Research On Nozick's Theory Of A Minimal State

Equality and liberty are always the ideals that western liberalism pursues, but it should be known that equality and liberty are two political conceptions that are competitive against each others, in other words, those two conceptions have different priorities in different schools. In 20th century, Rawls put forward the theory of a more extensive state which is characterized by the conception of distributive justice, which made people pay attention to equality. At the same time, Nozick refuted this kind of theory with his famous Anarchy, State and Utopia. In this book , he gives us a vivid picture of a minimal state which is limited to the narrow functions of protection against force , theft , fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on. Nozick's book sounded a warning against people's attention to the absolute equality. Nozick's theory has aroused strong response and greatly pushed forward the development of western political philosophy. In the view of that, this thesis systematically expounds Nozick' theory of a minimal state as well as its significance, so that people can understand it more comprehensively and more precisely. This thesis is mainly divided into three parts as following:The first part of this thesis dwells on the implication, origin and foundation of it. The core of what liberty concerns is individual rights. Individual rights are so strong and far -reaching that a state can be itself only when it is a minimal state. A minimal state, frankly speaking, is not Nozick's original creation. Nozick, at that time, just expanded and developed classical liberalism which was represented by Locke. Meanwhile, in order to answer the questions which were left by Locke's theory, Nozick restated the conception of individual rights. For him, these rights are individually natural rights which are also negative and active rights, at the same, they are moral side constraints. But, these rights have no good foundations. The feature of this kind can be seen as fatal weakness of the theory of a minimal state for which Nozick devoted himself to.The second part of this thesis analyses of the theory. Nozick's individual rights are so strong that they have brought up some questions concerning the government's legitimacy and functions. Nozick set his analysis about the questions into three parts. Firstly, he emphasizes his negative attitude against the anarchism in order to point outthat a minimal state can be born from the state of nature which has no political authority in a morally legal way. Nozick considers that, evolution, which starts from the state of nature, mutual-protection associations, commercial-protection agency, dominant protective agency, ultraminimal state, at last, to the minimal state, is put forward by "an invisible hand". Secondly, Nozick refutes Rawls's theory of distributive justice with his own justice in holdings. In this way, Nozick declares that a more extensive state whose government has more functions than those of a minimal state could infringe upon individual rights. It is illegal in this way, Nozick thinks. The theory of justice in holdings reflects historical principles and unpatterned principles. This theory has three major parts. These three parts have their own principles, which are the principle of justice in acquisition, the principle of justice in transfer and the principle of justice in rectification. Meanwhile, Nozick points out social cooperation, the original position and the natural assets are not the reasons which complete the distribution justice. At last, Nozick alleges that a minimal state , that is, a framework for Utopia, is inspiring and attractive because it is a state that best realizes the Utopian aspirations of untold dreamers and visionaries. Nozick's theory of a minimal state discusses many interesting questions which concern both individual rights and state. His theory is powerful and challenging but there are some weaknesses that can't justify the theory itself.The third part of this thesis points out that Nozick's theory of a minimal state has evoked reper...