Edward Feser's book On Nozick is an overview of the political philosophy of Robert Nozick from a rare perspective—a sympathetic one. In the space of a mere 100 pages, Feser manages to guide the reader through Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia, and to defuse some of the more popular criticisms leveled against it. With a few flaws—the most significant of which is the acute focus on Nozick's major work, to the exclusion of other papers and contributions—the (...) overall effect of Feser's short work is impressive. (shrink)

The night-watchman state of classical liberal theory, limited to the functions of protecting all its citizens against violence, theft, and fraud, and to the enforcement of contracts, and so on, appears to be redistributive.1 We can imagine at least one social arrangement intermediate between the scheme of private protective associations and the night-watchman state. Since the nightwatchman state is often called a minimal state, we shall call this other arrangement the ultraminimal state. An ultraminimal state maintains a monopoly over all (...) use of force except that necessary in immediate selfdefence, and so excludes private (or agency) retaliation for wrong and exaction of compensation; but it provides protection and enforcement services only to those who purchase its protection and enforcement policie., People who don't buy a protection contract from the monopoly don't get protected. The minimal (night-watchman) state is equivalent to the ultraminimal state conjoined with a (clearly redistributive) Friedmanesque voucher plan, financed from tax revenues.2 Under this plan all people, or some (for example, those in need), are given tax-funded vouchers that can be used only for their purchase of a protection policy from the ultraminimal state. (shrink)

The night-watchman state of classical liberal theory, limited to the functions of protecting all its citizens against violence, theft, and fraud, and to the enforcement of contracts, and so on, appears to be redistributive.1 We can imagine at least one social arrangement intermediate between the scheme of private protective associations and the night-watchman state. Since the nightwatchman state is often called a minimal state, we shall call this other arrangement the ultraminimal state. An ultraminimal state maintains a monopoly over all (...) use of force except that necessary in immediate selfdefence, and so excludes private (or agency) retaliation for wrong and exaction of compensation; but it provides protection and enforcement services only to those who purchase its protection and enforcement policie., People who don't buy a protection contract from the monopoly don't get protected. The minimal (night-watchman) state is equivalent to the ultraminimal state conjoined with a (clearly redistributive) Friedmanesque voucher plan, financed from tax revenues.2 Under this plan all people, or some (for example, those in need), are given tax-funded vouchers that can be used only for their purchase of a protection policy from the ultraminimal state. (shrink)

Do our lives have meaning? Should we create more people? Is death bad? Should we commit suicide? Would it be better if we were immortal? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic? Life, Death, and Meaning brings together key readings, primarily by English-speaking philosophers, on such 'big questions.'.

Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia contains one of the earliest and best-known criticisms of John Rawls’s theory of justice in general and the difference principle in particular. The discussion of Nozick’s critique of Rawls in the literature has focused on his argument against “patterned” conceptions of justice, of which the difference principle as Nozick understands it constitutes merely one version among others. In this article I consider the objection Nozick raises against the difference principle specifically, (...) namely that it unfairly favors the “worse endowed” over the “better endowed” members of society. I argue that Nozick’s charge of unfairness against the difference principle is ambiguous between two distinct interpretations of the difference principle and as such divides into two distinct objections, the pre-cooperative and the cooperative fairness objection. I then argue that neither of these two interpretations of the difference principle represents the actual, Rawlsian difference principle accurately and that, more fundamentally, Nozick lacks the concept of politics as the distinctive moral category implicitly at work in Rawls’s theory of justice. Not as much of Nozick’s charge of unfairness against the difference principle therefore remains on reflection as may have appeared at first sight. (shrink)

This article aims at giving insight into Norwegian mental health service by exploring the ideologies of two diametrical philosophers, the American Robert Nozick (1938–2002) and the German Axel Honneth (1949‐). Nozick proposes as an ideal a minimal state in which citizens have a “negative right” to the absence of interference and to follow their own interests without restriction from the state. On the other side, Axel Honneth claims that there is no freedom without state interference. In his view, (...) governmental involvement is understood as a prerequisite for personal freedom. We may call this state an opposite of the minimal state; a maximal state. To get a better understanding of these opposite philosophies, we use texts written from conversations with people suffering from mental health problems, nurses and other caregivers in four Norwegian municipalities. Nozick's notion of the minimal state and Honneth's political philosophy of freedom and recognition were used as analytical tools. Among patients and helpers, there were different opinions about good care and how much caregivers should intervene. Some emphasized autonomy, independency, minimal involvement in human contact by nurses and other caregivers, similar a minimal state. Others perceived good care as bonding between helpers and service‐users. They underlined equal and personal relationships, as well as helping with practicalities, similar a maximal state. In the discussion, we focus on how people with chronic illnesses are supposed to transform themselves into self‐cared individuals, able to manage their own condition successfully with minimal help from public welfare and at a lower cost. Finally, we express concerns about who will care for disempowered patients without family and other resources in a minimal state. (shrink)

This paper raises some difficulties with the strategy suggested in Robert Nozick’s Philosophical Explanations for explaining why there is something rather than nothing. I am concerned less with his adoption of an egalitarian, as opposed to inegalitarian, explanatory stance (the net effect of which is to detach for independent consideration the question, “Why is there something?”) than with his use of a crucial assumption in reasoning from the egalitarian point of view. I argue that this assumption, that all possibilities (...) exist, is fatally ambiguous, that the persuasiveness of Nozick’s reasoning depends on at once assuming and blurring the difference between the predicates “does not exist” and “nonexists” and that the attempt to wed a priori reasoning and a posteriori (mystical) practice fails. (shrink)

This is an excellent though largely uncritical introduction to, and defence of, Robert Nozick‟s Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974). It is also quite a good introduction to libertarianism. It is full of good arguments. I shall confine myself to critical remarks. My responses are mainly in the order that matters arise in the book.

Austrian economics - the school of thought associated with Carl Menger, Frederick von Weiser, Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk, and in this century, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Murray N. Rothbard, and Israel Kirzner - is based on a framework of methodological principles and assumptions much at variance with those of traditional or 'orthodox' economists. Robert Nozick, in his 'On Austrian Methodology', focuses attention on the most fundamental features of this framework, and subjects them to a thoroughgoing and scathing analysis. Singled (...) out for detailed and critical review are: (1) the praxeological concepts of methodological individualism; (2) the claim that economics is an a priori science of human action; (3) the nature of preference and its relation to choice and action; and (4) the assumptions of time-preference theory. Although Nozick does not consider Austrian views on business cycles, market process analysis, the coordinative and informational effects of the price system, competition, and several other fundamental aspects of praxeology, his criticism strikes at the very root of the praxeological school. This paper attempts to refute each criticism made of the praxeological school by Nozick on a point-by-point basis. It thus follows the same pattern as the original paper, and scrutinizes in detail the arguments made by its author. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper considers Robert Nozick's account of self‐esteem, as presented in Anarchy, State, and Utopia. I criticise three aspects of it. First, the claim that people gain self‐esteem only when they believe that they possess greater quantities than others of some valued talent or attribute. Secondly, the view that there will always be a conflict of interests between people over the acquisition of self‐esteem. Thirdly, the proposal that the most promising way to improve levels of self‐esteem across a (...) society is to educate people so that they value a number of different activities and attributes. I argue against Nozick that there are non‐comparative standards of doing something well or successfully that provide a person with a means of self‐assessment; there is no necessary conflict of interests over the acquisition of self‐esteem; reforming basic social and economic institutions is a promising way for a society to increase levels of self‐esteem. (shrink)

Robert Nozick initiated one of the most inspired and inspiring discussions in political philosophy with his 1974 response in Anarchy, State, and Utopia to John Rawls’s 1971 account of distributive justice in A Theory of Justice. These two works have informed an enormous amount of subsequent, especially liberal, discussions of economic justice, where Nozick’s work typically functions as a resource for those defending more right-wing (libertarian) positions, whereas Rawls’s has been used to defend various left-wing stances. Common to (...) these discussions, as found in politics generally (where similar kinds of arguments frequently are used to defend right and the left-wing policies and conclusions) is that they end in rather stubborn stalemates: the right defending minimal states while the left defends more extensive states. Interesting, too, is that both Nozick and Rawls take themselves to be consistent with, inspired by, and furthering Kant’s freedom project in the development of their own theories of justice. In this paper, I start by outlining the structures of these debates with an emphasis on the original disagreements between Nozick and Rawls. I then show how neither theory actually employed Kant’s own theory of justice, but rather drew on or out (presumed) implications of his ethical theory. In the final sections, I argue that if Nozick and Rawls had instead used Kant’s theory of justice and not his ethics, not only would their individual theories have been stronger, but they could have found ways of overcoming the unproductive stalemates that characterize their own as well as subsequent related discussions of economic justice as we currently find them in much scholarly and contemporary political debate. (shrink)

Robert Nozick, in chapter two of the nature of rationality, proposes two famous problems in decision theory (i.e., Newcomb's problem and Prisoner Dilemma) and two main strategies toward these problems i.e. dominant strategy and dominated or cooperative one. He will try to give a formal principles to calculate the decision values in these situations. In this calculation he goes beyond the standard principle of maximizing expected utility and would try to put forth less ideal and more realistic principles that (...) fit the decision situation in the real world. (shrink)

According to robert nozick's theory of distributive justice, We are forced to choose between a commitment to the kantian principle that no one may be used as a means to the purposes of others and the socialist view that the benefits of land and natural resources should be distributed on the basis of an end-State standard of equity. However, We face no such dilemma. A careful look at nozick's argument reveals that the kantian imperative does not clearly entail (...) the right of individuals to own land and natural resources. Indeed a very plausible application of the imperative is compatible with the doctrine that land and resources are communal property. Therefore, Nozick's theory fails to justify economic distributions produced by a system in which natural resources are privately owned. (shrink)

Nozick argues, in “Anarchy, State, and Utopia”, correctly I think, that we can go from an equal distribution of wealth to an unequal one through just means. Nozick then asks: If people voluntarily move from a just distribution of wealth, D1, to a different distribution, D2, “isn’t D2 also just?” While Nozick thinks the new distribution of wealth, D2, is just, I think that it is at least possible to go from a just state of affairs to (...) an un-just state of affairs by just means. I then argue that any unequal distribution of wealth cannot maximize the good derived from wealth. Therefore, on the basis of plausible utilitarian ideas, any distribution of wealth that isn’t at least roughly equal is un-just, even if it was arrived at by just means from an equal and just distribution of wealth. (shrink)

This is an article in Norway's leading philosophical journal (Filosofisk Tidsskrift) on how Robert Nozick is misread as a life-long, extreme libertarian in the vein of "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" (1974). Contrary to common belief, Nozick gradually (espec. from 1989 onwards) turned away from his former "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" towards a focus on "social ties" (1993) etc.

Recently, philosophers have drawn on tools from game theory to explore behavior in Hobbes’ state of nature. I take a similar approach and argue the Lockean state of nature is best conceived of as a conflictual coordination game. I also discuss Nozick’s famous claim regarding the emergence of the state and argue the path to the minimal state is blocked by a hitherto unnoticed free-rider problem. Finally, I argue that on my representation of the Lockean state of nature both (...) widespread conflict and lasting peace are possible. This, I contend, is in line with one popular interpretation of Locke. (shrink)

Robert Nozick’s oft-quoted review of Tom Regan’s The Case for Animal Rights levels a range of challenges to Regan’s philosophy. Many commentators have focussed on Nozick’s putative defence of speciesism, but this has led to them overlooking other aspects of the critique. In this paper, I draw attention to two. First is Nozick’s criticism of Regan’s political theory, which is best understood relative to Nozick’s libertarianism. Nozick’s challenge invites the possibility of a libertarian account of (...) animal rights – which is not as oxymoronic as it may first sound. Second is Nozick’s criticism of Regan’s axiological theory, which is best understood relative to Nozick’s own axiological inegalitarianism. While Nozick’s axiology has distasteful consequences, it should not be dismissed out-of-hand. Nozick’s challenges to Regan – and Nozick’s wider animal ethics – are rich and original, warranting attention from contemporary theorists for reasons beyond mere historical interest. (shrink)