Research On Nozick's Theory Of A Minimal State

In 1970 s,the implementation of western welfare state policy caused serious damage to individual rights and market mechanism.The increasing government intervention also intensified the contradiction between freedom and equality,people demand economic equality: to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor by the equal distribution of social wealth.In order to solve this contradiction,John Rawls favors equality on the basis of freedom and puts forward the theory of distributive justice to safeguard the interests of those in poor social situation.However,Robert Nozick favor the protection of absolute individual rights,against state intervention in the economic and social life of people in any form of redistribution,and advocate the establishment of a minimal state.Robert Nozick's theory of the minimal state caused a huge response in the political philosophy,and greatly promoted the development of political philosophy.Therefore,this article takes Anarchy,State and Utopia as the research text,mainly divides into three parts to carry on the systematic elaboration to the Robert Nozick's minimal state theory:In the first part,it's a briefly review of the historical background and theoretical origin of it.Firstly,it's a briefly introduction about the life and works of Robert Nozick;Secondly,from the historical background and cultural and academic background to clarify the development of Robert Nozick's minimal state theory;Finally,the paper expound the theoretical basis of Robert Nozick's minimal state theory which is the classical liberalism represented by John Locke and the theory of moral obligation represented by Immanuel Kant.In the second part,this paper expounded the main content of Robert Nozick's minimal state theory systematically.Firstly,it analyzes logical starting point of the theory: the theory of individual rights;Secondly,it discusses the origin of Robert Nozick's minimal state.Which is opposed to anarchism and trace the creation of the minimal state in a way that does not infringe on any individual's rights,using the "invisible hand" interpretation.Thirdly,it discusses the function of the minimal state.which should be limited to protection of individual rights,so he puts forward the theory of personal qualification to protect individual rights,it opposes any theory of distributive justice which supports the existence of more functional countries,led by Rawls redistribution theory;Finally,it discusses the realization of Robert Nozick's minimal state,which assigns a pluralistic national ideal to the diverse communities of society,Designing the minimal state as a "Utopian Framework" comprising multiple Communities to achieve the good,values and ideals of all.In the third part,it mainly evaluates the theory of Robert Nozick's minimal state.On the one hand,it analyzes the rationalized content and the limitation content of the theory from different perspectives;On the other hand,although the theory of the minimal state is rooted in the environment of western capitalism,and the theory still has some limitation.its analysis of individual rights,state functions,distribution,justice and so on is worthy of our deep thinking.Therefore,it is necessary to combine the theory of Marxism with the basic national conditions of China at the present stage,in an attempt to provide some enlightenment for the solution of social problems under the background of socialist market economy in China.