G.A.cohen’s Criticism On Robert Nozick’s Theory Of Self-ownership

The relationship between freedom and equality has always been one of the core issues that have been intensely debated by western political philosophers.Robert Nozick constructed his Libertarian theory based on the principle of self-ownership, and posed a challenge to socialist theory, so as to achieve the purpose of defending capital inequality.Facing the challenge of Nozick’s liberal theory, Gerald Allan Cohen, as a socialist scholar who have sublime faith in Marxist, gave a profound defense to the legitimacy of socialist egalitarian from the standpoint of socialism. Meantime he also criticized the basis of Nozick’s liberal theory—principle of self-ownership, thus shook the foundation of Nozick’s libertarian theory and defended his socialist beliefs.This paper is divided into the following four chapters:The first chapter is about the critical backgrounds. In this chapter, the backgrounds of Nozick’s principle of self-ownership where Cohen targeted were discussed in detail. The second chapter is Cohen’s rebuttal against Nozick’s “Chamberlain argument”.In this chapter, by telling why Cohen criticized Nozick’s proposition of “Chamberlain argument”, and the initial and the second critique of“Chamberlain argument”by Cohen, the groundlessness of Nozick’s proposition “Chamberlain argument” is revealed, and thus leads to Cohen’s criticism of Nozick’s principle of self-ownership. The third chapter is of significant importance to this article, for Cohen’s criticism to Nozick’s self-ownership principle is set in this paragraph.Through a discussion to the content of “ self-ownership principle” of Nozick, and Cohen’s critique on this content, the essence of Nozick’s libertarian theory is revealed, and Cohen’s purpose of defending socialist theories is realized. The fourth chapter discusses the significance of Cohen’s critique to Nozick’s principle of self-ownership.In this chapter, the inspirations and meanings of criticism by Cohen to Nozick’s principle of self-ownership are discussed; and the identity of freedom and equality under the Marxist sight is expounded.