Robert Nozick's "Entitlement Theory" And The Political Voluntarism

This article is first of all meant to clarify the meaning and the statute of the key words, entitlement and entitlement theory, in Robert Nozick's property right theory. Further more, I want to discuss the foundation of the entitlement theory in the ethical philosophical layer. Specifically speaking, that is, according to illuminating a translation error in Nozick's political writings which were translated into Chinese, we can try to make clear the real relationships between the concept of right and the concept of entitlement. And Thus, we can acquire an insight into the distinguishing contributions ascribed to Nozick both in the area of right theory and in the whole area of political philosophy. My main point is that, the entitlement theory, as the foundation of Nozick's right conception, is an embodiment of the currently wide-used theory, that is, the choice-based theory, or to speak the decision theory. And the alternatives, the right-based theory and the procedural justice theory, can not explain the right conception in Nozick's political theory coherently. They are either too implicit and unclear ,or too narrow and superficial, as I have shown up in the text. So we should take this approach of the choice-based theory as a substitute or at least as an important supplement.There is another and deeper cause to use the latter approach I have proposed , that is, with this approach which decision theory provide to us, we can recognize a kind of important western traditional thought of political legitimacy——it is much influenced and much inclined to the theory of social contract. That is to say, the legitimacy of a political organization, including the national state, totally comes from the organized people's consent.Thus we achieved a re-explanation of the Nozician explanation of the political philosophy. And then, a series of wider legal and ethical philosophy problems are opened to us, to be further researched and to be reconsidered endlessly.The research in this article is necessary, nevertheless primary, because the implication of the entitlement theory is the key idea to distinguish the characters of and thus deeper our insight to the representative libertarian thinker, Robert Nozick's political and legal theory. And so, it is necessary also to understanding and critical examining the western liberalism tradition, and the Economics of Law in the Anglo-American law tradition. And this is also an important reference for us to reconsider and prospect the property right legislation and public law system of China.The research method in this article is, according to analyzing Robert Nozick's relevant writings, as follows: The Normative Theory of Individual Choice(Nozick, 1990), The Nature of Rationality(Nozick,1993),Anarchy, State and Utopia(Nozick,1974),etc, then we conclude and advance a coherent understanding approach of the entitlement theory throughout Robert Nozick's political and legal theory.The text includes three major parts altogether. In the first part, I have achieved a primary conclusion that, Nozick's right conception is not a conception in the positive law, nor a conception which means the habit right, but a conception which refers to the Lockean natural right. The latter kind of right has the power to judge and correct the above two other kinds of rights.In the second part of this text, I mean to discuss a division in history between the choice conception of right and the interest conception of right, through which we can clearly see the confusion and the disadvantage of the right-based theory approach. Therefore, I propose a more definite understanding approach, the choice-based theory approach, to clearly specify the Nozician right conception.In the third part of this article, we can recognize the choice-based theory as rational choice-based theory in Nozick's political philosophy. And this is obviously inclined to the social contract theory, which makes the political legitimacy a problem of the people consent. So they are both modern views to politics. But modern views have their own undesirable difficulties, that is, we can hardly recognize morals and ethics any more. And This is the problem I have discussed in the epilogue of this article. After all, in this article there are still many other problems referred to, they are all waiting for us to explore, to deeper, and to conquer.