| Cohen is the founder and major representative of Analytic Marxism. He makes the sharpest criticism of Nozick who is a right-wing libertarian. Nozick's theory of justice in holdings justifies capitalism rather than socialism. However, Cohen refutes Nozick's theory of justice in holdings, and justifies socialism, and criticizes capitalism for being unjust. Cohen's criticism of Nozick's theory of justice in holdings reflects the developing laws of modern moral and political philosophy on the justification of socialism and capitalism, and it also reflects the main direction of the socialist camp's dispute against the capitalist camp in the field of moral and political philosophy. It will be helpful for us to gain a comprehensive perception and understanding of the new findings in modern moral and political philosophy, and to enrich our points of views of criticizing capitalism and defending socialism, and to make masses fully realize justice of socialism and injustice of capitalism, thereby to eliminate some peoples'prejudice against socialism since the Upheaval in Soviet Union and East Europe, and to help more and more people build belief in socialism if we systematically and logically reconstruct and comment on Cohen's criticism of Nozick's theory of justice in holdings. Moreover, it is an important reference for the socialist movement and construction, especially for constructing a harmonious society of socialism with Chinese characteristics to systematically and logically reconstruct and comment on Cohen's criticism of Nozick's theory of justice in holdings. Some scholars both from home and abroad have done some related researches on Cohen's criticism of Nozick's theory of justice in holdings, but there has been no systematic and logical analysis and comment on it. In view of this, this article aims at systematically and logically analysing Cohen's criticism of Nozick's theory of justice in holdings.There are two deep motivations why Cohen criticizes Nozick's theory of justice in holdings. Firstly, Nozick's theory of justice in holdings'allegations for capitalism and denial of socialism violates Cohen's faith in socialism. Nozick's theory of justice in holdings, in Cohen's views, obeys the principle of self-ownership and deduces entitlement of holdings from the rights of self-ownership, and claims that any distribution meeting the requirements of entitlement of holdings is a just distribution. Cohen analyses that, the capitalist unequal distribution, according to Nozick, meets the requirements of entitlement of holdings, but the socialist equal distribution doesn't. Therefore, the capitalist distribution is just but the socialist distribution is not. Cohen points out that, in the history of dispute between the socialist camp and the capitalist camp, Nozick has made the strongest justification of capitalism as well as the strongest denial of socialism in the sense of moral and political philosophy. Cohen always holds a strong faith in socialism, and he always considers socialism to be just and capitalism unjust. He believes that socialism will finally replace capitalism, so he will never allow any attacks on socialism. So when Nozick's theory of justice in holdings negates socialism, Cohen tries his best to refute it. Secondly, Cohen holds that the traditional Marxism is unable to refute Nozick's theory of justice in holdings'allegations for capitalism and denial of socialism effectively. According to Cohen, Marxism is unable to refute Nozick's theory of justice in holdings'allegations for capitalism and denial of socialism effectively due to four limitations. First, the traditional Marxism doesn't have a systematic and theoretical conception of distributive justice, so it has no relevant ready-formed theory to refute Nozick's theory of justice in holdings'allegations for capitalism and denial of socialism. Second, the traditional Marxism believes that there are two historical trends, the expanding working class and the high development of the productive force, which will guarantee the realization of equal distribution. But according to Cohen, these two historical trends haven't been in existence. Therefore, the traditional Marxism's argument for equal distribution is no longer effective, so it cannot give an effective proof to the socialist equal distribution which is opposed by Nozick's theory of justice in holdings. Third, there are several flaws in the traditional Marxism's criticism of capitalism as follows: the traditional Marxism takes initial unequal distribution of productive resourses as the necessary condition to generate exploitation, but it doesn't realize that even though initial distribution of productive resourses equalizes, it will be probably unavoidable for exploitation. Moreover, there are inconsistent opinions within the traditional Marxism on whether workers'value of labour power is stolen by capitalists. In addition, the traditional Marxism neglects the poverty of non-producer such as those unable to work. Cohen points out that, due to the flaws above, the traditional Marxism cannot give an effective refutation to Nozick's justification of capitalism. Fourthly, according to Cohen, the traditional Marxism resorts to the principle of self-ownership held by Nozick when it tries to prove the necessity of equality and to vision the socialist principle of distributive justice as well as to criticize the injustice of capitalism. Thus the traditional Marxism holds the same premise with Nozick's theory of justice in holdings, so it's easy to be attacked by Nozick, let alone an effective refutation to Nozick. Considering that the traditional Marxism cannot give an effective refutation to Nozick's theory of justice in holdings'challenge to socialism, Cohen takes the responsibility to refute Nozick and begin to criticize Nozick's theory of justice in holdings.In Cohen's criticism of Nozick's theory of justice in holdings, he points his finger to Nozick's theory of justice in transfer at first. Nozick's theory of justice in transfer tries to defend Nozick's theory of justice in holdings'allegations for capitalism and denial of socialism as a whole. After necessary theoretical presupposition, Cohen intensively analyses this point and fulfills the refution of Nozick's theory of justice in transfer from two respects. Firstly, according to his theoretical presupposition, Cohen perceives freedom both in the sense of the rights neutral account of freedom and in the sense of human nature. In the former sense, freedom can be stated as follows: I am pro tanto unfree whenever someone interferes with my actions, whether or not I have a right to perform them, and whether or not my obstructor has a right to interfere with me. In the latter sense, freedom can be interpreted in the sense of traditional socialist conception of human nature. Cohen claims that, for the sake of more important freedom, the freedom in the sense of rights neutral account can be restricted, and for the sake of freedom in the sense of human nature, the freedom in the sense of rights neutral account can be restricted, and also, freedom can be restricted for the sake of equality on some conditions. Secondly, in his analysis of Nozick's theory of justice in transfer, Cohen reveals that Nozick's theory of justice in transfer regards voluntary transactions in capitalist society as freedom, and then defines justice with freedom, and then declares capitalism to be free and just because it allows voluntary transactions, and socialism to be unjust because it carries out equal distribution. Thirdly, Cohen criticizes Nozick's justification of capitalism in his theory of justice in transfer on the one hand from two perspectives: the unjust results caused by voluntary transactions and its influence on the choice of non-parties. Cohen argues that voluntary transactions don't always necessarily lead to just results and voluntary transactions results in the unfreedom of non-parties. On the other hand, Cohen refutes Nozick's theory of justice in transfer's denial of socialism from the angle of Nozick's theory of justice in transfer's condemnation of the injustice and unfreedom of socialism. Cohen's refutation shows that Nozick's theory of justice in transfer not only doesn't prove that socialism is unjust, but also doesn't prove that socialism is opposite to freedom.Cohen finds that, by way of criticism of Nozick's theory of justice in transfer, Nozick's so-called freedom is only the freedom in the sense of rights definition, though Nozick endeavours to boosts the priority of freedom. This kind of freedom in the sense of rights definition can be depicted as'I am unfree only when someone prevents me from doing what I have a right to do'. Cohen observes that Nozick gets into a definitional circle as a result of adopting the rights definition of freedom. According to Nozick, no violation of rights means freedom, and there is justice when there is no restriction on freedom, and justice is no violation of anyone's rights. Cohen analyses further that the reason for Nozick's getting into the definitional circle is that he sticks to the principle of self-ownership which says that each person enjoys, over herself and her powers, full and exclusive rights of control and use, and therefore owes no service or product to anyone else that she has not contracted to supply. Cohen reveals that, for Nozick, the scope and nature of freedom is the function of the principle of self-ownership,and private property rights can be inferred from rights of self-ownership on the base of the principle of self-ownership, and private property rights can be made as the base of justice, thus the principle of self-ownership plays a triple role of bearing the weight of interpreting freedom, rights and justice, and forms the nature of Nozick's theory of justice in holdings. However, the Kantian and Dworkin-style objection say that Nozick doesn't stick to the principle of self-ownership because self-ownership as a concept can't be logical tenable, and hasn't the definite meaning, so there can be not the principle of self-ownership, let alone that the principle of self-ownership forms the nature of Nozick's theory of justice in holdings. In response, Cohen logically analyses self-ownership as a concept, and argues the semantic consistency and determinacy of the concept of self-ownership, and concludes that the concept of self-ownership is logically tenable. Cohen's logical analysis of the concept of self-ownership shows that, since the concept of self-ownership is logically tenable, the Kantian and Dworkin-style objection are not successful.Cohen's criticism of Nozick's theory of justice in holdings is criticism of the principle of self-ownership because the principle of self-ownership is the nature of Nozick's theory of justice in holdings. And Cohen's criticism of the principle of self-ownership is refutation of the thesis of self-ownership because the principle of self-ownership is supported by the thesis of self-ownership. The thesis of self-ownership interpreted by Cohen as follows: each person is the morally rightful owner of his own person and power, and, consequently, that each is free(morally speaking) to use those powers as he wishes, provided that he does that deploy them aggressively against others. The thesis of self-ownership itself, in Cohen's mind, has apparently irresistible moral appeal, so Cohen does not directly rebut the thesis of self-ownership in later criticism of Nozick's theory of justice in holdings, instead, he takes an indirect strategy, trying to weaken appeal of the thesis and therefore enter into the criticisim of Nozick's theory of justice in acquisition. Firstly, Cohen argues, with the falsification of Nozick's argumentation for capitalist initial unequal distribution, that the conclusion of the rightness of appropriation can't be drown even if the principle of self-ownership supported by the thesis of self-ownership is accepted. Secondly, Cohen proves the possibility of realizing initial equal distribution in the sense of socialist joint-ownership on the premise of accepting the principle of self-ownership. Cohen's proving makes clear that rational agents will choose joint-ownership rather than appropriation for initial distribution and the equality of condition can be achieved through joint-ownership. But Cohen finds that the principle of self-ownership changes into a formal one and is completely insignificant in such conditions. Cohen comes to the conclusion that achieving socialist equality means that the principle of self-ownership must be spurred.Spurring the principle of self-ownership, in Cohen's view, is the necessary condition of achieving socialist equal distribution. But the thesis of self-ownership which supports the principle of self-ownership must be firstly confuted in order to spur the principle of self-ownership. Cohen's critism of Nozick's theory of justice in holdings goes deep into the refution of the thesis of self-ownership from this. Cohen rebuts the thesis itself in a way of rebutting the moral grounds of the thesis. Cohen interprets the moral grounds of the thesis of self-ownership in intuitional level and theoretical level. In term of intuitional level, firstly, Nozick makes use of moral intuition of moral agent's aversion to slavery, asserting that rejection of the thesis of self-ownership is tantamount to endorsement of slavery. Secondly, Nozick makes uses of moral intuition of people's not permitting others'deploying any part of one's own body by coersion, asserting that rejection of the thesis of self-ownership is tantamount to endorsement of redistribution of bodily organs. In term of theoretical level, to begin with, Nozick associates the thesis of self-ownership with Kant's means-ends principle, claiming that rejection of the thesis of self-ownership is tantamount to endorsement of treating people as means rather than as ends. Secondly, Nozick associates the thesis of self-ownership with human autonomy, claiming that rejection of the thesis of self-ownership is tantamount to endorsement of threatening human autonomy. Cohen refutes the moral grounds in the two-level of the thesis of self-ownership respectively. For the moral grounds of the thesis of self-ownership in intuitional level, Cohen argues that the moral intuition of aversion to slavery gives no cause for more criticism, but it can't follow that rejection of the thesis of self-ownership is tantamount to endorsement of slavery. And the moral intuition of not permitting others'deploying any part of one's own body by coersion can't motivate moral agents to identify the thesis of self-ownership. For the moral grounds of the thesis of self-ownership in theoretical level, Cohen argues that rejection of the thesis of self-ownership is neither tantamount to endorsement of treating people as means rather than as ends, nor tantamount to endorsement of threatening human autonomy.Cohen is the first scholar that criticizes capitalism defended by Nozick and justifies socialism from the angle of moral philosophy and political philosophy and he makes improtant theoretical contribution on the question of which is better and which is worse between socialism and capitialism in three aspects: In the first place, Cohen rebuts Nozick's allegations for capitalism from the angle of justice in transfer and justice in acquisition and proves that the capitalist society has no liberty and justice from its origin to its present. In the second place, Cohen develops from criticizing actual aspects of capitalism to making theroetical criticism of capitalism, and proves that the liberty called by Nozick was not the liberty generally accepted but one in the sense of the principle of self-ownership, which only protects interests of private property owners, in this way, Cohen uncovers and criticizes the nature of capitalist liberty. Once more, Cohen rebuts Nozicks's allegations for capitalism from the perspective of fundamental moral standards and criticizes the moral reference of capitalism defended by Nozick from both intuitional level and theroetical level. On the whole, Cohen criticizes the capitalism defended by Nozick and safeguards the justice of socialism featured in equality. While we have to say that Cohen also has two defects when criticizing capitalism defended by Nozick and safeguarding justice of socialism. One is that, when criticizing capitalism defended by Nozick, Cohen places stress on the process of criticism while paying less attention to constructing the moral grounds used for criticism. For this reason, Cohen fails to achieve consistent criticism of capitalism in specific aspects and also fails to exactly explain why socialism is justified. The other is that, when criticizing capitalism defended by Nozick, Cohen deviates from or misreads some views on capitalism and socialism in traditional Marxism. First, he deviates from traditional Marxist theory on fundamental force driving social development and tries to replace social revolution with moral revolution; second, he misreads traditional Marxist views on the principle of self-ownership and fails to notice that traditional Marxism is against this principle; third, he misreads traditional Marxist views on criticizing unequal distribution of production materials in capitalist society and thinks that traditional Marxism advocates equal distribution of productive materials among all social members.
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