Natural Rights and Distributive Justice: Nozick and the Classical Contractarians

1984 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-86
Author(s):  
Ron Replogle
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Robert Nozick ◽  
Substantive Theory ◽  
Classical Form ◽  
Entitlement Theory ◽  
Formal Properties

AbstractRobert Nozick seeks to extract a substantive theory of distributive justice (“the entitlement theory”) from what he takes to be the formal properties of natural rights (or rights-based) theory. The unsoundness of his arguments supports the longstanding suspicion that all such theories are conceptually confused and ideological biased. Yet upon examination, the classical (chiefly Lockean) views that Nozick regards as a prototype of natural rights theory withstand that suspicion precisely in so far as they lack the formal properties of his own theory. I conclude that theories of the classical form are better equipped to resolve political arguments.

scholarly journals A DEFENSE OF HUMEAN PROPERTY THEORY

Legal Theory ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Ira K. Lindsay
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Social Cooperation ◽  
Scarce Resources ◽  
Moral Claims ◽  
Humean Theory

ABSTRACT Two rival approaches to property rights dominate contemporary political philosophy: Lockean natural rights and egalitarian theories of distributive justice. This article defends a third approach, which can be traced to the work of David Hume. Unlike Lockean rights, Humean property rights are not grounded in pre-institutional moral entitlements. In contrast to the egalitarian approach, which begins with highly abstract principles of distributive justice, Humean theory starts with simple property conventions and shows how more complex institutions can be justified against a background of settled property rights. Property rights allow people to coordinate their use of scarce resources. For property rules to serve this function effectively, certain questions must be considered settled. Treating existing property entitlements as having prima facie validity facilitates cooperation between people who disagree about distributive justice. Lockean and egalitarian theories endorse moral claims that threaten to unsettle property conventions and undermine social cooperation.

Libertarians I

Just Property ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 58-80
Author(s):  
Christopher Pierson
Keyword(s):  
Private Property ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Robert Nozick ◽  
Personal Freedom ◽  
Ludwig Von Mises ◽  
Milton Friedman ◽  
Herbert Spencer ◽  
Von Mises ◽  
Friedrich Hayek

This chapter begins with a brief discussion of what we mean by libertarianism. I explore the ways in which the forerunners of contemporary libertarianism came to justify a regime of minimally constrained individual private property, (often) grounded in natural rights and instantiating the maximum of personal freedom. Key thinkers in this respect are Herbert Spencer, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, and Friedrich Hayek. Murray Rothbard is a figure who belongs more unambiguously to modern libertarianism. The chapter ends with a substantial discussion of the debate that has surrounded the work of Robert Nozick in Anarchy, State and Utopia. I suggest that Nozick is a much more ambivalent figure for libertarianism than is usually supposed.

Entitlement Theories of Justice: From Nozick to Roemer and Beyond

1985 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. van der Veen ◽  
Philippe Van Parijs
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Robert Nozick ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Entitlement Theory ◽  
Theories Of Justice ◽  
Principle Of Justice ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
The One ◽  
Alternative Theories

In Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Robert Nozick contrasts entitlement theories of justice and “traditional” theories such as Rawls', utilitarianism or egalitarianism, and advocates the former against the latter. What exactly is an entitlement theory (or conception or principle) of justice? Nozick's book offers two distinct characterizations. On the one hand, he explicitly describes “the general outlines of the entitlement theory” as maintaining “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 (as specified by the first two principles of just acquisition and transfer)” (Nozick, 1974, p. 153). On the other hand, his famous “Wilt Chamberlain” argument against alternative theories is first said to apply to (all) “non-entitlement conceptions” (p. 160), and later to any “end-state principle or distributional patterned principle of justice” (p. 163) — which amounts to an implicit characterization of an entitlement conception (theory, principle) as a conception of justice which is neither end-state nor patterned.

The Entitlement Theory of Distributive Justice

1976 ◽  
Vol 73 (21) ◽  
pp. 823-835 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan H. Goldman ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Entitlement Theory

TOWARD A THEORY OF EMPIRICAL NATURAL RIGHTS

2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Hasnas
Keyword(s):  
John Locke ◽  
The State ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Robert Nozick ◽  
Close Approximation ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Limited Government ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Traditional Natural

Natural rights theorists such as John Locke and Robert Nozick provide arguments for limited government that are grounded on the individual's possession of natural rights to life, liberty, and property. Resting on natural rights, such arguments can be no more persuasive than the underlying arguments for the existence of such rights, which are notoriously weak. In this article, John Hasnas offers an alternative conception of natural rights, “empirical natural rights,” that are not beset by the objections typically raised against traditional natural rights. Empirical natural rights are rights that evolve in the state of nature rather than those that individuals are antecedently endowed with in that state. Professor Hasnas argues that empirical natural rights are true natural rights, that is, pre-political rights with natural grounds that can be possessed in the state of nature, and that, when taken together, they form a close approximation of the Lockean rights to life, liberty, and property. He furthers argues that empirical natural rights are normatively well-grounded because respecting them is productive of social peace, which possesses instrumental moral value regardless of one's conception inherent value. Professor Hasnas thus offers his conception of rights as solved problems as an alternative and potentially more secure footing for the traditional natural rights arguments for limited government associated with Locke and Nozick.

Justice and Historical Entitlement

1977 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 799-803
Author(s):  
Neil Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Robert Nozick ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Simple Concept ◽  
Entitlement Theory ◽  
Intuitive Judgments ◽  
The Many

The aim of a theory of justice appears to be to find an explanation of our intuitive judgments in this area, an explanation which is capable of yielding, at any rate eventually, answers to particular questions of social policy. The difficulty of constructing such a theory is due partly to the many elements in the concept of justice. To assert that there is more than one concept of justice would be to take the easy way out; to say that there is only one simple concept, as Robert Nozick appears to do (Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Princeton, 1974) is to narrow to an unwarranted extent the application of the concept.Any adequate concept of justice must include amongst its ingredients fairness, entitlement or right, desert, need, reciprocity and the relative paramountcy of the concept. Nozick's historical-entitlement theory explains both the connection of justice with entitlement and the relative paramountcy of the concept. But it does not show, as it should, the connection of entitlement with the other elements in the concept of justice.

The Entitlement Theory of Justice Considered

1979 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 578-593 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. M. Goldsmith
Keyword(s):  
First Generation ◽  
Robert Nozick ◽  
Right To Life ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Entitlement Theory ◽  
The Right Of Transfer ◽  
The Right

In Anarchy, State and Utopia Robert Nozick advocates an entitlement theory of justice. But each of its three principles has difficulties. The right of acquisition, which Nozick regards as Lockean, lacks the base of Locke's right to property in a right to life, nor does it stand, Nozick admits, on a utilitarian justification. The right of transfer, more complex than it first seems, includes unavoidable restrictions on voluntary transfers even on Nozick's account which apparently uses two different conceptions of property. The principle of rectification seems unworkable, not only because of the information it requires but also because any application of it (subsequent to the first generation) is either uncertain or unjust. An entitlement theory is purely formal unless it provides rules for assigning specific rights.

NATURAL RIGHTS AND IMPERIAL CONSTITUTIONALISM: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMERICAN AMALGAM

2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Zuckert
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Robert Nozick ◽  
Political Thinking ◽  
American Political Culture ◽  
Background Theory

Robert Nozick worked in a Lockean tradition of political philosophy, a tradition with deep resonance in the American political culture. This paper attempts to explore the formative moments of that culture and at the same time to clarify the role of Lockean philosophy in the American Revolution. One of the currently dominant approaches to the revolution emphasizes the colonists' commitments to their rights, but identifies the relevant rights as “the rights of Englishmen,” not natural rights in the Lockean mode. This approach misses, however, the way the Americans construed their positive or constitutional rights in the light of a Lockean background theory. In a word, the Americans recreated an amalgam of traditional constitutional principles and Lockean philosophy, an amalgam that nearly guaranteed that they and the British would speak past each other. The ambiguities and uncertainties of the British constitution as extended to the colonies provided an incentive to the Americans (but not the British) to look to Locke as a guide to their rights, thereby helping win a place for Lockean theory in American political thinking.

scholarly journals The Virtues of Economic Rescue Legislation: Distributive Justice, Civil Law, and the Troubled Asset Relief Program

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry S. Kuo
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Ethical Analysis ◽  
Legal Philosophy ◽  
Robert Nozick ◽  
Troubled Asset Relief Program ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Theories Of Justice ◽  
Relief Program

AbstractThis study constitutes an ethical analysis through the lens of distributive justice in the case of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which was enacted in the midst of the Great Recession of 2007–2009. It begins by engaging with the visions of justice constructed by John Rawls and Robert Nozick, using their insights to locate the injustices of TARP according to their moral imaginations. However, this study argues that Rawls’ and Nozick’s theories of justice primarily envision the nature of law as being restrictive of vice, not as instructors of virtue. Thus, it resources the legal philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas to demonstrate how the positive pedagogy of law can enable a more just construction of economic rescue legislation, one that not only prevents future repetitions of economic vices and injustice, but is also formative for a society that prizes economic justice and virtues. In doing so, the study proposes two criteria for a more just consideration of economic rescue legislation that embraces law’s positive pedagogy.

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