knowing they don’t want to believe anything so apparently callous toward the needs and sufferings of others.
People are free to participate in a society that permits voluntary choices
Nozick8 concludes:
The moral side constraints upon what we may do, I claim, reflect the fact of our separate existences.
They reflect the fact that no moral balancing act can take place among us; there is no moral outweighing of
one of our lives by others so as to lead to a greater overall social good. There is no justified sacrifice
of some of us for others. This root idea, namely, that there are different individuals with separate lives and
so no one may be sacrificed for others, underlies the existence of moral side constraints, but it also, I believe, leads to a
libertarian side constraint that prohibits aggression against another.
And, REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IS THE EQUIVALENT OF GIVING PEOPLE A PROPERTY
RIGHT IN EACH OTHER’S LABOR
Nozick9 continues:
7
Ibid. p. ix
Ibid. p. 33
9
Ibid. p. 171-172
8
“…within black holes or whatever.”
-Robert Nozick
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When end-result principles of distributive justice are built into the legal structure of a society, they
(as do most patterned principles) give each citizen an enforceable claim to some portion of the total social
product; that is, to some portion of the sum total of the individually and jointly made products.
This total product is produced by individuals laboring, suing means of production others have
saved to bring into existence, by people organizing production or creating means to produce new
things or things in a new way. It is on this batch of individual activities that patterned distributional
principles give each individual an enforceable claim. Each person has a claim to the activities and the products of other
persons, independently of whether the other persons enter into particular relationships that give rise to these claims, and independently of whether
they voluntarily take these claims upon themselves, in charity or in exchange for something. Whether
it is done through taxation
on wages or on wages over a certain amount, or through seizure of profits, or through there being a big social
pot so that it’s not clear what’s coming from where and what’s going where , patterned principles of distributive justice
involve appropriating the actions of other persons. Seizing the results of someone’s labor is
equivalent to seizing hours from him and directing him to carry on vairuos activities. If people
force you to do certain work, or unrewarded work, for a certain period of time, they decide what
you are to do and what purposes your work is to serve apart from your decisions. This process
whereby they take this decision from you makes them a part-owner of you; it gives them a property
right in you. Just as having such partial control and power of decisions, by right, over an animal or inanimate object would be to have a
property right in it. End-state and most patterned principles of distributive justice institute (partial)
ownership by others of people and their actions and labor. These principles involve a shift from the classical liberals’
notion of self-ownership to a notion of (partial) property rights in other people.
Rights must not be violated; util sucks
Nozick10 furthers:
This question assumes that a moral concern can function only as a moral goal, as an end state for some activities to achieve as their result. It may, indeed, seem to be a necessary truth that
“right,” “ought,” “should,” and so on, are to be explained in terms of what is, or is intended to be, productive of the greatest good, with all goals built into the good. Thus it is often thought that
what is wrong with utilitarianism (which is of this form) is its too narrow conception of good. Utilitarianism doesn’t, it is said, properly take rights and their nonviolation into account;
it instead leaves them a derivative status. Many of the counterexample cases to utilitarianism fit under this objection, for example, punishing an innocent man to save a neighborhood from a
suppose some
condition about minimizing the total (weighted) amount of violations of rights is built into the
desirable end state to be achieved. We then would have something like a “utilitarianism of rights”;
violations of rights (to be minimized) merely would replace the total happiness as the relevant end
state in the utilitarian structure. (Note that we do not hold the nonviolation of our rights as our sole greatest good or even rank it
vengeful rampage. But a theory may include in a primary way the nonviolation of rights, yet include it in the wrong place and the wrong manner. For
first lexicographically to exclude trade-offs, if there is some desirable society we would choose to inhabit even though in it some rights of ours
sometimes are violated, rather than move to a desert island where we could survive alone.) This
still would require us to violate
someone’s rights when doing so minimizes the total (weighted) amount of the violation of rights in
the society. For example, violating someone’s rights might deflect others from their intended action of gravely violating rights, or might remove their motive for doing so, or
might divert their attention, and so on. A mob rampaging through a part of town killing and burning will violate the rights of those living there. Therefore, someone might try to justify his
punishing another he knows to be innocent of a crime that enraged a mob, on the grounds that punishing this innocent person would help to avoid even greater violations of rights by others, and
so would lead a minimum weighted score for rights violations in the society.
Individual liberty is the overriding moral imperative
Nock (Christopher John, “Equal Freedom and Unequal Property: A Critique of Nozick’s Libertarian Case” p. 677-678 Published by:
Canadian Political Science Association Vol. 25, No. 4, Dec., 1992
10
Ibid. P. 28-29
“…within black holes or whatever.”
-Robert Nozick
14
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http://www.jstor.org.hal.weber.edu:2200/stable/3229683?seq=2&Search=yes&searchText=nozick&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasic
Search%3FQuery%3Dnozick%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don&prevSearch=&item=9&ttl=7228&returnArticleService=showFullText&resultsServi
ceName=null)
Nozick, however, insists that, if
we are to preserve the sanctity of individual liberty, utilitarian
considerations must not be allowed to influence the nature of the property relations. This view stems
from his commitment to the classical liberal principle of equal liberty, which maintains that all sane adult individuals
have the right to govern their own lives as they see fit, provided that each respects the equal right of
all others to do the same. For Nozick, this libertarian principle must operate as an overriding
moral imperative which demands that people be treated as the final arbiters of their own
desires/value-preferences/interests. It is on the basis of this principle that he holds that individuals have created for
themselves private and exclusive entitlement to certain properties in land and other means of
production. The dictates of liberty require that they be left free to dispose of these properties as
they will, without regard for wider socio-economic concerns. As such, for Nozick, inviolable capitalist
property rights are a necessary corollary of the free society.
One is only entitled to what is acquired through just distributions
Sandel, Prof. of Government, Harvard University, (Michael Sandel [Prof. of Government, Harvard
University], Justice: What’s The Right Thing To Do?, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, p. 62-63) writes:
According to Nozick, there is nothing wrong with economic inequality as such. Simply knowing that the Forbes 400 have billions while others
are penniless doesn’t enable you to conclude anything about the justice or injustice of the arrangement. Nozick
rejects the idea that a
just distribution consists of a certain pattern – such as equal income, or equal utility, or equal
provision of basic needs. What matters Is how the distribution came about. Nozick rejects patterned theories of
justice in favor of those that honor the choices peoples make in free markets. He argues that distributive justice depends on two
requirements – justice in initial holdings and justice in transfer. 3 The first asks if the resources you
used to make your money were legitimately yours in the first place. (If you made a fortune selling stolen goods,
you would not be entitled to the proceeds.) The second asks if you made your money either through free
exchanges in the marketplace or from gifts voluntarily bestowed upon you by others. If the answer
to both questions is yes, you are entitled to what you have, and the state may not take it without
your consent. Provided no one starts out with ill-gotten gains, any distribution that results from a
free market is just, however equal or unequal it turns out to be.
TAXATION IS ON PAR WITH FORCED LABOR
Nozick11 continues:
Taxation of earnings from labor is on par with forced labor.* Some persons find this claim obviously true: taking
the earnings of n hours labor is like taking n hours from the person; it is like forcing the person to
work n hours for another’s purpose. Others find the claim absurd. But even these, if they object to
forced labor, would oppose forcing unemployed hippies to work for the benefit of the needy.† And they would also object to
forcing each person to work five extra hours each week for the benefit of the needy. But a system that takes
five hours’ wages in taxes does not seem to them like one that forces someone to work five hours, since it offers the person forced a wider range
of choice in activities than does taxation in kind with the particular labor specified. (But we can imagine a gradation of systems of forced labor,
from one that specifies a particular activity, to one that gives a choice among two activities, to … ; and so on up.) Furthermore, people envisage a
11
Ibid. p. 169-171
“…within black holes or whatever.”
-Robert Nozick
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SCFI 2012 Justice File
system with something like a proportional tax on everything above the amount necessary for basic needs. Some think this does not force someone
to work extra hours, since there is no fixed number of extra hours he is forced to work, and since he can avoid the tax entirely by earning only
enough to cover his basic needs. This is a very uncharacteristic view of forcing for those who also think people are forced to do something
The fact that others intentionally
intervene, in violation of a side constraint against aggression, to threaten force to limit the
alternatives, in this case to paying taxes or (presumably the worse alternative) bare subsistence, makes the
taxation system one of force labor and distinguishes it from other cases of limited choices which are not forcings. 10
whenever the alternatives they face are considerably worse. However, neither view is correct.
“…within black holes or whatever.”
-Robert Nozick
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Bad
Nozick’s theory of rights is flawed
L. Francis and J. Francis (Leslie Pickering Francis, Ohio State University and John Gregory Francis, University of Utah.
Nozick’s Theory of Rights: A Critical Assessment. The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 4, Dec., 1976 p. 634
http://www.jstor.org.hal.weber.edu:2200/stable/448145?&Search=yes&searchText=nozick&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch
%3FQuery%3Dnozick%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don&prevSearch=&item=5&ttl=7216&returnArticleService=showFullText)
Nozick’s argument admittedly rests upon a theory of rights which is, also admittedly, neither
fully explicated nor fully defended. A theory of rights requires, among other things, an account of what a
right guarantees and an account of when it is justified to attribute rights. Nozick’s theory of rights
involves very strong guarantees: rights are absolute, strongly preclusive, and strongly In contrast,
Nozick’s justificatory apparatus is very weak: rights are moral properties one can “just have”,
whether one needs them, deserves, them or play an important role in one’s life. He claims that
there is no hierarchy of rights and that there are no conflicting rights of equal importance. Nozick’s
gurantees and his justificatory claims are in sharp contrast; and we argue that he as divorced
liberal claims about rights from their traditional justificatory foundations. Freedom would seem to give
Nozick the best defense for the divorce, but we shall show that it fails. This divorce is especially important theoretically
because it is at the root of serious inflexibility in Nozick’s theory of rights: minimal sensitivity to
either technological or natural change.
Robert
Nozick’s theory of the origin of the minimalist State is empirically denied
MURRAY N.
ROTHBARD (Deparmenr of
Social Sciences, Polylechnic Imlitute of New York “ROBERT NOZICK AND THE
IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF THE STATE” Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 45-57. Pergamon Press 1977, Printed in
Great Britain. http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/1_1/1_1_6.pdf)
Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia is an “invisible hand” variant of a Lockean contractarian attempt to justify the State, or at least a
Beginning with a free-market anarchist state of nature,
Nozick portrays the State as emerging, by an invisible hand process that violates no one’s rights,
first as a dominant protective agency, then to an “ultra-minimal state,” and then finally to a
minimal state. Before embarking on a detailed critique of the various Nozickian stages, let us consider several grave fallacies in Nozick’s
minimal State confined to the functions of protection.
conception itself, each of which would in itself be sufficient to refute his attempt to justify the State. First, despite Nozick’s attempt to cover his
tracks,
it is highly relevant to see whether Nozick’s ingenious logical construction has ever indeed
occurred in historical reality: namely, whether any State, or most or all States, have in fact evolved
in the Nozickian manner. It is a grave defect in itself, when discussing an institution all too well grounded in historical reality that
Nozick has failed to make a single mention or reference to the history of actual States. In fact, there
is no evidence whatsoever that any State was founded or developed in Nozickian manner. On the
contrary, the historical evidence cuts precisely the other way: for every State where the facts are available
originated by a process of violence, conquest and exploitation: in short, in a manner which Nozick
himself would have to admit violated individual rights. As Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense, on
the origin of kings and of the State: “could we take off the dark covering of antiquity and trace them to their
first rise, we should find the first of them nothing better than the principal ruffian of some restless
gang; whose savage manners or pre-eminence in subtly obtained him the title of chief among
plunderers; and who by increasing in power and extending his depredations, overawed the quiet
and defenseless to purchase their safety by frequent contributions.” Note that the “contract” involved in Paine’s
“…within black holes or whatever.”
-Robert Nozick
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Since
Nozick’s justification of existing States - provided they are or become minimal – rests on their alleged
immaculate conception, and since no such State exists, then none of them can be justified, even if
they should later become minimal. To go further, we can say that, at best, Nozick’s model can only justify a
State which indeed did develop by his invisible hand method. Therefore it is incumbent upon
Nozick to join anarchists in calling for the abolition of all existing States, and then to sit back and
wait for his alleged invisible hand to operate. The only minimal State, then, which Nozick at best can justify, is one that will
account was of the nature of a coerced “protection racket” rather than anything recognizable to the libertarian as a voluntary agreement.
develop out of a future anarcho-capitalist society.
The fallacies of social contract theory means that no present State, even a minimal one,
could be justified
MURRAY N.
ROTHBARD (Deparmenr of
Social Sciences, Polylechnic Imlitute of New York “ROBERT NOZICK AND THE
IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF THE STATE” Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 45-57. Pergamon Press 1977, Printed in
Great Britain. http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/1_1/1_1_6.pdf)
Secondly, even if an existing State had been immaculately conceived, this would still not justify its present existence. A
basic fallacy is
endemic to all social contract theories of the State, namely, that any contract based on a promise is
binding and enforceable. If, then, everyone -in itself of course a heroic assumption -in a state of nature
surrendered all or some of his rights to a State, the social contract theorists consider this promise to
be binding forevermore. A correct theory of contracts, however, termed by Williamson Evers the "title-transfer" theory,
states that the only valid (and therefore binding) contract is one that surrenders what is, in fact,
philosophically alienable, and that only specific titles to property are so alienable, so that their
ownership can be ceded to someone else. While, on the contrary, other attributes of man:
specifically, his self-ownership over his own will and body, and the rights to person and property
which stem from that self- ownership, are "inalienable" and therefore cannot be surrendered in a binding
contract. If no one, then, can surrender his own will, his body, or his rights in an enforceable
contract, a fortiori he cannot surrender the persons or the rights of his posterity. […]
Nozick’s minimalist state would evolve to a totalitarian state
MURRAY N.
ROTHBARD (Deparmenr of
Social Sciences, Polylechnic Imlitute of New York “ROBERT NOZICK AND THE
IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF THE STATE” Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 45-57. Pergamon Press 1977, Printed in
Great Britain. http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/1_1/1_1_6.pdf)
But this is scarcely all. For once
it is permitted to proceed beyond defense against an overt act of actual
aggression, once one can use force against someone because of his "risky" activities, then the sky is
the limit, in short there is then virtually no limit to aggression against the rights of others. Once permit
someone's 'fear" of the "risky" activities of others to lead to coercive action, then any tyranny
becomes justified, and Nozick's "minimal" state quickly becomes the "maximal" State. I maintain, in
fact, that there is no Nozickian stopping point from his ultra- minimal state to the maximal,
totalitarian state. There is no stopping point to so-called preventive restraint or detention. Surely
Nozick's rather grotesque suggestion of "compensation" in the form of "resort detention centers" is
scarcely sufficient to ward off the specter of totalitarianism (142 f@ A few examples: Perhaps the largest
criminal class in the United States today are teenage black males. The risk of this class committing crime is far
greater than any other age, gender, or color group. Why not, then, lock up all teenage black males until they are old
enough for the risk to diminish? And then I suppose we could compensate them by giving them
“…within black holes or whatever.”
-Robert Nozick
18
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healthful food, clothing, playgrounds, and teaching them a useful trade in the "resort" detention
camp. If not, why not? […]Thus, even if risk were measurable, even if Nozick could provide us with a
cutoff point of when activities are "too" risky, his rite of passage from dominant agency to
ultraminimal state would still be aggressive, invasive, and illegitimate. But, furthermore, as Childs has
pointed out, there is no way to measure (the probability of) such "risk", let alone the fear, both of
which are purely subjective.’
There is no explanation or justification in Nozick for the modern form of voting,
democracy, or checks and balances
ROY A.
CHILDS, JR. (“THE INVISIBLE HAND STRIKES BACK” The original version of this paper was delivered at the Third
Libertarian Scholars Conference. October 1975, New York City. Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 23-33. Pergamon Press 1977,
Printed in Great Britiain. http://mises.org/journals/jls/1_1/1_1_4.pdf)
Consider the nature of the Nozickian state itself. The Randian "limited government" has a rather interesting economic form: it is in essence a
consumer's co-op, with all coming under its power being "consumers," having the right to vote, and so on. But Professor Nozick's
State is
private property. It was, one recalls, a private firm, an agency, which developed by a series of specifiable steps,
into a State. It remains private property, then, since nothing was done to change matters. Since it was once upon a time ago a
dominant agency, and got that way through the free market, one is justified in assuming that its owners, the board of directors, (stockholders or
whatever) are aggressive businessmen, driving towards "expansion" of their business. There
is no question of a constitution, of
in case of conflicts it alone can judge and interpret. There is no
voting. There is no separation of powers, no checks and balances, and no longer any market checks
and balances, either. There is merely a private agency, now with a monopoly on power, on the use
of physical force to attain its ends. This, we are told, is an agency which is going to follow certain
moral principles and (a) extend protection to those whose risky activities are prohibited (or whose
agencies were prohibited from functioning), and (b) stop with the functions of a "minimal state ."
course, merely the contracts with its clients, which
What is to check its power? What happens in the event of its assuming even more powers? Since it has a monopoly, any disputes over its
functions are solved exclusively by itself. Since
careful prosecution procedures are costly, the ultra-minimal
state may become careless with- out competition. Nevertheless, only the ultra- minimal state may judge the legitimacy of
its own procedures, as Professor Nozick explicitly tells us.
Nozick’s theory of rights is preposterous
MURRAY N.
ROTHBARD (Deparmenr of
Social Sciences, Polylechnic Imlitute of New York “ROBERT NOZICK AND THE
IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF THE STATE” Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 45-57. Pergamon Press 1977, Printed in
Great Britain. http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/1_1/1_1_6.pdf)
Finally, a
grave flaw permeates the entire discussion of rights and government in the Nozick volume:
he has no theory of rights. Rights are simply emotionally intuited, with no
groundwork in natural law -in the nature of man or of the universe. At bottom, Nozick has no real
argument for the existence of rights.
that, as a Kantian intuitionist,
Nozick’s theory of voluntary exchange is inherently flawed
James A.
Hammerton (“A Critique of Libertarianism” 2001
http://web.archive.org/web/20010407063531/http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~james/politics/libcrit.txt)
I will tackle the principle of justice in transfer first. Nozick claims that the only just transfer of goods is a voluntary transfer from the rightful
owner to another person. He argues therefore that if you have a distribution of goods, D1, and through a series of voluntary transfers you arrive at
“…within black holes or whatever.”
-Robert Nozick
19
SCFI 2012 Justice File
another distribution of goods, D2, then if D1 was just, D2 is also just. The
point is that the socialist who wants to
maintain an equal or roughly equal distribution of goods, will have to find a way of nullifying the
voluntary transfers. This it is claimed will be an unacceptable infringement of liberty. Likewise
anyone wishing to finance something through taxation is infringing people's liberty and violating
the principle of justice in transfer. The questions to be addressed here are (1) Are all voluntary
transactions just? (2) Are only voluntary transactions just? (3) Does redistribution inevitably
require unacceptable violations of liberty? Initially one might think that it goes without saying that the answer to (1) is yes. If
I voluntarily give my jumper to a friend it seems that no one has been harmed by this action, and nothing wrong has been done. However things
are not always that simple. One
has to ask what counts as a voluntary action, and many people would feel
that someone who is working for low pay in dangerous conditions is not doing so voluntarily if the
only other option was to starve to death. However Nozick argues that whether a person's actions
are valid or not depends on what it is that limits their options. If it is the facts of nature, then their
actions are voluntary. If it is the result of people acting within their natural rights, then their
actions are voluntary. Only if your rights are violated, and this causes you to act in a particular
way, is that action involuntary. Nozick's notion of voluntary action is decidedly non-intuitive. If you
take Nozick's notion as true, then if I trip on some stairs and fall and break my neck, this action is
voluntary! Of course being non-intuitive does not in and of itself discount the notion as being valid. I will deal with what counts as voluntary
action later, for now I'll deal with the question of whether all voluntary exchanges are just. The point is that not all of them are. The reason is that
a voluntary exchange, or a set of voluntary exchanges, can have consequences on third parties, who might not
have consented to the exchange. In a capitalist economy, the exchanges that occur can determine
whether entire towns, or even countries prosper or decline, and thus determine whether people live
full active lives, or spend their time in poverty. If someone buys up a large amount of resources and denies others access to
those resources, this in and of itself causes those others either to find an alternative supplier or abandon use of those resources. Which of these
they can do will depend on their wealth, their friends and whether other suppliers exist. This is not to say that every voluntary transaction should
be subject to the views of those it will affect, however if the consequences are serious, such as lots of people being laid off due to a company
failing(or these days making `efficiency' improvements) then I think there is a case either for some sort of safety net to be put in place or in
certain circumstances for resources essential to everyone's survival being subject to public control. Furthermore if one views freedom as being the
absence of coercion, then by my earlier arguments, the voluntary transactions can end up diminishing third parties' freedom, since your freedom
to act without being coerced is determined by the amount of property you have, and if your employer loses business to someone else, it may mean
that he will make you redundant, and your freedom will diminish, since without an income you may have to sell off property to survive. What
about the answer to question (2) above then? I would say the answer is no, since voluntary transfers can lead to third parties being made worse
off. This leaves us with question (3), does redistribution always involve unacceptable incursions on people's liberty? I think my earlier discussion
of freedom shows that the answer is unclear - by
taxing people you may well increase the freedom of others whilst
doing little to diminish the freedom of the taxpayer, if freedom is the absence of coercion. Alternatively,
if one takes the view that liberty is the freedom to act within one's libertarian rights, and that the right to property is paramount, then obviously
the answer is yes, however I see no reason to take that position, and if one does then we are, in effect, assuming the answer to the question
anyway and freedom is no longer the most fundamental value which we wish to promote.
“…within black holes or whatever.”
-Robert Nozick