1)

Two Conceptions of Justice
Robert Nozick
Just as utilitarianism was the setting off point for Rawls, Rawls himself is the setting off point for Nozick particularly in his book, "Anarchy, State and Utopia" which you have read an excerpt from. Nozick's chief complaint against Rawls: that only a minimal state (government) can be justified. Since Rawls' rules (that is, his "Principles of Justice") require "big government" (Nozick says), a Rawlsian-type government is politically unjustified. If Nozick is right, this would be important. As we have already noted, all governments are necessarily coercive if only to a limited extent. The more coercive, the more vexing the "Why should I submit to the authority (rules and principles) of this government?" becomes. If the question is more vexing for "big governments" (Rawls, in Nozick's view), then, if nothing more than a minimal state is ever justified, Rawls can't satisfactorily say why any citizen should submit to (his version of a just) government. This would, of course, be disastrous since there would then be no reason for any citizen's allegiance to a Rawlsian type government.
Nozick calls his theory of justice a historical theory of justice. A historical theory of justice has as its main rival what Nozick calls "end-state" theories of justice. One holds an end-state theory of justice just in case one believes that all you need to know, to decide if a government is just or not, is how goods are distributed at a particular time. Thus, for example, if I am an end-state theorist, I might think that merely knowing that a minority of 15% of a population lives well below the poverty line while a majority of lives in extreme wealth, tells me all I need to know to determine that the society is unjust. Of course, if this is what I think, then it doesn't matter to me how that distribution came about, the mere fact that it exists tells me all I need to know to decide the question of justice.
In fact, however, almost no theory of justice is entirely "end-state" and there is good reason for this. Purely "end-state" theories are implausible. For example, suppose the "end-state" theorist believes that a just society is one in which everyone has equal shares of social and economic goods. Now consider a society in which 15% of the population is well below the poverty level while the majority lives in extreme wealth. Now suppose that the minority who lives below the poverty level are living below the poverty level because they are imprisoned convicted felons who, let us suppose, were given fair trials and found conclusively to be guilty of their crimes. Suppose further that their punishment fits the crimes; that is, suppose for example, that they are convicted armed bank robbers serving 8 years in prison. Well, what's so unjust about that? After all, haven't these felons amply deserved their impoverished lives? (Recall that in 8 years time, they will have an opportunity to "try again"). Or consider a society of two people: you and me and suppose we both have $100. According to the egalitarian end-state theorist, our society is just. But wait a minute: suppose the reason I have $100 dollars and you have $100 is because I stole $25 from you when you had $125. Doesn't the fact that our equality was arrived at through my thievery make the distribution unjust? The point here is that what someone has done to achieve their station in life can determine whether their occupying some station is just or unjust. If that is right, and it certainly seems plausible, then "end-state" theories are implausible.
The alternative to "end-state" theories are "historical" theories and these do just as the name suggests: look at the historical facts about how some pattern of distribution was arrived at to determine whether the society arranged into that pattern is just. Now there are two types of historical theories according to Nozick: patterned and unpatterned. Patterned historical theories distribute according to some pattern such as, "To each according to his need". Unpatterned historical theories do not do this. Nozick's own historical theory is unpatterned; thus, his theory of justice is a theory of the "minimal state" ("minimal" because it enforces no pattern). We can understand Nozick's basic point by noting that, according to Nozick, the only question of distribution that matters is: "Did the holder of these goods acquire the goods by legitimate means?". If yes, then the distribution is just. If that is all there is to justice then, of course, Fair Opportunity does not matter nor does the difference principle. Liberty, does, however, matter in just this sense: Nozick thinks that liberty has got to involve the right to retain any good acquired through legitimate means. It is fair enough to think of Nozick as advocating an unrestricted free-market capitalism (which, according to him, represents an "unpatterned historical theory of distribution"). The details of Nozick's theory don't matter too much. Now Nozick claims that Rawls is proposing a "patterned" theory, one that distributes according to the pattern set by the Difference Principle; roughly: to the better-off only if it also enhances the least well-off. And Nozick thinks he can show that any "patterned" theory is unjust because it requires re-distributing goods that were legitimately earned - and that, Nozick says, in unjustified.
Here is Nozick's example:
Imagine a society which is regulated by some pattern (if you like, the Difference Principle). Let's call the distribution pattern of the society D1. Now imagine that Wilt Chamberlin (or to make the example more contemporary: Vince Carter, or Tim Duncan or.....) has made an arrangement with his team and the fans so that he gets 25 cents for every spectator that attends a home game. The arrangement works like this: as the fans enter the turnstile and surrender their tickets, they have to drop a quarter into the "Funds for Wilt" box to open the gate. At the end of the season, a million people have attended home games making Wilt Chamberlin $250,000 richer. Call this new Distribution, D2.
From this example, Nozick concludes that:
1. Any pattern is vulnerable to disruption by people's free actions.
2. If D1 is just (and it must be because the pattern theory says it is), then D2 is also just because people have moved from D1 to D2 voluntarily.
3. Thus, there are just arrangements (D2) that do not obey the original pattern.
For our purposes, what matters is most is the claim of 1). If patterns can be disrupted by people's free actions then any pattern (according to Nozick) can only be maintained by infringing on liberty. For suppose we decided to maintain a pattern but that some people decided to make a Wilt-like transaction. Then the pattern could only be maintained by either banning the transactions or constantly re-distributing to maintain the pattern. Either way, we intrude into peoples lives either by stopping their actions or reaching into their (Wilt's) earnings to redistribute so as to re-establish the pattern. Either course is an infringement on liberty. If that is so, then a respect for liberty is incompatible with patterned conceptions of justice. The objection is a threat to Rawls because Rawls would have to insist, to maintain his pattern (to satisfy the Difference Principle) that Wilt's earnings must be redistributed so as to benefit the least advantaged. But if Nozick is right, this is an infringement on Walt's (and possibly the fans') liberty contra the requirements of the Liberty Principle. The upshot then, for Rawls, is that the Liberty Principle is at odds with the Difference Principle.
We can think of the debate between Nozick and Rawls as one that concerns the relationship between holding property and liberty. Consider the question: Does valuing liberty require recognizing that there are strong "property-rights"; that is, strong protections for holders of property? According to Nozick and other libertarians, the answer is "yes". Libertarians like Nozick believe the state violates rights if it attempts to transfer property from some (the rich) to others (the poor). According to Nozick, where people have liberty, there can be no restrictions on any individual's property holdings. The libertarian tries to argue from the value of liberty to a very pure form of capitalism (according to which distribution is to be left essentially to the free market). If this line of thinking about what is necessary to liberty is right, then, as Nozick points out, Rawls (and some others who defend what Nozick calls, "patterned" conceptions of justice) may well be in trouble. To see that Rawls may well be in trouble, consider The Difference Principle. According to The Difference Principle, a pattern of distribution that does not favor the least well-off is unjust. Nozick takes this to imply that The Difference Principle is a principle of re-distribution which entitles a government to intervene in such a way as to move from an unjust distribution of social and economic goods to a more just distribution. But Rawls also values liberty. According to Nozick, however, the two principles, the Liberty Principle and the Difference Principle are in conflict: the Difference Principle requires the very kinds of re-distribution the Liberty Principle disallows. Thus, Nozick's complaint against Rawls is that to satisfy the Difference Principle, economic goods will have to be redistributed by the government. But, since the only question that matters about goods is whether they were legitimately earned, redistribution by government is virtually stealing (remember Robin Hood, who stole from the rich to give to the poor? Nozick is accusing Rawls of attempting to justify a government of Robin Hood like thieves).
Now it is not at all clear that libertarianism really does protect liberty. To see this, note that leaving distribution only to the free market (and perhaps gifts and charities) is very likely to result in vast inequalities between rich and poor. Since economic means partly determines how many opportunities are available to a person, and since what opportunities someone has determines what they are at liberty to do, economic means partly determines how much liberty someone has. Thus we get, as a general rule: the more means (that is, the richer), the more liberty. The less means (that is, the poorer), the less liberty. Seen in this light, the liberty the libertarian is protecting is the liberty of the rich. The observation that an unimpeded free market leads to the kind of vast economic inequalities that, in turn, lead to vast inequalities in liberty is partly what leads some to welfare liberalism, the view that property must be redistributed from rich to poor to ensure equal liberty to all. To some extent, we can see the issue here as concerning the placement of property entitlements: are they within a "protected sphere" as is freedom of speech, the right to vote and so on, none of which a government is permitted to interfere with (so that there are property rights in some strong sense), or do property entitlements fall outside of this protected sphere and into an arena, like the ability to drive or the ability to practice medicine, where government intervention is permissible?
The debate between Rawls and Nozick, cast in this light, is one that should be familiar. It is essentially the debate between Democrats, on the one hand, and Republicans on the other. The typical Republican position is that "big government" is to be avoided. In particular, what is to be avoided are the "big government" sort of interventions that use people's tax money to fund social reform whether that reform be the improvement of the lot of society's disadvantaged, educational reform or what-have-you. Nozick and the Republicans believe that to tax is to take people's property away - to deprive them of what they have acquired through legitimate means (we hope!). Republicans also tout the virtues of free market capitalism as an important part of liberty - the economic liberties; that is, the liberty to acquire and accumulate wealth. Democrats, on the other hand, are much more often concerned with liberty's relation to opportunity and the way in which economic disadvantages limit opportunity. So a Democrat is likely to protest to a Republican that a Republican jeopardizes liberty by allowing the kinds of vast inequalities that impede opportunity. Just so, a Republican is likely to protest to a Democrat that the Democratic ideal jeopardizes liberty by interfering (through taxation) with people's economic liberty (property rights). That is, Republicans and Democrats both accuse each other of not respecting liberty. And this is just what Rawls and Nozick would accuse each other of: not respecting liberty! What is really at stake in both debates is whether economic freedom matters to liberty and if it does whether economic freedom requires strong property rights (that is, rights so strong that they impose an obligation on others not to tamper with them).

正義的二個構想
羅伯特Nozick
正 utilitarianism 是這個設置點?Rawls, Rawls 是這個設置點? Nozick 特別在他的書裏, " Anarchy, 你讀節錄的狀態和烏托邦" 。Nozick 的首要怨言反對Rawls: 唯一一個最小狀態(政府) 可能被辯解。因?Rawls 的規則(那是他的" 原則正義") 要求" 大政府 " (Nozick 認?), Rawlsian 型號政府政治上是不正當的。如果 Nozick 是不錯, 這是重要的。如同我們已經注意了, 所有政府必要地是強制但願在一有限的程度上。比較強制, 煩慮" ?什?如果我遞交給當局(規則和原則) 這個政府?" 成?。如果這個問題是煩慮?" 大政府" (Rawls, 在Nozick 的景), 那?, 如果無事更多比一個最小狀態曾經被辯解, Rawls 不可能令人滿意地認??什?任一個公民應該遞交給(A 的他的版本) 政府。這, 當然, 慘敗自從有然後是任一個公民的忠誠的沒有原因對Rawlsian 型號政府。
Nozick 稱正義的他的理論正義的一種歷史理論。正義的一種歷史理論有象它的主要敵手什?Nozick 叫" 正義的結束狀態" 理論。你使正義的一種結束狀態理論正義如果你相信所有你需要知道, 決定如果政府是或不是, 是怎?物品被分佈於一特定時間。因而, 例如,如果我是結束狀態理論家, 我也許認?那僅僅知道少數 15% 人口居住很好在貧窮線之下當大多數生活在極端財富, 告訴我全部我需要知道確定這個社會是不公道的。當然, 如果這是什?我認?, 那?它不事關對我 怎? 那分佈來關於 , 僅僅事實它存在告訴我全部我需要知道決定正義的問題。
事際上, 然而, 幾乎正義的理論不整個地是" 結束狀態 " 並且有這的真正原因。" 結束狀態" 理論純淨地implausible 。例如, 假設" 結束狀態" 理論家相信一個正義社會是一個大家有社會和經濟物品相等的份額。現在考慮15% 人口是很好在貧瘠程度之下的一個社會當多數人居住在極端財富。現在假設, 居住在貧瘠程度之下是生存在貧瘠程度之下的少數因?他們被監禁判罪, 讓我們假設的重犯, 給公平試驗和決定性地發現了是有罪的在他們的罪行上。進一步假設, 他們的處罰適合罪行; 那是假設例如, 那他們是被判罪的武裝的銀行強盜服務8 年在監獄裏。很好, 很不公道的是什?對此? 終究這些重犯寬裕地該當他們的貧困生活嗎? (在8 年代 , 他們把機會" 再嘗試") 的回憶。或考慮二個人的社會: 你和我和假設我們兩個有$100 。根據平等主義結束狀態理論家, 我們的社會是正義的。但等待一分鐘:假設這個原因我有$100 美元並且你有 $100 是因?I 竊取$25 從你當你有$125 。這個事實我們的平等到達通過我的thievery 不使分佈不公道嗎? 點這裏是什?某人做了達到他們的駐地在生活中可能確定是否他們佔領某一駐地是正義或不公道的。如果那是不錯, 並且它一定好似振振有詞的, 那?" 結束狀態" 理論implausible 。
選擇對" 結束狀態" 理論是 " 歷史" 理論並且這些做正這個名字建議: 看關於怎樣的歷史事實分佈的某一樣式到達確定是否這個社會安排入那個樣式是正義的。現在有二類型歷史理論根據Nozick: 仿造和unpatterned 。被仿造的歷史理論分佈根據某個樣式譬如, " 對每根據他的需要" 。 Unpatterned 歷史理論不做這。Nozick 的自己的歷史理論是 unpatterned; 因而, 正義的他的理論是這個" 最小狀態的" 理論 ("最小" 因?它不強制執行樣式) 。我們能瞭解Nozick 的基本點由注意到, 根據Nozick, 事關是分佈的唯一的問題: " 做了這些物品囤戶獲取物品通過合法手段?" 。如果是, 分佈然後是正義的。如果那是所有有然後對正義, 當然, 公平機會不事關不做區別原則。自由, 然而, 事關在這感覺: Nozick 認?, 自由必須介入權利保留任一好獲取經由合法手段。它將足夠公平認?Nozick 象主張, 根據他, 代表" unpatterned 分佈的歷史理論") 的無限制的自由市場資本主義(。Nozick 的理論細節不事關太多。現在Nozick 聲稱 , Rawls 提議" 被仿造的" 理論, 一分佈根據這個樣式由區別原則設置; 大致: 對比較好只如果它並且提高最少well-off 。並且 Nozick 認?他能表示任何" 被仿造的" 理論是不公道的因?它要求重新分配合法地被贏得的物品- 並且, Nozick 認?, 在不正當。
這Nozick 的例子:
想象由某一樣式的一個社會(如果你喜歡, 區別原則) 調控。我們叫D1. 現在想象枯萎 Chamberlin 社會的的分佈樣式(或以使這個例子比較當代: Vince 卡特, 或Tim Duncan 或.....) 做了一個安排與他的隊和風扇所以他得到25 分?參加家庭賽的每個觀?。這個安排運作象這樣: 當風扇進入旋轉門和投降他們的票, 他們必須下降處所入" 資金?枯萎" 箱子以打開門。於季節的結尾, 一百萬人民參加了做枯萎 Chamberlin $250,000 比較富有的家庭比賽。叫這新分佈, D2 。
從這個例子, Nozick 認?,:
1 。任一個樣式是脆弱的對碎裂由人的釋放舉動。
2 。如果D1 是正義 (和它必須是因?樣式理論認?它是), D2 並且然後是正因? 人們自願搬走從D1 到D2 。
3 。因而, 有不服從原始樣式的正義安排(D2) 。
?我們的目的, 什?事態是多數是主張1) 。如果樣式可能被人的任意舉動打亂然後任一個樣式(根據Nozick) 可能由違犯在自由只維護。?假設我們決定了維護樣式但某些人民決定了做A 枯萎象交易。然後這個樣式能由也取締交易或經常重新分配只維護維護這個樣式。也方式, 我們闖入入人生活也由停止他們的舉動或到達入他們的(枯萎) 收入重新分配以便重新建立這個樣式。或者路線是違反在自由。如果那是如此, 那?對自由的尊敬是不相容的與正義的被仿造的構想。反對是威脅對 Rawls 因?Rawls 必須堅持, 以維護他的樣式(以滿足區別原則) 枯萎收入必須被重新分配以便以有益於最少advantaged 。但如果 Nozick 是不錯, 這是違反在Walt 的(和可能風扇') 自由自由原則的要求。結果然後, ?Rawls, 是, 自由原則與區別原則是有分歧。
我們能認?辯論在Nozick 和Rawls 之間象一個有關關係在藏品物?和自由之間。考慮這個問題: 做重視自由要求認?有堅強的" 物?權利"; 那是堅強的保護?物?囤戶? 根據Nozick 和其他libertarians, 這個答復是" 是" 。Libertarians 象Nozick 相信這個狀態違犯權利如果它試圖從一些轉移物?(富有) 其他人(貧寒) 。根據Nozick, 人們有自由, 必須有可能是對任一個體的資?持有的沒有制約。Libertarian 嘗試爭論從自由的價值對資本主義的一個非常純淨形式(根據哪分佈將根本上被離開這個自由市場) 。如果這條線考慮什?對自由是必要的是不錯, 然後, 因?Nozick 指出, Rawls (和有些其他保衛什?Nozick 叫, " 正義的被仿造的" 構想)也許湧出是在麻煩。看, Rawls 也許湧出是在麻煩, 考慮區別原則。根據區別原則, 不傾向最少well-off 分佈的的樣式是不公道的。Nozick 採取這以暗示, 區別原則是給權一個政府干預就象從社會和經濟物品不公道的分佈行動對比較正義的分佈再分配的的原則。但Rawls 並且重視自由。根據Nozick, 然而, 二項原則, 自由原則和區別原則是有衝突: 區別原則要求自由原則不許的這種再分配。因而, Nozick 的怨言反對Rawls 是那以滿足區別原則, 經濟物品將必須由這個政府重新分配。但, 因?事關關於物品的唯一的問題是是否他們合法地被贏得, 再分配由政府實際上竊取(記住羅賓遜 , 竊取從富有給貧寒? Nozick 指責Rawls 試圖辯解羅賓遜的政府象竊賊) 。
現在它是清楚, 自由意志論真正地保護自由。看這, 注意那留下分佈只給這個自由市場(和或許禮物和慈善) 是非常可能導致浩大不平等在富有和貧寒之間。因?經濟手段部分確定多少個機會對人, 和sinc 是可得到的

 

2)
According to Nozick there are three sets of rules of justice, defining:
1. how things not previously possessed by anyone may be acquired;
2. how possession may be transferred from one person to another; and
3. what must be done to rectify injustices arising from violations of (1) and (2).
A distribution is just if it has arisen in accordance with these three sets of rules. See pp. 151-2.
Nozick does not try to specify in detail the rules under the above three headings ('I shall not attempt that task here', p. 153). However, he does give some further information on rules of acquisition; see p. 174ff. He follows John Locke who as Nozick interprets him held that a person has a right (1) to own what he makes, and (2) to appropriate anything not already owned, provided he leaves 'enough and as good' for others - i.e. provided his appropriation leaves them no worse off. (Nozick calls this the 'Lockean proviso'.) It is not clear how Nozick would defend (1) against his own criticisms of Locke (p. 174-5). As for (2), he points out that the proviso cannot reasonably be taken to mean that there can be no worsening of others' opportunities to appropriate; it must mean that in other respects they are no worse off. Nozick raises the question 'No worse than they would be how?' What is the baseline? In Rawls's theory the representative worst-off person must be no worse off than he would be under any other possible arrangement. Nozick rejects this, but does not define another baseline: 'This question of fixing a baseline needs more detailed investigation that we are able to give it here'; p. 177. However, '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 of Justice in acquisition will contain a proviso similar to the weaker of the ones we have attributed to Locke'; p. 178. Nozick says that the proviso is violated if a person appropriates all of something necessary to life - or purchases it, or combines with the other owners of it, or finds himself the sole owner when other supplies are lost (e.g. when all the other water holes dry up). Nozick refers to the possibility of losing entitlement to something that was originally yours because of developments since, such as the drying up of other waterholes, as the 'historical shadow' of the Lockean proviso; p. 180.
Comparison with Rawls's Theory
Nozick classifies theories of justice as (1) either end-result or historical, and (2) either patterned or unpatterned. The entitlement theory is historical and unpatterned. It does not demand that the distribution resulting from just acquisitions, transfers and rectifications be patterned, i.e. correlated with anything else (such as moral merit, need, usefulness to society); people may be entitled to things got by chance or gift. Any distribution, irrespective of any pattern it may or may not have, is just provided it has the appropriate history, provided it did in fact come about in accordance with the rules of acquisition, transfer and rectification. Rawls's theory on the other hand, is an end-result theory. Choice of principles behind a 'veil of ignorance', must be based on calculations about what people are likely to end up with under the various possible sets of principles - there is no other way of choosing (is there?); p. 202. Therefore if any historical entitlement theory is correct, Rawls's approach is wrong.
Notice that this imposes on Rawls in the job of showing that no possible version of an historical entitlement theory could be correct. He might reply that he intends to stick to his own theory until someone actually produces a correct entitlement theory; Nozick has not, because his theory is merely a sketch with many important details not worked out.
Nozick points out (p. 207 ff) an analogy between his own entitlement theory and the process by which in Rawls's theory the rules of justice are arrived at. Rawls specifies an initial situation and a process of deliberation, and say that whatever rules results from this are the rules of justice; similarly Nozick specifies a process, and says that whatever distribution results is just. 'Each theory specifies starting points and processes of transformation, and each accepts whatever comes out'. But Rawls's process for generating principles cannot generate process principles, but only end-result principles. Nozick says that this is ironic. It presents a dilemma: if processes are 'so great', it is a defect that the process cannot lead to process principles of justice; if processes are not so great, then why should we accept the outcome of Rawls's process? (This is a weak argument. Rawls can claim that his process is 'great' without having to hold that all processes, just because they are processes, are great.) There are many pages of criticism of details of Rawls's argument which we cannot follow here (or even there, sometimes!).
Patterns and Liberty
Others besides Rawls have put forward 'pattern' theories. Nozick advances an objection against all of them: part of ownership is the liberty to give things to other people. If justice consists in the pattern in which goods are distributed, then giving - which changes the pattern - will be unjust. Thus pattern theories do not merely correct the mal-distribution which allegedly happens under an entitlement theory; they also alter the concept of possession. 'The view that holding must be patterned perhaps will seem less plausible when it is seen to have the consequence that people may not choose to do acts that upset the patterning, even with things they legitimately hold'. (See p. 219-20). Note Nozick's concept of ownership: a right to do whatever you choose with what is your own.
No Central Distributor
'Pattern' theories sometimes picture some person or institution faced with the problem of fairly distributing the sum total of good things: they should be distributed in a pattern corresponding to merit, need, etc. But, Nozick maintains, things are never collected into a sum total to be allocated by a central distributing authority. p. 149 The term distributive justice is not a neutral one. Hearing the term distribution most people presume that some thing or mechanism uses some principle or criterion to give out a supply of things... There is no central distributor, no person or group entitled to control all the resources, jointly deciding how they are to be doled out. 'If things fell from heaven like manna, and no one had any special entitlement to any portion of it...' (p. 198), 'there might be a more compelling reason to search for a pattern. But since things come into existence already held (or with agreements already made about how they are to be held), there is no need to search for some pattern for unheld holdings to fit; and since the process whereby holdings actually come into being or are shaped, itself needn't realize any particular pattern, there is no reason to expect any pattern to result... In the non-manna-from-heaven world in which things have to be made or produced or transformed by people, there is no separate process of distribution for a theory of distributions to be a theory of'; p. 219.
No Presumption of Equality
Nozick ask why it is to be assumed that differences between persons are arbitrary unless they can be justified. A central distributor would perhaps be bound to treat all alike unless for good reason, but in a free society distribution results from many localized exchanges between individuals entitled to bestow their holdings as they wish. p. 223.
The Natural Lottery not Unjust
According to Rawls, the veil of ignorance should conceal the distribution of natural talents, because rules reflecting this distribution would not be just. But according to Nozick, it is not true that a person deserves something only if he also deserves whatever he used, including natural talents, to obtain it. 'It needn't be that the foundations underlying desert are themselves deserved, all the way down'; p. 225. 'Whether or not people's natural assets are arbitrary from a moral point of view they are entitled to them, and to what flows from them'; p. 226.
Equal Opportunity not a Right
Possessions that people are entitled to may not be seized to provide equality of opportunity for others. Life is not a race; 'there is no unified race', p. 235. There are individual exchanges, in which the parties do not usually care about desert or handicaps, but simply about what they get in exchange. 'No centralized process judges people's use of the opportunities they had; that is not what the process of social cooperation and exchange are for'; p. 236. (Statements about what institutions are for are always suspect. How do we decide what exchange is for, and anyway why would this impose a norm?)
Justice and Equality
People often note that wealth is unequally distributed, and proceed immediately to discuss how it might be made more equal. But on the entitlement theory one cannot decide whether redistribution is necessary merely by looking at the prevailing pattern of distribution. Whether it just depends on how the distribution came about. If it came about in accordance with the rules of acquisition, transfer and rectification, then it is not unjust, however unequal it may be.
Redistributive Action by Government Unjust
According to Nozick, taxation is equivalent to forced labour. Taking a proportion of earnings is like making a person work a proportion of his working time for another's purposes. It is unjust to force a person to work for another's benefit.
According to Locke (Section 27), a person has a property in himself and in his labour; each person has liberty to decide what he will do (subject to the rights of others), and a right to reap the benefits of his own actions. But tax-financed social welfare programs institute something like ownership by others of people and their actions. The poor have a claim on the actions and products of others, whether or not those others freely entered into relationships that might give rise to such claims, whether or not they voluntarily take these claims upon themselves, in charity or as part of an exchange. It is inconsistent to allow a right to emigrate, when there is no right to stay and opt out; see p. 173.
(Are there any enforceable duties to do things for others? E. g. is there a duty to help in floods or earthquakes? Enforceable duties to help do not imply that actions or persons are owned. Part of ownership is the right to sell; the fact that someone has a duty to help me does not imply that I have a right to sell his help. Parents are not partly owned by their children. Nozick's analogies need to be analysed carefully. )
Rectification of Past Injustice
Nozick does not attempt to work out the rules of rectification. However he says that it is an important task in each society to work out what operable policy best approximates the results of a detailed application of rules of rectification. It is possible that some tax-financed welfare program, or even Rawls's rule of favouring the worst off group, may be justified as a means of rectification, if it can be assumed that the better off are beneficiaries of past injustices, and the worse off victims. He warns that his entitlement theory cannot be used to condemn any particular welfare scheme unless it is clear that it cannot be justified as a means of rectifying past injustices. See p. 231. (Will this warning be heeded, or will the theory be taken as a justification of the existing distributions?).
Nozick's theory of rights
In his account of the possible justification of the state, and in his entitlement theory of justice, Nozick postulates absolute rights - not merely prima facie rights which might be overridden, but boundaries not to be crossed without the free consent of the persons whose rights they are. Other people's rights are constraints upon our actions toward our own goals.
Why must we respect such constraints? When a person makes a thing, or finds it unowned and appropriates it, why must others not use it without his permission - no matter how great their need, no matter how such things are distributed?
Nozick's answer is that such constraints express the inviolability of other persons; a person is not to be used to benefit others - this would not sufficiently respect the fact that he is a separate person, that his is the only life he has. There is no transcendent social whole for the sake of which individuals can be sacrificed, there are only other individuals. See p. 32-3, 50-1. In effect Nozick agrees with Rawls's criticism of Utilitarianism: in adding and subtracting the costs and benefits to all the persons affected, and in allowing benefits to one person to offset costs to others, Utilitarianism does not sufficiently acknowledge the separateness of persons.
Some criticisms of Nozick's theory
From T. Nagel 'Libertarianism without Foundations', Yale Law Journal (K/29/.A4) 85 (1975) p. 136f.
(1) It is risky to argue from small-scale examples to universal principles.
Nozick supposes 'that it is possible to determine what governments may and should do by first asking what individuals, taken a few at a time in isolation from large-scale society, may do, and then applying the resultant principles to all possible circumstances, including those which involve billions of people, complicated political and economic institutions, and thousands of years of history. What is more surprising, he discovers in himself intuitions about the moral requirements on men in a state of nature which he is willing to endorse as universal principles unmodified in their cumulative effects when applied in any circumstances whatever.... It is hard to see how anyone could seriously arrive at firm moral opinions about the universal principles of human conduct without considering what it would be like if they were universally applied, in iterations which might create complex effects of scale'.
(2) Nozick's intuitions are in any case wrong, because they see as absolute some rights that are only prima facie rights.
'The intuition that Nozick discovers in himself is that everyone has an absolute right to be free from coercion, and an absolute right to acquire and dispose of his property - so long as he is not violating the same rights of others and so long as his acquisition of property does not, for example, give him sole title to the formerly public water supply of a desert community. Nozick's intuition is that each person is entitled to his talents and abilities, and to whatever he can make, get, or buy with his own efforts, with the help of others, or with plain luck. He is entitled to keep it or do anything he wants with it, and whomever he gives it to is thereby equally entitled to it. Moreover, anyone is entitled to whatever he ends up with as a result of the indefinite repetition of this process, over however many generations....
'Nozick's moral intuitions seem wrong even on a small scale. He denies that any of the rights he detects may be overridden merely to do good or prevent evil. But even if it is not permissible to murder or maim an innocent person to promote some highly desirable result, the protected rights do not all have the same degree of importance... It is far less plausible to maintain that taking some of an innocent man's property is an impermissible means for the prevention of a serious evil, than it is to maintain that killing him is impermissible. These rights vary in importance and some are not absolute even in the state of nature...
'Rights limit the pursuit of worthwhile ends, but they can also sometimes be overridden if the ends are sufficiently important. The only way to make progress in understanding the nature of individual rights is to investigate their sources and their relations to each other and to the values on whose pursuit they set limits'.
(3) Nozick is wrong in holding that benefit to one person can never offset cost to another: sometimes it can.
To make sense of utilitarianism,
'All one needs is the belief, shared by most people, that it is better for each of 10 people to receive a benefit than for one person to receive it, worse for 10 people to be harmed than for one person to be similarly harmed, better for one person to benefit greatly than for another to benefit slightly, and so forth.... If a choice among such alternatives does not involve the violation of any rights or entitlements, but only the allocation of limited time or resources, then we regard those comparisons as excellent reasons for picking one alternative rather than another. If we can help either 10 people or one person, not included in the 10, and we help the 10, then we can say that rescue of the 10 outweighs the loss of the one, despite the fact that he does not get some overbalancing good from his sacrifice, and his is the only life he has. So for the purpose of comparing possible outcomes of action, where the violation of rights is not in question, it is clear that the distinctness of individuals does not prevent balancing of benefits and harms across persons. If special constraints enter in when a sacrifice is to be imposed on someone as a means to the achievement of a desirable outcome, their source must lie elsewhere. Such constraints should not derive from a principle which also has the consequence that practically nothing can be said about the relative desirability of situations involving numbers of different people.
(4) Nozick is wrong about the basis of rights.
'Furthermore, the source of rights of the general kind Nozick advocates cannot be discovered by concentrating, as he suggests we should, on the meaning of individual human lives and the value of shaping one's own life and forming a general conception of it. Vague as his suggestions are, they all suffer from an error of focus, for they concentrate solely on features of persons that make it bad for certain things to happen to them, and good for them to have the opportunity to do certain things. But rights of the kind that interest Nozick are not rights that certain things not happen to you, or rights to be provided with certain opportunities. Rather they are rights not to be interfered with in certain activities. They give rise to claims not against the world at large, but only against someone who contemplates deliberately violating them The relation between the possessor of the right and the actor, rather than just the intrinsic nature of the possessor and of his life, must enter into the analysis of the right and the explication of its basis.
'Any theory of rights must explain this structural feature, even if it does not follow Nozick in elevating the unimpeded exercise of the will into the supreme principle of morality. It is of the first importance that your right not to be assaulted is not a right that everyone do what is required to ensure that you are not assaulted. It is merely a right not to be assaulted, and it is correlated with other people's duty not to assault you. This cannot be explained simply by the fact that it is bad to be assaulted, which is merely an item in the catalog of values by which the desirability or undesirability of occurrences or sets of occurrences is to be weighed. That assault is disagreeable or bad does not explain why the prohibition of it should serve as a constraint on the pursuit of other values or the avoidance of other harms, even if those other values outweigh the badness of assault in a pure calculation of the relative desirability of possible outcomes. Sometimes one is required to choose the less desirable alternative because to achieve the more desirable one would have to violate a right....
'An explanation of the basis of right would therefore have to concentrate on the actor and his relation to the person he is constrained not to treat in certain ways, even to achieve very desirable ends. And it would have to explore the interaction between those constraints, and the goals whose pursuit they constrain. There is no reason to think that either in personal life or in society the force of every right will be absolute or nearly absolute, i.e. never capable of being overridden by consequential considerations. Rights not to be deliberately killed, injured, tormented, or imprisoned are very powerful and limit the pursuit of any goal. More limited restrictions of liberty of action, restrictions on the use of property, restrictions on contracts, are simply less serious and therefore provide less powerful constraints'.
(5) The distinction between end-result and historical theories of justice is not as sharp as Nozick supposes (if we recognize that some rights are not absolute, but may be subordinated to certain valuable ends).
A political theory might -
'assign society the function of promoting certain goods and preventing certain evils, within limits set by the differing constraints of different individual rights. It would not judge processes and procedures solely by their tendency to produce certain outcomes, nor would it judge outcomes solely by the processes that had produced them. Social institutions and the procedures defining them would be assessed by reference both to their respect for individual rights and liberty, and to their tendency to promote desirable ends like the general welfare.
'Nozick offers a classification of principles of distributive justice into which such a theory does not fit.... Suppose a theory says that a distribution is just if it results from a process governed by rules that reflect (a) the suitability of certain patterns, (b) the desirability of increasing certain good results and decreasing certain evils independently of any pattern, and (c) a respect for individual rights of differing importance, Such a theory will be at bottom neither purely historical nor purely patterned. It will be formally historical, but the "historical" or process criterion will be partially determined by considerations of pattern and considerations of total outcome. Therefore Nozick's concentrated attack on patterned principles and nonhistorical principles provides no reason to think that his alternative is correct'.
Note: 'More specifically, his arguments against Rawls are seriously weakened by a Procrustean attempt to portray Rawls's principle of distributive justice as a nonhistorical or end-result principle. Rawls does not maintain that the justice of a distribution can be determined independently of how it was produced. He believes that its justice depends on the justice of the institutions, including legal institutions defining entitlement, which were involved in its production. These are assessed only partly on the basis of their tendency to promote a certain distributive end-state. Rawls, for example, gives priority to the preservation of individual liberty... [which] certainly restricts the procedures by which a distribution can be justly arrived at.'
(6) On the Wilt Chamberlain example, by which Nozick shows that preservation of a pattern would violate the liberty of property owners to do as they wish with their own: again, he supposes that if there is a right, it is absolute.
'It only seems a problem to Nozick, and a further violation of liberty, because he erroneously interprets the notion of a patterned principle as specifying a distribution of absolute entitlements (like those he believes in) to the wealth or property distributed. But absolute entitlement to property is not what would be allocated to people under a partially egalitarian distribution. Possession would confer the kind of qualified entitlement that exists in a system under which taxes and other conditions are arranged to preserve certain features of the distribution, while permitting choice, use, and exchange of property compatible with it. What someone holds under such a system will not be his property in the unqualified sense of Nozick's system of entitlement'.


根據Nozick 有三個規則組正義, 定義:
1. 怎?事由任何人不早先擁有也許 被獲取 ;
2. 怎?財?也許 從 一個人被轉移到另一個; 並且
3. 什?必須做 矯正 不公道出現從侵害(1) 和 (2) 。
分佈是正義的如果它升起與這些三個規則組符合。參見頁151-2 。
Nozick 不設法指定詳細規則在上述三個標題(' 我之下不會試圖那項任務這裏', p. 153) 年。然而, 他提供一些比較進一步的資訊關於承購規則; 參見p. 174ff 。他跟隨的約翰Locke 當Nozick 解釋他象好保持人有一正確(1) 對擁有什?他做, 和(2) 以合適任何東西不已經擁有, 提供他留下' 足夠和' ?其他人- 即提供了他的專有留給他們沒有比較壞。(Nozick 稱這 ' Lockean 但書' 。) 它不是確切怎?Nozick 保衛(1) 反對他自己的批評Locke (p. 174-5) 。至於(2), 他指出, 但書不可能合理地被採取意味必須有可能是沒有惡化其他人機會合適; 它必須意味那在 他們 沒有比較壞關閉的其他方面。 Nozick 比他們是提出這個問題' 沒有比較壞 怎? ?' 這條基礎線是什?? 在Rawls 的理論上這個代表性最壞的人比他是根據其他可能的安排必須是沒有比較壞。Nozick 拒絕這, 但不定義其他基礎線: ' 定象的這個問題基礎線需要比較詳細的調查, 我們能夠給它這裏'; p. 177. 然而, ' 是否專有的 Locke 的特殊理論可能明白解說以便處置各種各樣的困難, 我假設任何充分 正義的理論在承購包含但書相似與比較微弱那個我們歸因於 Locke '; p. 178. Nozick 認?, 但書被違犯如果人合適 所有必要事對生活- 或收購它, 或組合與其他所有者它, 或發現這個單一所有者當其他供應被丟失(即當所有其他水鑽孔乾燥) 。 Nozick 提到丟失權利的可能性對某事原始是你的由於發展自從, 譬如乾燥其他waterholes, 作?' 歷史陰影' 的Lockean 但書 ; p. 180.
與Rawls 的理論的比較
Nozick 分類正義的理論象(1) 也end-result 或歷史, 和(2) 也仿造或 unpatterned 。權利理論歷史和unpatterned 。它不要求分佈起因于正義承購, 調動和整流被仿造, 即關聯與別的(譬如道德優點, 需要, 有用性對社會); 人們也許被給權對事得到偶然或禮物。 任一 分佈, 不問任一個樣式它也許或不也許有, 被提供它有適當的歷史, 假設它事際上來關於與承購, 調動和整流規則符合。 Rawls 的理論另一方面, 是end-result 理論。原則選擇在無知' 面紗之後', 必須根據演算關於什?人民可能結束與在各種各樣的可能的套之下原則- 沒有其他方式選擇(是有?); p. 202. 所以如果 任一種 歷史權利理論是正確的, Rawls 的方法是錯誤的。
注意, 這強加給Rawls 在工作表示一種歷史權利理論的可能的版本沒有能是正確的。他也許回復, 他打算粘附對他自己的理論直到某人實際上導致一種正確權利理論; Nozick 沒有, 因?他的理論僅僅是一個剪影與許多重要細節沒制定出。
Nozick 指出(p. 207 貨物轉運商) 比喻在在Rawls 的理論正義規則到達的他自己的權利理論和過程之間。Rawls 指定一個最初的情況和研討的過程, 和認?任何規則結果從這是正義規則; Nozick 相似地指定過程, 和認?任何分佈收效是正義的。' 各種理論指定變革的起點和過程, 並且每接受任何之外來在' 。但Rawls 的過程?引起原則不可能引起處理原則, 而是唯一end-result 原則。Nozick 認?, 這是反語的。它提出一種困境: 如果過程' 很偉大 ', 這是這個過程不可能帶領以處理正義的原則的瑕疵; 如果過程不那?偉大, 那??什?我們應該接受Rawls 的過程結果? (這是一個微弱的論據。Rawls 可能聲稱, 他的過程是' 偉大' 沒有必須保持所有過程, 正因?他們是過程, 偉大。) 有Rawls 的論據細節的批評許多頁我們不可能這裏(甚至那裏, 有時跟隨!) 。
樣式和自由
其他人除Rawls 以外提出' 樣式' 理論。 Nozick 前進反對反對所有: 部分的歸屬是自由給事人民。如果正義包括在物品被分佈的樣式, 然後給- 改變這個樣式- 是不公道的。因而樣式理論不僅僅改正涉嫌發生在權利理論之下的 mal-distribution; 他們並且修改財?的概念。' 這個看法, 藏品 必須 被仿造或許好似較不振振有詞的當它被看見有人們不也許選擇以做行動弄翻仿造, 與事他們合法地舉行'的後果。(參見p. 219-20) 。注意歸屬的Nozick 的概念: 權利做 任何你選擇 與什?是你自己。
沒有中央經銷商
' 樣式' 理論有時生動描述某些人或機關面對相當分佈好事總額的問題: 他們應該被分佈在樣式對應於優點 , 需要, 等。但, Nozick 維護, 事從未被收集入總額由中央分佈的當局分配。p. 149 期限分配性正義不是一中立一個。聽見期限分佈多數人民假定, 某一事或機制使用某一原則或標準給在一供應之外事... 沒有中央經銷商, 沒有人或小組給權控制所有資源, 聯合決定怎?他們將被施捨。' 如果事下跌從天堂象manna, 並且沒人有任一特別權利對任一個部份的它... ' (p. 198), ' 也許有一個強迫的原因尋找樣式。但從事 進入存在已經舉行(或與協定已經簽署關於怎樣他們將舉行), 那裏是沒有需要尋找某一樣式對於unheld 藏品適合; 並且從這個過程藉以藏品實際上開始存在或被塑造, 本身不需要體會任一個特殊樣式 , 沒有理由盼望任一個樣式收效... 在裏事必須由人做或導致或變換的非manna 從天堂世界在, 分佈的沒有分開過程?分佈的理論是理論'; p. 219.
平等的沒有推測
Nozick 問 ?什? 它將被假設區別在人之間武斷除非他們可能被辯解。一中央經銷商或許一定對待所有除非?真正原因,但一個自由社會分佈起因於許多地方化的交換在個體之間給權贈送他們的藏品當他們祝願。p. 223.
自然抽獎不不公道
根據Rawls, 無知面紗應該隱瞞自然天分的分佈, 因?規則反射這分佈不是正義的。但根據Nozick, 它不是真實, 人該當某事只如果他並且該當任何他過去, 包括自然天分, 獲得它。' 它不需要是, 基礎部下的沙漠他們自己該當, 一直在下 '; p. 225. ' 是否他們被給權對他們的人的自然財?是武斷從一個道德觀點, 並且對什?流程從他們'; p. 226.
機會均等不是權利
居於的財?被給權不也許被佔領?其他人提供機會均等。生活不是種族; ' 沒有統一的種族 ', p. 235 。有各自的交換, 黨對沙漠或障礙通常不關心, 但是簡單地關於什?他們得到在交換。' 集中化過程不判斷他們有對機會的的人的用途; 那不是什?社會合作和交換的過程是 ? '; p. 236. (聲明關於什?機關是?總是嫌疑。怎?我們決定什?交換是?, 並且無論如何?什?這強加範數?)
正義和平等
經常居於筆記, 財富不公平地被分佈, 和立刻進行談論怎?它也許使比較相等。但在權利理論你不可能決定是否再分配僅僅是必要的由看分佈的勝過的樣式。是否它依賴於怎樣分佈來關於。如果它來關於與承購, 調動和整流規則符合, 它然後不是不公道的, 然而不公平它也許是。
Redistributive 舉動由Government Unjust 所著
根據Nozick, 徵稅與牽強的勞方是等效。採取收入的比例是象做人工作每他的工作時間的比例?別人的目的。它是不公道強迫人工作?別人的好處。
根據Locke (部分27), 人有物?在他自己和在他的勞方; 各個人有自由決定什?他將做(依於其他人的權利), 並且權利獲得他自己的舉動好處。但稅提供經費的社會保障編程學院某事象歸屬