Nozick Notes

Nozick came up with a theory of distributive justice, that is, how the goods and responsibilities of
society should be distributed among its members. Many goods and responsibilities are attached to
particular people based on how they're generated: having a baby, parents are responsible.
Different theories on distributive justice: (I) End-result theories: justice of a distribution can be
judged structurally, e.g. identity of people doesn't matter. (ii) Patterned theory: justice of a
distribution depends on matching some natural dimension; fit formula from each according to
(blank).
End-result theorists would look at overall distribution of wealth in a city and attempt to find a way
to even things out. Looking at degrees of inequality etc.
Patterned theorists look at
Historical theory: justice of a distribution depends on how it came about. Examples: Locke (labor
theory, monetary exchange) Nozick.
Nozick's Entitlement Theory
-A theory of justice requires three subsidiary principles:
-Acquisition: How to acquire a holding justly from nature
-Transfer: How to transfer holdings justly
-Rectification: How to correct an earlier injustice
Inductive def. Of just holding: Acquisition: Someone acquiring a holding in accord with the
principle of justice in acquisition is entitled to it. If you've grown a tomato on your own land, it's
your tomato.
-Transfer: Someone acquiring a holding in accord with the principle of justice in transfer from
someone holding it justly is entitled to it. In an ideal world, we could stop here. But in reality there
are accidents and mistakes,
-Rectification: Someone acquiring a holding in accord with the principle of justice in rectification is
entitled to it.
-No one is entitled to a holding except by 1-3.
Equivalent definition:
-I hold something justly if and only if there is a chain of holdings back to an original acquisition
from nature, with no uncorrected injustices
-My shirt Retailer Wholesaler Factory Clothmaker Cotton farmer Cotton (nature)
-How would you know there was never an injustice along the line? These chains could go back
long time, and how would we know there was an injustice along the line? The weight of the theory
could potentially be thus thrown into the principle of rectification. A good objection may be,
according to this theory, there is no way to know whether holdings are ever just.
Liberty Historical theory
-Pick a distribution D1 just according to some other principle
-Even if all needs are met, people may transform this into D2 by engaging in free economic activity
(Wilt Chamberlain)
-Is D2 just?

-Yes historical theory

-No: theory limits freedom
Against Socialism: Theory
-Only a historical theory allows freedom
-End-result and patterned theories require constant interference in people's lives
-Socialist societies would have to forbid capitalist acts between consenting adults
On Robert Nozick on Distributive Justice
-Mark Thorsby @ YouTube
-Nozick is an important libertarian philosopher.
-Argues for a minimal state.
-Nozick argued the principle of liberty was paramount and people should be able to pursue their
desires freely.
Structure of Anarchy, State and Utopia
-Part 1: Argument for a minimal state
-Part 2: States more powerful than the 'minimal state' are not morally justified
-Part 3: The minimal state is a framework for Utopia
Some characteristics of the Minimal State
-Only a night-watchman, or minimal state, is consistent with individual liberty
-A minimal state has a monopoly on the use of force
-Force is used to guard the citizenry
-Beyond this function, the minimal state has no other legitimate function
We do not have a minimal state
-No public education, welfare, state pensions or social health care in a minimal state
-We live in a liberal nation state, wherein we see the state as having the obligation to make our life
better in some senses
-There are arguably serious benefits to the liberal state, such as public education.
-The minimal state is the most extensive state that can be justified
2 Key Types of Justice
1) Distributive Justice Questions of Holdings (ReDistribution? Is it ever justified?)
2) Retributive Justice Question of Just Deserts (You commit a crime, you deserve a penalty)
Important notes by Nozick
1) A free society has no central distribution
2) Redistribution assumes that: a) The first distribution is Unjust b) That a redistribution will correct
the first distribution
Question: What makes a distribution just?
...Concerning utilitarianism, which posits that we are all essentially the same and inequities should
be smoothed out by redistribution of wealth, Nozick asks how is the first distrubution unjust? What
makes the distribution unjust in the first place? Answers this using entitlement theory.
Entitlement Theory
-Justice in Holdings is Historical
-Three Key Topics: 1) The original acquisition of holdings 2) The transfer of holdings 3) the
rectification of injustice of holdings
The Exhaustive principle of Justice in Holdings

-If the world were wholly just, the following would exhausitvely cover the subject of justice in
holdings
1. A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in acquisition is
entitled to that holding
2. A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in transfer, from
some one else entitled to the holding is entitled to the holding
3. No one is entitled to a holding except by (repeated) applications of 1 and 2
BUT...our world is not wholly just, which is why we need a historical concept of justice.
-The general outlines of the theory of justice in holdings are that the holdings of a person are just if
he is entitled to them by the principles of justice in acquisition and transfer, or by the principle of
rectification of injustice If each person's holding's are just, then the total set (distributions) of
holdings is just
-In other words, if people followed these rules, over time the society would be just.
-Builds up an argument for capitalism and free-markets.
Historical Principles and End-Result Principles
-Whether a distribution is just depends upon how it came about.
-2 Views: Historical Justice vs Time-Slice Principles of Justice
-Time-Slice theories look at questions of the form of distribution rather than how the holding was
acquired. This means one need only look at the distribution matrix & apply a redistribution matrix,
example of Marx who believed in a natural way people should relate to one another and this should
be in a non-alienating fashion, private property is alienating, thus capitalism is unjust. Nozick
argues that if capitalism results in an unequal number of shares, this doesn't necessarily mean the
society is unjust providing they abide by the principles of justice.
Patterning
-Nozick's critique is aimed at a whole range of philosophical and political approaches.
Let us call a principle of distribution patterned if it specifies that a distrbiution is to vary along
with some natural dimension, weighted sum of natural dimensions, or lexicographic ordering of
natural dimensions
-Nozick is saying that when people try to superimpose 'in state' principles they do so by comparing
specific types of patterns and relating these patterns to natural states. Marx does this by claiming
there is a natural type of freedom, unalienated freedom, thus there is a certain pattern of material
existence in Marx and Marx is superimposing this pattern upon our contemporary state of existence
and comparing the similarities and differences and claims these differences are unjust. In state
principles are essentially pattern principles.
-The idea of patterning applies to the philosopher that articulates a particular pattern of distribution
that is just based on some sort of merit and then applies the pattern as a model for analysis.
-But when we take the historical nature of holdings into account, that is if we go with Nozick's
entitlement theory, we find that
1) Patterns of distribution exist
2) But patterns are more often determined by the type of holdings people have to exchange
-In a society that is free, those patterns will be dependent on the type of holdings people have. We
will start off with different pots of 'stuff' and pursue our desires based on what we have. This is no
necessarily reflective of injustices in our system.
-FA Hayek: Our obligation is against all attempts to impress upon society a deliberately chosen
pattern of distribution, whether it be an order of equality or inequality
-One Pattern Suggested by Hayek: To each according to how much he benefits who have the

resources for benefiting those who benefit them

-For an entitlement theory of justice, production and distribution are not separate issues. Marx sees
these as separate things.
-Because things come into the world already attacked to people, having entitlement over them, we
discover that a simple application of a pattern to an existing state of affairs could is amiss.
-To each as they choose, to each as they are chosen - Nozick
Liberty Upsets Patterns
-Wilt Chamberlain example. Makes a deal with managers of team that for every dollar sold, he gets
a quarter. Not equal to other players but Chamberlain had the freedom to ask for it. Managers freely
accept. Wilt Chamberlain thus attains more wealth compared to other players. However, his
freedom to choose disrupts patterns imposed upon him.
-Freedom disrupts any technocratic or bureaucratic principle.
-No end-state principle or distribution patterned principle of justice can be continuously realized
without continuous interference with people's lives
-In order to maintain a pattern, one would need to interfere with the liberty of others to choose.
-Any patterning is either unstable historically or is satisfied by the entitlement system.
-If entitlement to holdings are rights to dispose of them, then social choice must take place within
the constraints of how people choose to exercise these rights. If any patterning is legitimate, it falls
within the domain of social choice, and hence is constrained by people's rights
Wolf Reading: The Entitlement Theory of Justice
Rights, Distributive Justice, and the Minimal State
'Nozick, as we have seen, defends the minimal state, which exists simply to enforce natural
rights and administer justice by means of a police force and court procedure'
'One activity of many modern states is to implement policies to bring about what is taken to
be justice, in the distribution of wealth and income held by its citizens, or at least, to lessen
injustice. One possibly serious objection to the minimal state is that it would not be able to
undertake any policies of this nature'
Nozick points out an alternative: 'an account of distributive justice according to which
justice can be realized even by the minimal state. This is the role of his entitlement theory of
justice'
'The argument, in short, is that entitlement theory is true. If this is so, then, as we shall see,
at least in economic matters, the only justified state is the minimal state. In particular those
who initially believe that a more-than-minimal state is justified must answer the challenge of
the entitlement theory of justice'
Theories of Justice: End-States, Patterns and History
'Before presenting the entitlement theory in detail, we might try to become clearer about
what it is a theory of, and what its competitors are' We are dealing with the issue of
distributive justice: is a particular set of economic holdings among members of a society just
or unjust?
Nozick mentions writers on this subject often present various wealth and income figures
the top x per cent own y per cent of society's wealth, and so on and invite us to judge
whether or not this is a just situation.
Nozick, would argue that such bare statistics do not give us sufficient information to assess
the matter at all.
A great many views of economic or distributive justice are possible. Some theorists claim
that goods should be shared equally, or, repeatedly, that each person should be allocated
goods entirely on the basis of need. Others have claimed that only labour may righfully
confer title to goods, or have appealed to various other desert-based criteria, such as effort,
moral merit, or abstinence. Rawls has argued that the economy should be so arranged so that

the worst off should be as well off as possible. Thus, he argues, inequalities are permissible,
but only if all benefit. Thus, he argues, inequalities are permissible, but only if all benefit. It
is clear that anyone who advocates any one of these theories must tacitly accept a more than
minimal state which diverts resources by taxation or other means to those who, according to
the theory, may justly possess them.
Theories of justice, then, address what is commonly known as the problem of distributive
justice: how the goods of our society should be justly distributed. However, Nozick notes
that this way of putting the problem is 'not neutral'. That is to say, to talk about distributive
justice seems to presuppose that resources exist in a big 'social pot' waiting to be justly
allocated by some central authority. But there is no pot, only people and associations of
people, the natural world, and what people produce.
We can, of course, ask whether current holdings of property are just, and whether justice
requires us to transfer some resources from one person to another, but if we continue to talk
about distributive justice we will tend to think in terms of the 'social pot' and so blind
ourselves to certain theories of justice.
Nozick's case is that economic justice can be achieved without recourse to any central
distribution process, and thus can be achieved by the minimal state.
Rather than distributive justice Nozick uses the term 'justice in holdings'. The entitlement
theory, then, is one theory of justice which addresses the issue of justice in holdings.
Nozick makes some important distinctions between types of theories of justice in holdings.
First he introduces the idea of a current-time slice or end-state principle, of which he claims
utilitarianism is an example. The essential features of such accounts of justice is that they
assess a distribution by attending only to its structure, and so it may be possible to substitute
one arrangement for another without leading to injustice. It may be, for example, that A
having 10 and B having 5 gives the same utility as A having 5 and B having 10.
This view contrasts with what Nozick calls historical principles.
'Each according to their contribution' is one such historical view in this sense. To tell
whether a distribution is just we need to know not only how the distribution is structured,
but whether, in fact, it corresponds to historically relevant features of people. Nozick divdes
historical principles into two classes: patterned and unpatterned. Patterned theories are those
according to which the just distribution is to be determined by some 'natural dimension' or
sum, or ordering of dimensions: each according to their labour, need, merit, etc. Nozick
suggests that 'To think that the task of a theory of distributive is to fill in the blank in to
each according to his ___ is to be predisposed to search for a pattern'
By contrast Nozick suggests his historical entitlement theory is not patterned
The Entitlement Theory
What would an unpatterned historical theory be like? Typically, it will concentrate on ways
of coming to hold property, rather than specify a pattern to which distributions must
conform. That is, it will specify a procedure or set of procedures which must be followed if
an acquisition of property is justified if and only if you come to hold it by the correct
procedure.
If the world were wholly just, Nozick claims his entitlement theory would exhaustively
cover the subject of justice in holdings.
A principle of justice in acquisition tells us how things can change status from the unowned
to the owned, and a principle of justice in transfer explains how goods, already justly owned,
can be transferred to others. The essential core of Nozick's principle of justice in transfer is
just if and only if it is voluntary. However given that the world is not wholly just, and people
sometimes acquire goods by force or fraud, and so on, a principle of justice in rectification is
also needed, to repair the effects of past injustices.
The justice of one's holding of a particular item of property depends entirely on how it came
into one's possession. If it was justly acquired, then it is justly held.

Liberty and Patterns

It is the principle of justice in transfer which immediately promises the most far-reaching
consequences.
Nozick's argument is very simply. It is that 'liberty upsets patterns'. A proper regard for
liberty forces upon us Nozick's principle of justice in transfer a transfer is just if and only
if it is voluntary but if we accept this this it can be demonstrated that no patterned theory is
acceptable.
Nozick's notorious Wilt Chamberlain example generalizes the point to demonstrate that
liberty freedom of transfer rules out not only equality but all patterned and end-state
theories. Suppose that 'your favourite' pattern, whatever it is, is realized, and let us call that
distribution of goods D1. Example shows a movement to a new pattern (D2).
Voluntary transfers, so it appears, can upset any pattern, transforming it into a new
distribution.
But is this new distribution D2 just? Nozick's second claim is that it is. If D1 was just, and
people voluntarily moved from it to D2, then D2 is surely also just. So, Nozick argues, we
must admit that there can exist a just distribution not in accordance with the original pattern.
But if we admit this, then we have abandoned a patterned conception of justice.
Nozick's third and most important point agaisnt patterned and end-state theories is that if
voluntary actions will disrupt a distibution, then the only way of maintaining that
distribution will involve preventing or otherwise nullyfying those voluntary actions, and this
will interfere with people's liberty.
Is it true that upholding a pattern violates liberty, and if so is this a sufficient refutation of all
patterned theories?
Many egalitarians advocate a far more radical transformation of society than that in which,
in effect, we have capitalism with equal money. Some argue, for example, that ideally
money should be abolished. Some argue, for example, that there should be a central
distribution of needed resources. 'Of course', it might be said, 'given capitalist trading
institutions, patterns will be upset, but this is simply a reason for thinking that the just
society might be thought to be poorly represented by 'patterned' conceptions of justice'
Nozick's reply is that even in a socialist money-free society, people might want to exchange
goods and services with each other, and thereby severe inequalities may develop.
Thus, we must concede, nothing rests on Nozick's assumption that distrbution is to be made
in terms of money. If goods are to be held at all, even if allocated for consumption purposes
only, then voluntary transfers are likely to be upset the original distribution. This will be true
for money and non-money economies alike.
NOZICK's 3 ESSENTIAL CLAIMS: 'First, voluntary transfers will upset patterns; second,
if D1 was just, and people voluntarily moved from it to D2 surely D2 is just too; and third,
enforcing a pattern requires an unacceptable violation of people's liberty'
The Disruption of Patterns
But is it true that patterns will be disrupted by voluntary transactions? One response is that
patterns are not merely arbitrary; they would be brought about for a reason. In some cases
people might be motivated by those reasons to attempt to maintain the pattern, even if they
know they could destroy it through greed or lack of care. Suppose a society has fought hard
for non money socialism. Individuals may well see ways of improving their lot through
voluntary transactions, but nevertheless restrain from taking them as they do not wish to
disrupt equality. Nozick replies that this presupposes unrealistically that (1) all will most
want to maintain the pattern (2) that each can gather enough information about his own
actions and the ongoing activities of others to discover which of his actions will upset the
pattern, and (3) that diverse and far-flung persons can coordinante their actions to dovetail
into the pattern. Is it unrealistic to assent to (1) or a slightly weaker view (1'): that the
overwhelming majority will most want to maintain the pattern?

We have no evidence that people have ever, on a large scale, been sufficiently concerned
about maintaining a pattern that they would strongly be motivated to do so even in the
absence of coercion. Thus it is Nozick's opponent who has to establish a controversial
conception of human nature to show that Nozick is wrong. What about assumptions (2) and
(3)? These, it has been said, are 'red herrings'. At most they are preconditions of realising
[patterned] justice perfectly. The point here is that even if lack of information and imperfect
coordination lead to deviations from the pattern, these would tend to be temporary though
possibly numerous and serious abberations rather than cumulative long term difficulties,
for if people are motivated to keep the pattern, then they would do their best to correct any
discrepancies which occur.
Voluntary Transfer
Nozick claims that 'whatever arises from a just situation by just steps is itself just', and this
may well seem self-evident. However the claim under consideration is that 'whatever arises
from a just situation by voluntary steps is just'
A different claim, also implied by Nozick, is that voluntariness is neccesary for justice: a
transaction is just only if it is voluntary.
Let us concentrate for the moment on the sufficiency claim: is every voluntary transaction
just?
But can things be so simple?
One first point is that it may not be easy to tell when a transaction is voluntary.
The distinction between free and forced exchange is not simply a fussy matter of detail, for
it connects with an important question of the justice of capitalist society: are workers forced
to work for capitalists? If they are not forced, then, they can have no complaint agaisnt
capitalism, according to entitlement theory. If, on the other hand, they are forced, then for a
libertarian the position is extremely serious. Thus it is vital to answer this question.
The claim that workers are forced to work for capitalists rests, in part, on the observations
that if they do not, they will starve. So if a person is faced with the choice of working for
some capitalist or other, or starving, does this mean that he or she is forced to work, or does
not work voluntarily?
'Whether a person's actions are voluntary depends on what it is that limits his alternatives. If
facts of nature do so, the actions are voluntary. (I may voluntarily walk to some place I
would prefer to fly to unaided.)' - Nozick
Hence there are two necessary conditions to be fulfilled if, according to Nozick, one may
count one's actions as non-voluntary. First, one's options must be restricted by actions of
others, and second, these constraining actions must themselves violate rights.
If a worker is faced with the choice of working or starving, the choice to work is made
voluntarily, provided all those whose actions affect the conditions of choice have acted
without violating rights. Thus capitalism is not neccesarily a regime of force.
Nozick's implicit claim that 'voluntariness suffices for justice' rests principally on the fac
that is corresponds with what we find intuitively plausible. But when we look at the matter
in detail, and discover how Nozick is using the term 'voluntary' we may find that if we read
his claim as he intends us to, it no longer expresses our intuition.
Patterns and taxation
Objections to Nozick's theory might be brought to an end, however, if he could establish his
third and most striking claim: that to enforce a pattern requires continuous and unacceptable
intrusions into people's lives.
Nozick's argument, then, is that to enforce a pattern restricts liberty. A certain picture of
what it would be like to enforce a pattern is implied: constant surveillance to make sure no
one gets too much or too little, and constant intrusions either to prohibit or to rectify the
effects of pattern-breaking transactions. Life would be made a misery by the vigilance, and
unpredictable, ad hoc interventions of the 'transaction police'

Such a redistribution scheme can be represented as a rather weak or loose pattern, and so
one reply to Nozick admits that to enforce a weak pattern does restricts people's liberty in
certain important ways, but it is a gross exaggeration to present the infringement as being as
serious as Nozick maintains.

NOZICK & SELF-OWNERSHIP

Nozick's libertarian position begins with natural rights.
First line of Anarchy, State and Utopia (ASU): Individuals have rights, and there are things
no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights)
These are natural rights in that we have them because of what we are and not because they
were given to us by someone.
What is the basis for these rights? Nozick draws on Kant's famous Categorical
Imperative, specifically it's second formulation: Act so that you treat humanity, whether in
your own person or that of another, always as an end and never as a means only
Humans are by nature rational beings possessing dignity. Dignity prevents us from being
used by others, and hence we have rights against such use.
Our rights function as 'side-constraints' says Nozick, limiting what others (including the
state) may do to us. We can't trade rights away for benefits. For example, we're prohibited
from deciding that a little more happiness or a little more wealth (or a lot more) is sufficient
grounds for violating a person's rights. People may not be sacrficed or used for the
achieving of other ends without their consent Nozick writes. Individuals are inviolable.
From this Nozick moves to a basic principle of self-ownership. I own myself and thus have
a right to do with myself as I please. You own yourself and have the same right. I dont own
you and you dont own me. This gives each one of us rights not only to ourselves, but also to
the fruits of our labor. (Nozick argues for this last point along Lockean lines.) In other
words, Nozick takes our fundamental rights to be of the negative sort. These are rights to be
free from certain acts by other people (assault, theft, enslavement, etc.), not rights to be
provided with certain goods and services (a right to healthcare, or a right to education).

But this leads to an enormous question when it comes to politics, one Nozick helpfully
points out: 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 shortest answer is not much. The slightly longer outline Nozick providesbefore
spending much of the book defending his claimslooks like this:
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 not 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.
This sets Nozick up for arguments with two groups. First, those who think this vision of
the state is too small: progressives, liberal egalitarians, communitarians, socialists,
conservatives, and so on. Second, those who think this vision of the state is too big:
anarchists.

II. THE SELF-OWNERSHIP ARGUMENT

Yes, he does, the Self-Ownership Argument. Put more simply, the Chamberlain argument is:
1. D1 is just according to your favored pattern of distribution (stipulation).
2. If D1 is just, then each has an absolute right to her holdings.
3. If each has such a right, then any D2 which arises from D1 plus free exchanges is
just.
4. D2 will be random with regard to any pattern of distribution.
5. Therefore, for any pattern of distribution in D1, any new pattern D2 derived from D1
plus free exchanges will be just.
The problem we noted above was that premise 2 is question-begging: Why should we think
that if a distribution is just, it entails absolute rights over holdings? This is where the selfownership argument comes in.
The self-ownership argument is based on the idea that human beings are of unique value. It is
one way of construing the fundamental idea that people must be treated as equals. People are
"ends in themselves". To say that a person is an end in herself is to say that she cannot be
treated merely as a means to some other end. What makes a person an end is the fact that she
has the capacity to choose rationally what she does. This makes people quite different from
anything else, such as commodities or animals. The latter can be used by us as mere means to
our ends without doing anything morally untoward, since they lack the ability to choose for
themselves how they will act or be used. Human beings, having the ability to direct their own
behavior by rational decision and choice, can only be used in a way that respects this capacity.
And this means that people can't be used by us unless they consent.
The paradigm of violating this requirement to treat people as ends in themselves is thus
slavery. A slave is a person who is used as a mere means, that is, without her consent. That is,
a slave is someone who is owned by another person. And quite obviously the reverse of
slavery is self-ownership. If no one is a slave, then no one owns another person, and if no one
owns another person, then each person is only owned by herself. Hence, we get the idea that
treating people as ends in themselves is treating them as owning themselves.
The Self-ownership argument tries to show that redistributive taxation is equivalent to using
people as mere means, that is, not consistently with their self-ownership, since it uses them
without their consent:
1. If people are ends in themselves, then they may not be used without their consent.
2. If they may not be used without their consent, then they own themselves.
3. If people own themselves, then they own their talents and abilities.
4. If they own their talents and abilities, then they own the products of their talents and
abilities.
5. Patterned redistribution allows some people to own the products of others' talents and
abilities.
6. Therefore, patterned redistribution allows some people to own other people, and so
does not treat them as ends in themselves.
The basic idea here is that one doesn't really own oneself if others have a legitimate claim
over what one produces by one's talents. And if only I have a legitimate claim over the
products of my talents, then I have absolute property rights over them. Hence, Nozick argues
for absolute property rights on the basis of the fact that people are ends in themselves. And
distributive schemes such as Rawls', which allows people the products of their talents only to
the extent that they benefit the less talented treats people as mere means to the enhancement
of the less talented.

III. ABSOLUTE PROPERTY RIGHTS AND SELF-OWNERSHIP

Put simply, Nozick argues that if we own ourselves absolutely, then we own what we produce
absolutely. But redistributive taxation takes some of what we produce without our consent and
gives it to others. So redistributive taxation is inconsistent with self-ownership, and so is
unjust. But does absolute self-ownership really imply absolute ownership over the products of
one's talents?
No. Free market exchanges involve much more than simply ourselves and our talents and
abilities. We exchange houses, cars, TVs and so on, all of which are not entirely the products
of our talents and abilities. For they are made in part of natural resources as well, and natural
resources are not the products of our talents and abilities. Every commodity, except labor
iself, is the outcome at least two items, human powers and natural resources. For instance, a
house is made by human talents and abilities; but it is made out of wood, bricks and land as
well. So even supposing that we have absolute control over our own talents and abilities, it
would not imply that redistributive taxation is inconsistent with self-ownership, since we do
not have absolute control over resources as well. So if libertarianism is justified in terms of
self-ownership, it requires in addition the help of some view about how we come to have
ownership over the resources on which we exercise our talents and abilities.
Of course, if we freely exchange for a resource over which someone has absolute rights,
perhaps we can have absolute rights over it. But recall that on Nozick's view, I am entitled to
whatever has been transferred to me by someone who had legitimate title over it. The
legitimacy of my entitlement is thus dependent on the legitimacy of the previous owner's
entitlement. If she was not entitled to it, then the transfer to me, no matter how free, does not
entitle me to it. For instance, I may buy a car from someone for a price we both agree on. But
I will still not be entitled to it if it was stolen. Hence, our entitlements are all dependent on the
legitimacy of the entitlement of previous owners, and theirs on those previous to them, and so
on. This general concern raises the following dilemma from G.A. Cohen:
1. The acquisition of most natural resources was by force.
2. Either force made the acquisition illegitimate or not.
3. If it did, then governments may now rightfully confiscate and redistribute it.
4. If it did not, then governments may now rightfully confiscate it and redistribute it.
5. Hence, either way, if force was the source of the initial acquisition, then governments
may rightfully redistribute current holdings.
Nozick takes the first horn of the dilemma: Governments may confiscate and redistribute all
holdings that were acquired by force, that is, unless we can restore holdings to their rightful
owners (e.g., Native Americans).
But what about the very first person to acquire a given resource, as opposed to someone down
the line who forced another to give it up. What would make the initial acquisition of the
holding legitimate? If the initial acquisition is legitimate, then all subsequent free exchanges
are legitimate, and the current holder is entitled to her holding. However, if the initial
acquisition was not legitimate, then the current holder is not entitled to her holding. Moreover,
Nozick must show, not merely that people can come to acquire natural objects that were
previously unowned, but that they can come to have absolute rights over them. If one could
initially get absolute property rights, then they could be freely transferred.

IV. The Lockean Proviso

How might an initial acquisition be legitimate? Nozick appeals to the Lockean Proviso:
Natural resources, such as land, come to be rightfully owned by the first person to appropriate
it, as long as she left "enough and as good" for others. Suppose we are talking about a parcel
of land. A may appropriate as much land as he wants only if he leaves enough and as good for
others. Suppose A takes half, then. Now others come along, and each can appropriate only if
she leaves enough and as good for others. So B can take half of the half left by A, C half of
the half left by B, D half the half left by C, and so on through the alphabet. It is easy to see
that evenutally there will not be enough left for some person, Z. Z can then complain that X
did not leave enough and as good, so X's appropriation was illegitimate. But if so, then Y did
not leave enough and as good for X, and so on all the way back up the alphabet to A. This
seems to show that it will be impossible to meet the Lockean Proviso, since it will be
impossible, no matter how little A takes, to leave "enough and as good" for others.
Because of this, Nozick re-interprets the proviso to mean that if initial acquisition does not
make anyone worse off who was using the resource before, then it is justly acquired. Hence, A
can even entirely appropriate available unowned resources as long as A offers B, who was
using the resource before, access to it, to the extent that B is not made worse off by A's
appropriation. B can become a sharecropper for instance, or just a laborer, for A, earning a
wage that keeps him at least as well off as he was before A's appropriation. But since the
resource is now A's, the terms of their agreement is completely within A's hands.
(Keep in mind here that, together with the self-ownership argument, even this does not result
in absolute rights over the products of our talents and abilities. For the Lockean Proviso does
not purport to show how initial acquisition of natural resources can be acquired so as to result
in absolute rights over that property.)
Notice that in this story
(1) B is no worse off after the appropriation just in case his material well being is no
worse off after the appropriation, and
(2) it is the pre-appropriation material condition of B according to which we measure
this.
Kymlicka argues that both are problematic.
1. Material well-being.
A. Since B is now subject to A's will, B may be as well off materially as she was before,
but she is not as well off in absolute terms. For now B has no control over the land,
whereas she had control before, and no control over how her labor will be used, which
she also had before.
B. Moreover, B need not have given her consent to A to appropriate the land. So B's
being subject to A's will is quite inconsistent with Nozick's own emphasis on persons
being ends in themselves. Yet since the alternative is death, B must accept A's terms.
2. Pre-appropriation conditions.
A. Counterfactual objection #1: Suppose that if B had appropriated rather than A, both
would have been better off, since B would have been more efficient. Hasn't B then been
made worse-off by A's appropriation? Or suppose that they had split the land; wouldn't
B then have been better off than he is now with A's owning all of it?

B. Perpetuity objection: No matter what happens subsequently to anyone after A's

appropriation, to B, B's descendants, or anyone else, as long as they are as well off as
they would have been in the pre appropriation condition, then the Proviso is met. But
this is absurd, since this means that a distributive scheme is just, just in case no one is
living below subsistence.
C. The starvation objection: If B has no skill valuable to A and so starves, then she
cannot object that she was made worse off by A's appropriation, since she would have
starved anyway. But it is absurd to suppose that by starving to death a person has not
been made worse off.
D. Counterfactual objection #2: It is tempting to try to save the Lockean Proviso by
saying that a person is better off just in case there is no alternative scheme possible
under which she does better. But this is impossible. For someone with no talents will be
better off under Rawls' principles than Nozick's, but someone with many talents will be
better off under Nozick's scheme than Rawls'. What we want is not that we are made as
well off as possible by a distributive scheme. We want to be treated as fairly as possible
by a distributive scheme. And that may require Rawlsian, or other principles, but surely
not unrestricted property rights.

3. Finally, the Lockean Proviso assumes, without argument, that there was a time when the world
was unowned. But there are alternatives, for instance, that the world is originally owned jointly by
everyone. So he must offer some argument that the world is unowned originally. If the world is
originally jointly owned, however, then those who are naturally less talented can veto uses of
resources that do not benefit them.

V. BEYOND SELF-OWNERSHIP.
What further sorts of arguments are there for unrestricted property-rights that go beyond mere selfownership?
1. Self-owning people would agree to such a regime. But since different people with
different talents will do best in different regimes, that seems implausible.
2. Unless the world is initially jointly unowned, we cannot be self-owners, since how
can I own myself if I cannot do anything without the permission of others? That is,
substantive self-ownership entails self-determination, or the ability to act on our
conception of the good. Yet in a libertarian scheme, only some can have substantial selfownership. If B sells his labor to A on adverse terms, he still has formal self-ownership
on Nozick's view, and that is all that he legitimately has a right to. Thus, full selfownership in a property-less world is no less substantive than the full self-ownership in
a Nozickian world. And it may be more, since A and B have to strike a deal for either to
make use of some resource. Indeed, if substantive self-ownership is at issue, then liberal
schemes do better than libertarian.

V. CONCLUSION
What these objections apparently show is that self-ownership does not lead to absolute
property rights by itself, but only together with dubious views about ownership of resources.

Once we reject these views, we can see that self-ownership is compatible with a variety of
views on the ownership of resources. The absolute property rights sought by libertarians, it
seems, must be established in some other way.
Nozick takes his position to follow from a basic moral principle associated with Immanuel Kant and
enshrined in Kant's second formulation of his famous Categorical Imperative: "Act so that you treat
humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means
only." The idea here is that a human being, as a rational agent endowed with self-awareness, free
will, and the possibility of formulating a plan of life, has an inherent dignity and cannot properly be
treated as a mere thing, or used against his will as an instrument or resource in the way an inanimate
object might be.
In line with this, Nozick also describes individual human beings as self-owners (though it isn't clear
whether he regards this as a restatement of Kants principle, a consequence of it, or an entirely
independent idea). The thesis of self-ownership, a notion that goes back in political philosophy at
least to John Locke, is just the claim that individuals own themselves - their bodies, talents and
abilities, labor, and by extension the fruits or products of their exercise of their talents, abilities and
labor. They have all the prerogatives with respect to themselves that a slaveholder claims with
respect to his slaves. But the thesis of self-ownership would in fact rule out slavery as illegitimate,
since each individual, as a self-owner, cannot properly be owned by anyone else. (Indeed, many
libertarians would argue that unless one accepts the thesis of self-ownership, one has no way of
explaining why slavery is evil. After all, it cannot be merely because slaveholders often treat their
slaves badly, since a kind-hearted slaveholder would still be a slaveholder, and thus morally
blameworthy, for that. The reason slavery is immoral must be because it involves a kind of stealing
- the stealing of a person from himself.)
But if individuals are inviolable ends-in-themselves (as Kant describes them) and self-owners, it
follows, Nozick says, that they have certain rights, in particular (and here again following Locke)
rights to their lives, liberty, and the fruits of their labor. To own something, after all, just is to have a
right to it, or, more accurately, to possess the bundle of rights - rights to possess something, to
dispose of it, to determine what may be done with it, etc. - that constitute ownership; and thus to
own oneself is to have such rights to the various elements that make up one's self. These rights
function, Nozick says, as side-constraints on the actions of others; they set limits on how others
may, morally speaking, treat a person. So, for example, since you own yourself, and thus have a
right to yourself, others are constrained morally not to kill or maim you (since this would involve
destroying or damaging your property), or to kidnap you or forcibly remove one of your bodily
organs for transplantation in someone else (since this would involve stealing your property). They
are also constrained not to force you against your will to work for another's purposes, even if those
purposes are good ones. For if you own yourself, it follows that you have a right to determine
whether and how you will use your self-owned body and its powers, e.g. either to work or to refrain
from working.
So far this all might seem fairly uncontroversial. But what follows from it, in Nozick's view, is the
surprising and radical conclusion that taxation, of the redistributive sort in which modern states
engage in order to fund the various programs of the bureaucratic welfare state, is morally
illegitimate. It amounts to a kind of forced labor, for the state so structures the tax system that any

time you labor at all, a certain amount of your labor time - the amount that produces the wealth
taken away from you forcibly via taxation - is time you involuntarily work, in effect, for the state.
Indeed, such taxation amounts to partial slavery, for in giving every citizen an entitlement to certain
benefits (welfare, social security, or whatever), the state in effect gives them an entitlement, a right,
to a part of the proceeds of your labor, which produces the taxes that fund the benefits; every
citizen, that is, becomes in such a system a partial owner of you (since they have a partial property
right in part of you, i.e. in your labor). But this is flatly inconsistent with the principle of selfownership.
The various programs of the modern liberal welfare state are thus immoral, not only because they
are inefficient and incompetently administered, but because they make slaves of the citizens of such
a state. Indeed, the only sort of state that can be morally justified is what Nozick calls a minimal
state or "night-watchman" state, a government which protects individuals, via police and military
forces, from force, fraud, and theft, and administers courts of law, but does nothing else. In
particular, such a state cannot regulate what citizens eat, drink, or smoke (since this would interfere
with their right to use their self-owned bodies as they see fit), cannot control what they publish or
read (since this would interfere with their right to use the property they've acquired with their selfowned labor - e.g. printing presses and paper - as they wish), cannot administer mandatory social
insurance schemes or public education (since this would interfere with citizens' rights to use the
fruits of their labor as they desire, in that some citizens might decide that they would rather put their
money into private education and private retirement plans), and cannot regulate economic life in
general via minimum wage and rent control laws and the like (since such actions are not only
economically suspect - tending to produce bad unintended consequences like unemployment and
housing shortages - but violate citizens' rights to charge whatever they want to for the use of their
own property).