more on this theme | more from this thinker
Full Idea
If there is no way that people can appropriate unowned resources for themselves without denying other people's claim to equal consideration, then Nozick's right of transfer never gets off the ground.
Gist of Idea
If property is only initially acquired by denying the rights of others, Nozick can't get started
Source
comment on Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974]) by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) 4.2.b.i
Book Ref
Kymlicka,Will: 'Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn)' [OUP 1992], p.109
A Reaction
The actual history of these things is too complex to judge. Early peoples desperately wanted a lord to rule over them, and their lord's ownership of the land implied the people's right to live there. See Anglo-Saxon poetry.
Related Idea
Idea 18646 How did the private property get started? If violence was involved, we can redistribute it [Kymlicka on Nozick]
| 18641 | If people hold things legitimately, just distribution is simply the result of free exchanges [Nozick, by Kymlicka] |
| 20539 | Property is legitimate by initial acquisition, voluntary transfer, or rectification of injustice [Nozick, by Swift] |
| 18645 | Nozick assumes initial holdings include property rights, but we can challenge that [Kymlicka on Nozick] |
| 18646 | How did the private property get started? If violence was involved, we can redistribute it [Kymlicka on Nozick] |
| 18647 | If property is only initially acquired by denying the rights of others, Nozick can't get started [Kymlicka on Nozick] |
| 18648 | Freedom to live according to our own conception of the good is the ultimate value [Nozick, by Kymlicka] |
| 18643 | A minimal state should protect, but a state forcing us to do more is unjustified [Nozick] |
| 18642 | Individual rights are so strong that the state and its officials must be very limited in power [Nozick] |
| 18644 | States can't enforce mutual aid on citizens, or interfere for their own good [Nozick] |
| 20585 | If an experience machine gives you any experience you want, should you hook up for life? [Nozick] |
| 20521 | Can I come to own the sea, by mixing my private tomato juice with it? [Nozick] |
| 21737 | Unowned things may be permanently acquired, if it doesn't worsen the position of other people [Nozick] |
| 21738 | Maybe land was originally collectively owned, rather than unowned? [Cohen,GA on Nozick] |
| 22661 | My Anarchy, State and Utopia neglected our formal social ties and concerns [Nozick on Nozick] |