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20585
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If an experience machine gives you any experience you want, should you hook up for life? [Nozick]
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Full Idea:
Suppose there were an experience machine that would give you any experience you desired ...such as writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. ...Should you plug into this machine for life?
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From:
Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974], 3 'Experience')
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A reaction:
A classic though experiment which crystalises a major problem with hedonistic utilitarianism. My addition is a machine which maximises the pleasure of my family and friends, to save me the bother of doing it.
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19855
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The purpose of society is to protect the rights of liberty, property, security and resistance [Mirabeau/committee]
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Full Idea:
The aim of all political associations is the conservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.
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From:
Mirabeau and committee (Declaration of the Rights of Man [1789], 02)
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A reaction:
Radical thinkers will obviously be doubtful about property being on the list, because that entrenches huge inequalities, between peasants and their landlords. Resistance to oppression will bother the likes of Edmund Burke.
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18643
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A minimal state should protect, but a state forcing us to do more is unjustified [Nozick]
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Full Idea:
A minimal state, limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on, is justified; any more extensive state will violate persons' rights not to be forced to do certain things, and is unjustified.
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From:
Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974], Pref)
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A reaction:
This has some plausibility for a huge modern state, where we don't know one another, but it would be a ridiculous attitude in a traditional village.
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18642
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Individual rights are so strong that the state and its officials must be very limited in power [Nozick]
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Full Idea:
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.
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From:
Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974], Pref)
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A reaction:
This claim appears to be an axiom, but I'm not sure that the notion of 'rights' make any sense unless someone is granting the rights, where the someone is either a strong individual, or the community (perhaps represented by the state).
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18644
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States can't enforce mutual aid on citizens, or interfere for their own good [Nozick]
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Full Idea:
A state may not use its coercive apparatus for the purposes of getting some citizens to aid others, or in order to prohibit activities to people for their own good or protection.
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From:
Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974], Pref)
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A reaction:
You certainly can't apply these principles to children, so becoming an 'adult' seems to be a very profound step in Nozick's account. At what age must we stop interfering with people for their own good. If the state is prohibited, are neighbours also?
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22661
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My Anarchy, State and Utopia neglected our formal social ties and concerns [Nozick on Nozick]
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Full Idea:
The political philosophy represented in Anarchy, State and Utopia ignored the importance of joint and official symbolic statement and expression of our social ties and concern, and hence (I have written) is inadequate.
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From:
comment on Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974], p.32) by Robert Nozick - The Nature of Rationality p.32
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A reaction:
In other words, it was far too individualistic, and neglected community, even though it has become the sacred text for libertarian individualism. Do any Nozick fans care about this recantation?
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19858
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No one should be molested for their opinions, if they do not disturb the established order [Mirabeau/committee]
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Full Idea:
No man is to be molested on account of his opinions, even his religious opinions, provided that their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.
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From:
Mirabeau and committee (Declaration of the Rights of Man [1789], 10)
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A reaction:
Virtually any opinion will 'disturb' the established order a little bit, so this gives the option of suppressing quite mild beliefs, on the grounds of their small disturbance. It is still a wonderful proposal, though.
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18641
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If people hold things legitimately, just distribution is simply the result of free exchanges [Nozick, by Kymlicka]
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Full Idea:
If we assume that everyone is entitled to the goods they currently possess (their 'holdings'), then a just distribution is simply whatever distribution results from people's free exchanges.
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From:
report of Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974]) by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) 4.1.b
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A reaction:
If people's current 'legitimate' holdings are hugely unequal, it seems very unlikely that the ensuing exchanges will be 'free' in the way that Nozick envisages.
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20539
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Property is legitimate by initial acquisition, voluntary transfer, or rectification of injustice [Nozick, by Swift]
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Full Idea:
Nozick identified three ways in which people can acquire a legitimate property holding: initial acquisition, voluntary transfer, and rectification (of unjust transfers).
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From:
report of Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974]) by Adam Swift - Political Philosophy (3rd ed) 1 'Nozick'
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A reaction:
I think it is a delusion to look for justice in the ownership of property. You can't claim justice for buying property if the money to do it was acquired unjustly. And what rights over those who live on the land come with the 'ownership'?
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18646
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How did the private property get started? If violence was involved, we can redistribute it [Kymlicka on Nozick]
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Full Idea:
How did these natural resources, which were not initially owned by anyone, come to be part of someone's private property? ...The fact that the initial acquisition often involved force means there is no moral objection to redistributing existing wealth.
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From:
comment on Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974]) by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) 4.2.b
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A reaction:
[He cites G.A. Cphen 1988 for the second point] Put like this, Nozick's theory just looks like the sort of propaganda which is typically put out by the winners. Is there an implicit threat of violent resistance in his advocacy of individual rights?
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21737
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Unowned things may be permanently acquired, if it doesn't worsen the position of other people [Nozick]
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Full Idea:
One may acquire a permanent bequeathable property right in a previously unowned thing, as long as the position of others no longer at liberty to use the thing is not thereby worsened.
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From:
Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974], p.178), quoted by G.A. Cohen - Are Freedom and Equality Compatible? 2
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A reaction:
Cohen attacks this vigorously. His main point is that Nozick has a very narrow view of what the acquisition should be compared with. There are many alternatives. Does being made unable to improve something 'worsen' a person's condition?
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21738
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Maybe land was originally collectively owned, rather than unowned? [Cohen,GA on Nozick]
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Full Idea:
Why should we not regard land as originally collectively owned rather than, as Nozick takes for granted, owned by no one?
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From:
comment on Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974], p.178) by G.A. Cohen - Are Freedom and Equality Compatible? 2
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A reaction:
Did native Americans and Australians collectively own the land? Lots of peoples, I suspect, don't privately own anything, because the very concept has never occured to them (and they have no legal system).
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