On The Political Ethical Thoughts Of Nozick

Robert·Nozick, a professor of Harvard university as the same as Rawls, is the representative of political ethical thoughts of the modern liberalism. His famous works, "Anarchy, State and Utopia", provides the political ethical thoughts that are different from the thoughts of new liberalism, communitarianism or utilitarianism. His special thoughts, the inheritance of the political ethical theory of the classical liberalism, based on western market-oriented economy, are thinking about the welfare system of the western society, especially in American, responding to the political ethical theory of new Liberalism represented by Rawls. His thoughts have the theoretical foundation of the special understanding of human rights and establish the theory of advocating the core of the absolute individual rights. In his opinion, human rights are individual rights of freedom, which meams that individual has the freedom of his life, property and so on. The rights are absolute, sacrosanct, and inviolable in negative sense, surpassing the other rights on ethics, and are the unique one to restrict the behavior of individual and state. The right decides what the distributive justice is. that is to say that the right decides which "holding" is just. Based on the regulation of the connotation, content and essence of individual rights, Nozick concentrates on the main body of the political ethical thoughts, which concerns on the justification of the origin of the minimal state, the ethical limits of state functions and the ethical particularity of state ideal. He agrees that individual person has absolute rights, so that any people or the state power cannot exceed these rights boundary willfully without the owners' free agreement, and the state is only the tool of protecting individual rights. Nozick's political ethical thoughts have its theoretical characteristics. it follows as the priority of individual free rights, the outstanding of procedural justice and the pluralism of value. But his thoughts also have obvious theoretical limitations. Although Nozick's political ethical thoughts can't successfully explain the relations between rights and social order, between freedom and equality, between individual value and overall value, it still offers inspired advice on defending individual rights, constraining the excessive expansion of the state power, promoting the development of market-oriented economy and constructing political civilization and harmonious society of socialism.