On Robert Nozick's Justice Theory Of Entitlement

Libertarians whose theory is based on rights object not only to the opinion which regards utility as the unique value but also to the principle which maximizes social utility. Instead of utility value, they regard right value as a personal value which reflects personal requests of interests and emphasizes absolute inviolability of personal right. On basis of defining right as negative side constraints, Nozick offers three principles for justice in holdings, including acquisition, transfer and rectification so that he accomplishes the structural construction for his justice theory of entitlement. His principle of distributive justice is a kind of historic procedural principle, which is distinct from patterning theory such as utilitarianism. The reason why individuals possess inviolable rights is related to the ability to regulate and guide his life in accordance with some overall conception it chooses to accept. Nozick continues Locke's classical liberalism tradition. From the beginning of the hypothesis in natural state and natural rights, he thinks individuals with the ability to have significant life should be treated never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end. That makes individuals hold inviolable property rights before government is created. As side constraints, this kind of right prohibits any unwilling forcible actions from others and the state.Nozick's libertarian provides an overall and simple statement for political moral. It looks like a kind of simplifying disposal about the political theory and practice. In it, paramountcy of individual right is subject, which connects with confirmation of the whole theory directly. But unluckily, there are so many flaws in statements about the natural state and natural rights and in the description about personal qualities including the personal dignity, autonomy and the ability to have a significant life. Lack of right's moral justification makes rights under Nozick's libertarian compromising seriously and being short of basis. Then, around the thesis that if property right could be inviolable absolutely, the paper animadverts on theoretical structure of three principles on justice in holdings, confusion right with liberty and moral justification of minimal state. The result of reflectivity is there are so many substantial flaws in the junctures and logical argumentations on several pairs of categories including right and entitlement, right and autonomy and right and liberty, although ostensibly Nozick links all of them under libertarian structure successfully.In spite of it, both the philosophical particularity expressed and the far-reaching meanings in the questions epurated from Nozick's theoretical construction are far beyond his theoretical limitation. The questions discussed in Nozick's entitlement theory are involved in numerous fields. They are complicated, superorganic but not messy. In them, there is a pair of central category"free will versus coercion", around which objection to end-state theory or welfare state, canonization on paramountcy of individual rights and argumentation of justification of minimal state are expanding. Here the discussion is about four questions. Firstly, the form of the Lockean proviso that Nozick adopts as a necessary requirement of fairly acquiring property could easily make the enforcement of welfare concerns towards others morally justifiable. This kind of comparable testing standard only leads to limitary property right. Deducing from the adoption of the moderate way to avoid allowing"some condition about catastrophe", Nozick accepts the idea of basic equality. Then the paper discusses Nozick's unconstraint charity principle, relationship between charity and welfare, justification of incremental taxation system and relationship between random endowment and"something deserved". Secondly, the relationship between market liberty and government coercion shouldn't be opposed but dialectic. Market liberty is advantageous in improving efficiency, admeasuring resources sufficiently and harmonizing persons'actions. But market could have unbalanced inclination of financial oligarchs so that it needs other selective system such as government coercion to make up deficiency. This proves it necessary to have some redistribution. We couldn't collocate resources just according to procedural rules of legal ownership, but need a suit of complicated system mode which conciliates rights and corresponding values. Thirdly, universal political authority established through parties'agreements makes citizens undertake universal obedient political obligations. This kind of justification never reduces Nozick's suspicion of state capacity. Behind different opinion of laissez-faire government and positive government, social-based position of spontaneous order and moral pursuit of social justice exist. State could limit our liberty by the way of overstepping our basic rights, but how to avoid and prevent abuse of state power is the key point. Fourthly, the rationality of persons could not narrate the distance between the imaginary pattern and the realistic world, so philosophical thinking should be non-coercive, conversational and a state of conformation of pluralism. We couldn't cut out facts in order to make theory consistent. That is a virtue issue concerned about intellectual honesty.Behind subjects above, so many kinds of contradiction and conformity of values are hidden. To make the discussion deeper, the paper pursues Nozick's theoretical aspiration. It needs to talk from Nozick's utopia firstly. Surveying from the personal autonomy expressed in it, the dialectic relationship between value pluralism and organic unification, the demand for toleration and the analysis about which kind of life style is more desirable, Nozick should insist on moral pluralism position. Scanning from his argumentation on justification of minimal state which limits governmental function and"invisible hand"process from which minimal state comes into being, he should reject constructivist rationality and hold the same opinion with Hayek to claim an evolutional development. Both of them doubt human's ability of rationality construction. They think rules and ethics should be evolved in innumerable"trial and error"processes. Around the category of"free will versus coercion"and the subject that"if property right could be inviolable absolutely", the paper accomplishes animadverting on Nozick's justice theory of entitlement basically. Penetrating it from serious compromising of property right under Nozick's structure to connection between Nozick's right and the conception of"basic equality", Nozick should hold soft libertarian position, in which the conflicts and integration of multi-values are embodied. Thus the conclusions of the paper include four points. Firstly, people choose moral as the basis to appraise persons'actions, since we recognize ourselves, values of each other and relationships between us and others by rationality. Just like Kant has said, moral is our self-contained original resource determined by our heart. That means we couldn't give up the judgment of right and wrong unless we have other reason. Secondly, a good many bifurcations in and out of liberalisms are involved in the balance of value between right and collective goodness which is related to subtle relationship between individuals and society. According to Raz's expatiation about incommensurability of values, it is not suitable to compare opposite values, but they could be balanced through different combined modes. Which value is based on determines the difference of balancing results. People couldn't and shouldn't give any confirmative answers to the question which value is based on. Facing conflicting conditions, we should not endow right or collective goodness priority simply, but to decide this by situation. Thirdly, politics has no way to keep neutrality negatively between right and collective goodness, but it could make them remain equilibrium in a certain extent, between market and government or between liberty and equality, by competing manner or contractual manner. Eventually, opinions above stealthily adopt Thomas Scanlon's conception of universalism of parameter. That makes moral belong to a kind of cultural explanation in a way.