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Anarchy, State and Utopica, by Robert Nozick*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2010

Jan Narveson
Jan Narveson
Affiliation:
The University of Waterloo
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Extract

Most books defending the position now know as “libertarianism”, the thesis that government ought to confine itself only to the most minimal functions of preventing or punishing force and fraud, can be dismissed with little scruple as the work of cranks. And some have already done so with this one as well: but wrongly. It is clearly the work of a person of extraordinary brilliance, penetration, and learning, possessed of a pungent style and an uncommon flair for paradox and counterexample. Those who are inclined to reject it out of hand because its conclusions will seem incredible might also bear in mind that its author is a man to whom his colleague John Rawls (whose conclusions do seem very credible to many) has expressed gratitude and indebtedness. At any rate, I propose to take the work with complete seriousness. And after all, should there not be considerable attraction i n the view that the only enforceable duty is that of respecting the freedom of our fellows as completely as possible? Surely it behooves us to see just why this will not do, if it won't; and no better opportunity for examining the view has arisen than that provided by the publication of this book.

Type
Critical Notices/Études critiques
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , June 1977 , pp. 298 - 327
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1977

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References

** Hereinafter. All parenthesized numbers are page references to Nozick's book unless otherwise stated.

1 There is, of course, the “right of nature”. But since this is in effect a right t o do just anything, so that nothing in the state of nature is unjust (Leviathan, Bk. I, Ch. XIII), it is misleading to call it a “right”.

2 “No rational creature can be supposed to change his condition with an intention to be worse” (Locke, Second Treatise, par. 131); “Of the voluntary acts of every man, the object is some Good to himself” (Leviathan, Bk. I, Ch. XIV)

3 As to the puzzle itself, we must of course ask how we could know that the experiences of unplugging and replugging into the machine were real, while those the machine gave us were not. Presumably not by the different “feel” of the “real” experiences... It may be that the puzzle is supposed to prove something about utilitarianism. On this, see note 5 andfinalparagraph of this notice.

4 Or, still less misleadingly, the position which Gauthier calls “constrained maximisation”, which leads to what he calls “agreed optimization” in social conditions. See David Gauthier, “Reason and Maximization” in Canadian Journal of Philosophy, March 1975, especially sections vi and vii.

5 This is very nearly the sort of utilitarianism I advocated in my Morality and Utility, John Hopkins Press, 1967. (See Chapter 3, esp. p. 91.) It is also worth mentioning here that Nozick's occasional assimilation of his view to Kant's is either wrong or at least misleading in an important respect. For Kant did think that we had as a duty the promotion of the happiness of others, based on univer-salizability in exactly the same way as the duties of justice. It is a duty in the sense that one is to observe it, in practice and not merely “in one's mind”, for its own sake and not because one likes to do it: “It is a duty of every man to be beneficent, i.e., to be helpful to men in need according to one's means, for the sake of their happiness and without hoping for anything thereby.” (Metaphysical Principles of Virtue, trans. Ellington, Liberal Arts Press, p. 117). It is true that the principles of virtue generically are subordinate to those of justice in Kant's view; but this is beside the present point, for in Nozick's sense, recognition that something is a duty would override “freedom”. Duties, in Kant's view, are what you have to do whether you like it or not.

6 This reasoning stems from Sidgwick: cf. Methods of Ethics, seventh edition, p. 382 ff. A rather similar version is found in Narveson, op. cit., pp. 271–75.

7 As has been urged by many, including myself in “Promising, Expecting, and Utility”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, December 1971. Cf. especially pp. 209–13.

8 Thus, see Walzer's, Michael “Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands” in Philosophy and Public Affairs, Winter 1973, pp. 160–80.Google Scholar

9 It already has, actually, by appearing separately in Philosophy and Public Affairs in Fall, 1973.

10 This does not include the sort of equality built into the Principle of Utility, of course. There is no necessary connection (not enough, according to many writers, of course) between the principle that a unit of happiness for x always equals such a unit for y, and principles about the distribution of concrete goods of any and all sorts.

11 I have been assisted by the helpful discussion of many people in preparing this notice: in particular to Larry Eshelman, G. A. Cohen, and Mike McDonald. General gratitude to them is hereby expressed.