Robert Nozick

For more information on Robert Nozick, visit Britannica.com.

The American philosopher Robert Nozick (born 1938) established his reputation as a polemical advocate of radical libertarianism, a position arguing for maximum individual rights and a minimal government. He went on to investigate classical issues in philosophy that have often been neglected or dismissed by modern analytic philosophers.

Robert Nozick was born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 16, 1938. His parents were both immigrants, and he referred to himself as just one generation from the shtetl (the small-town Jewish communities of Eastern Europe). He earned his B.A. degree in 1959 at Columbia University, where he was a socialist and a member of the left-wing Students for a Democratic Society. He went on to an M.A. (1961) and a Ph.D. (1963) from Princeton University.

After teaching as an instructor and assistant professor of philosophy at Princeton (1962-1965), he went to Harvard as assistant professor (1965-1967), to Rockefeller University as associate professor (1967-1969), then back to Harvard as full professor in 1969. He became a familiar figure in the Harvard Yard, often arriving at his office in athletic togs after running or bicycling from his home.

Nozick won almost instant fame in 1974 with his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia, which earned a National Book Award in 1975. The startling effect of the book came from its combination of several qualities. Unlike most books out of academia, it was a manifesto to the public, political world. Its opinions did not quite fit any of the common patterns of scholarly or popular thinking. And its style was a mixing of close philosophical analysis, brash personal assertions, anecdotes, and humor.

The book began with the declaration: "Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights)." That might seem to be a fairly conventional statement in a society nourished in the American Declaration of Independence, but its elaboration quickly struck sparks. Nozick's next paragraph affirmed "that a minimal state, limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on, is justified; that any more extensive state will violate persons' rights not to be forced to do certain things, and is unjustified."

That position constituted a radical endorsement of freedom of speech, of sexual action, of life styles - pleasing in many ways to the political left, especially the youthful New Left. It implied also a freedom of business enterprise from most forms of government regulation and from much of conventional taxation - pleasing to the political right.

Nozick formulated his position as a two-edged argument. Against anarchism - the position of a very small minority in American society - he argued that a minimal state, enforcing strictly limited laws, is not an undue infringement on personal rights. Against all advocates of a "welfare state" he argued that government has no right to do many of the things that most people today expect government to do.

The basic philosophy is a revision of traditional, political, and economic ideas of John Locke (1632-1704) and Adam Smith (1723-1790). It puts great emphasis on the "entitlement" of people to their own property, including the rights to buy property, sell it, give it away voluntarily, and bequeath it to their heirs. If the Declaration of Independence accents the values of liberty and equality, Nozick puts the emphasis on liberty.

Critics were quick to point out that liberties often conflict. Do employers' rights to hire and fire nullify totally workers' rights to jobs? When does the exercise of freedom become oppressive? Are rights to food, housing, health care, and protection from poverty in old age as important as the right to amass a fortune? Does government have a right to tax citizens to operate public schools and parks or to establish a social security system? What about a military draft in times of national emergency? Since Nozick believed in animal rights - he advocated vegetarianism and for a time listed himself in Who's Who as a member of the Jewish Vegetarian Society - what human rights should be restricted for the sake of animal rights?

Nozick did not address all these questions in detail. He candidly acknowledged that his book was an "unfinished" argument. But he was clear on the main point: It is no more the business of the state to distribute wealth than to distribute mates for marriage. All efforts to redistribute wealth (for example, by taxing the rich for the sake of the poor) involve interference in people's lives.

In part, Nozick's argument was a reply to his Harvard colleague, John Rawls. In his famous book A Theory of Justice (1971) Rawls gave a high value to equality, justifying functional inequalities only insofar as they benefit the worst off in society. (The poorest player on the team may be better off giving some authority to the quarterback rather than demanding an equal voice in calling the plays.) Nozick acknowledged "no presumption in favor of equality."

Nozick said little about how people acquire the property to which they are "entitled." He referred to Locke's famous theory that individuals are entitled to claim as private property those objects that incorporate their own labor, provided there is "enough and as good left in common for others." Nozick saw problems in that theory, but did not develop an alternative.

One of Nozick's theories might lead to radical consequences, if adopted. He believed that some redistribution of property to rectify past injustices is justifiable. Conceivably that might lead to dismantling some huge corporations and fortunes or to restoration of much of the United States to the Native Americans. But Nozick chose not to "specify the details."

Rather than throw himself into the controversies arising from his first book, Nozick went on to other interests, especially the classical problems of philosophy. He commented that in ten years of teaching at Harvard he never repeated a course. That enabled him to work in a great variety of areas. His second book, Philosophical Explanations (1981), is a massive (770-page) study of issues in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and "the meaning of life."

These are the problems that philosophers beginning with Socrates have wrestled with. But American philosophy after World War II tended to retreat from them and to concentrate mainly on questions of logic and language. In imitation of scientific disciplines, it sought to work in areas where exactitude is a goal. Nozick argued instead that philosophy is not a branch of science but an "art form." So he re-opened the traditional topics, seeking not proofs but explanations. He even wrote on the question that Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) made famous: "Why is there something rather than nothing?" - a question that many analytical philosophers had dismissed as nonsensical. Nozick showed an interest in mysticism without committing himself to its beliefs. With his colleague Rawls, despite major disagreements, Nozick restored to philosophical discussion the great issues of ethics in public life.

Recent works by Nozik include The Examined Life (1989), which reflects on what is important in life, and The Nature of Rationality (1993), which explores rational belief. In 1996, he compiled a collection of essays, Socratic Puzzles.

In 1997, Nozik participated in a friend-of-the-court-brief that was submitted to the Supreme Court, in order to outline a philospher's point of view on euthanasia, (the right to die). Nozik was one of a team of philosophers, which included Ronald Dworkin, Thomas Nagel, John Rawls, Thomas Scanlon and Judith Jarvis Thomson. The so called "philosopher's brief" argued in favor of the individual's right to die. The autonomy of the individual, and the neutrality of the state in such matters demanded that freedom in death is as important in freedom in life. Death should come at the indvidual's will and pace, and not by the will and pace of the majority.

Continuing his duties as the Arthur Kingsley Porter professor of philosophy at Harvard, Novik's current work focuses on philosophy that spans many topics, including psychology, neuroscience and metaphysics. He was an important contributer to the evolution of late twentieth century philosophy.

Further Reading

Although Nozick's work attracted wide attention in professional journals and even in the mass media, it is not yet the subject of books. One exception is Reading Nozick: Essays on Anarchy, State, and Utopia, edited by Jeffrey Paul (1981).

(1939-2002) Philosopher, educated at Princeton University, New Jersey, and for many years based at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. His first book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), is a major contribution to contemporary political philosophy. The book develops a radical, rights-based philosophy which supports a minimal state, eschewing income redistribution, confined to the task of providing security of person and property. In defence of the minimal state, Nozick sets out a striking ‘entitlement theory of justice’. Individuals are said to be inviolable and, therefore, to be self-owning: to have full private ownership of their bodies and abilities. The world's resources are assumed to be initially unowned, but Nozick argues that these resources may be appropriated as private property provided that the act of appropriation does not make others worse off than they would be in a world where appropriation has not taken place (‘justice in acquisition’), a weak proviso which permits considerable inequality in the ownership of external resources. With these just original holdings of persons and external resources in place, exchange may take place, and any distribution of holdings which emerges on the basis of subsequent voluntary exchanges is itself just. Forcible redistribution of holdings to promote equality will violate rights, and redistributive taxation of labour incomes in particular is ‘on a par with forced labor’ since it involves giving the beneficiaries of redistribution a property right in the productive abilities of the taxpayers. A large critical literature has emerged in response to this theory, probing the adequacy of Nozick's theory of justice in acquisition and the relationship between self-ownership and individual dignity and freedom. Nozick, however, turned away from political philosophy following publication of his first book towards metaphysics, epistemology, and the theory of rationality (Philosophical Explanations, 1981; The Nature of Rationality, 1993). He did register a disagreement with the theory set out in his first book in later work (The Examined Life, 1989), specifically concerning the right to inherit wealth. He also sought in later work to develop further the philosophical foundations for his belief in individual rights, foundations which some critics argued were lacking in his original theory.

— Stuart White

Nozick, Robert (1938-2002) Harvard philosopher. Nozick's early reputation rested on Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), an uncompromising rejection of more than minimal state action, and in particular a rebuttal of redistributive taxation, as had been advocated by John Rawls. The result is a libertarian heaven of absolute property rights, at any rate for those who possess any property. Philosophical Explanations (1981) was a wider-ranging exploration of epistemology and metaphysics, most memorable for its defence of a counterfactual account of knowledge, highlighting the idea of a knowing subject ‘tracking’ the truth, and notoriously challenging the deductive closure principle. Later works included The Examined Life (1989) and Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World (2001).

Robert Nozick

Western Philosophy 20th-century philosophy
Full name	Robert Nozick
Born	November 16, 1938(1938-11-16) Brooklyn, New York
Died	January 23, 2002 (aged 63)
School/tradition	Analytic · Political
Notable ideas	utility monster, Experience Machine, Justice as Property Rights, paradox of deontology, Entitlement Theory, Deductive closure
Influenced by Locke · Kant · Mill · Hayek · Morgenbesser · Hempel · Rothbard
Influenced Long · Narveson · Schmidtz

Part of the Politics series on

Libertarianism

Origins and history Anarchist communism Austrian School Chicago School Liberalism

Theory and ideals Counter-economics Dispute resolution organization Economic freedom Egalitarianism Free market Free society · Free trade Free will · Freedom of association Freedom of contract Homestead principle Individualism Laissez-faire Liberty · Limited government Methodological individualism Natural rights Night watchman state Non-aggression Non-interventionism Non-politics · Non-voting Polycentric law · Property Private defense agency Self-governance · Self-ownership Spontaneous order Stateless society Subjective theory of value · Tax resistance Title-transfer theory of contract Worker's self management Voluntary association Voluntary society

Schools Agorism · Anarcho-capitalism Autarchism · Christian Classical liberalism · Consequentalist Conservative · Constitutionalist Crypto-anarchism · Deontological Free market · Geolibertarianism Green · Individualist anarchism Left-wing · Minarchist · Mutualist Paleolibertarianism · Panarchist Propertarianism · Right-wing Socialist · Voluntaryism

Topics Anarcho-capitalism and minarchism Controversies · Criticisms Libertarian movement Theories of law Intellectual property LGBT rights Political parties

Related topics Anti-state · Anti-war Anarcho-syndicalism Classical liberalism Civil libertarianism Civil societarianism Constitutionalism Fusionism Individualist anarchism Libertarian Democrat Libertarian Republican Libertarian transhumanism Limited government Market liberalism Objectivism Small government Small-l libertarianism

Libertarianism portal Philosophy portal Politics portal

v • d • e

Robert Nozick (November 16, 1938 – January 23, 2002) was an American philosopher and professor at Harvard University. He was educated at Columbia (A.B. 1959, summa cum laude), where he studied with Sidney Morgenbesser, at Princeton (Ph.D. 1963), and Oxford as a Fulbright Scholar. He was a prominent American political philosopher in the 1970s and 1980s. He did additional but less influential work in such subjects as decision theory and epistemology. His Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) was a libertarian answer to John Rawls's A Theory of Justice, published in 1971. He was born in Brooklyn, the son of a Jewish entrepreneur from Russia, and married the American poet Gjertrud Schnackenberg. Nozick died in 2002 after a prolonged struggle with cancer. His remains are interred at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Contents 1 Personal history 2 Thought 2.1 Political philosophy 2.2 Epistemology 2.3 Later books 2.4 Utilitarianism 2.5 Unusual method 3 Writings 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

Personal history

Please help improve this article by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (May 2009)

Nozick was Joseph Pellegrino University Professor at Harvard University.

Thought

Political philosophy

Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), which received a National Book Award, argues among other things that a distribution of goods is just if brought about by free exchange among consenting adults and from a just starting position, even if large inequalities subsequently emerge from the process. Nozick appealed to the Kantian idea that people should be treated as ends (what he termed 'separateness of persons'), not merely as a means to some other end. Nozick here challenges the partial conclusion of John Rawls's Second Principle of Justice of his A Theory of Justice, that "social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are to be of greatest benefit to the least-advantaged members of society."

Anarchy, State and Utopia claims a heritage from John Locke's Second Treatise on Government and tries to base itself upon a natural law doctrine. Locke only relied on natural law as God given to counteract the King of England's claim to divine right and thus claim to all the property of England. Nozick suggested, again as a critique of utilitarianism, that the sacrosanctity of life made property rights non-negotiable. This principle has served as a foundation for many libertarian pitches into modern politics.

Most controversially, Nozick argued that a consistent upholding of the libertarian non-aggression principle would allow and regard as valid consensual/non-coercive enslavement contracts between adults. He rejected the notion of inalienable rights advanced by most other libertarian academics, writing in Anarchy, State and Utopia:

"The comparable question about an individual is whether a free system will allow him to sell himself into slavery. I believe that it would."^[1]

Epistemology

In Philosophical Explanations (1981), which received the Phi Beta Kappa Society's Waldo Emerson Award, Nozick provided novel accounts of knowledge, free will, personal identity, the nature of value, and the meaning of life. He also put forward an epistemological system which attempted to deal with both Edmund Gettier-style problems and those posed by skepticism. This highly influential argument eschewed justification as a necessary requirement for knowledge.

Nozick's Four Conditions for S's knowing that P were:

(1) P is true

(2) S believes that P

(3) If it were the case that (not-P), S would not believe that P

(4) If it were the case that P, S would believe that P

Nozick's third and fourth conditions are counterfactuals. Nozick calls his theory the "tracking theory" of knowledge. Nozick believes that the counterfactual conditionals bring out an important aspect of our intuitive grasp of knowledge: For any given fact, the believer's method must reliably track the truth despite varying relevant conditions. In this way, Nozick's theory is similar to reliabilism.

Later books

The Examined Life (1989), pitched to a broader public, explores love, death, faith, reality, and the meaning of life. The Nature of Rationality (1993) presents a theory of practical reason that attempts to embellish notoriously spartan classical decision theory. Socratic Puzzles (1997) is a collection of papers that range in topic from Ayn Rand and Austrian economics to animal rights, while his last production, Invariances (2001), applies insights from physics and biology to questions of objectivity in such areas as the nature of necessity and moral value.

Utilitarianism

Nozick created the thought experiment of the "utility monster" to show that average utilitarianism could lead to a situation where the needs of the vast majority were sacrificed for one individual. He also devised the thought experiment of The Experience Machine in an attempt to show that ethical hedonism was false. Nozick asked us to imagine that "superduper neuropsychologists" have figured out a way to stimulate a person's brain to induce pleasurable experiences. We would not be able to tell that these experiences were not real. He asks us, if we were given the choice, would we choose a machine-induced experience of a wonderful life over real life? Nozick says no, then asks whether we have reasons not to plug into the machine and concludes that since it does not seem to be irrational to plug in, ethical hedonism must be false.

Unusual method

Nozick was notable for his curious exploratory style and methodological ecumenism. Often content to raise tantalizing philosophical possibilities and then leave judgment to the reader, Nozick was also notable for drawing from literature outside of philosophy (e.g., economics, physics, evolutionary biology).

Writings

• Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World (2001/2003) ISBN 0-674-01245-3
• Socratic Puzzles (1997) ISBN 0-674-81653-6
• The Nature of Rationality (1993/1995) ISBN 0-691-02096-5
• The Examined Life (1989) ISBN 0-671-72501-7
• Philosophical Explanations (1981) ISBN 0-19-824672-2
• Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) ISBN 0-631-19780-X

See also

• American philosophy
• Liberalism
• Contributions to liberal theory
• Libertarianism
• List of American philosophers

References

1. ^ http://ellerman.org/Davids-Stuff/Econ&Pol-Econ/translatio-v-concessio-P-and-S-final.pdf Ellerman, David, Translatio versus Concessio, 2

• G. A. Cohen (1995), Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality, Oxford UP. A widely-cited criticism of Nozick.
• Robinson, Dave & Groves, Judy (2003). Introducing Political Philosophy. Icon Books. ISBN 1-84046-450-X.
• Wolff, Jonathan (1991), Robert Nozick: Property, Justice, and the Minimal State. Polity Press.
• David Schmidtz (Editor) (2002), Robert Nozick Contemporary Philosophy in Focus, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0521006712
• David Lewis Schaefer, Robert Nozick and the Coast of Utopia, The New York Sun, April 30, 2008.

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Robert Nozick

• Obituary by The Daily Telegraph
• Obituary by The Guardian
• Obituary by The Independent
• Philosopher Nozick dies at 63 From the Harvard Gazette
• Robert Nozick Memorial minute
• Robert Nozick (1938-2002) by Edward Feser
• A summary of the political philosophy of Robert Nozick by R. N. Johnson
• Robert Nozick, Libertarianism, And Utopia by Jonathan Wolff
• Nozick on Newcomb's Problem and Prisoners' Dilemma by S. L. Hurley
• Robert Nozick: Against Distributive Justice by R.J. Kilcullen
• Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism? by Robert Nozick
• Open Directory Project - Robert Nozick directory category
• Robert Nozick, Philosopher of Liberty by Roderick T. Long

v • d • e Epistemology Related articles Outline of epistemology · Alethiology · Formal epistemology · Meta-epistemology · Philosophy of perception · Philosophy of science · Faith and rationality · Theaetetus Concepts in epistemology Knowledge · Justification · Belief · Perception · A priori knowledge · Induction · Other minds · Analytic-synthetic distinction · Causality · Common sense · Descriptive knowledge · Gettier problem · Objectivity · Analysis · Proposition · Regress argument · Simplicity · Speculative reason · Truth · more... · Epistemological theories Coherentism · Constructivist epistemology · Contextualism · Determinism · Empiricism · Fallibilism · Foundationalism · Holism · Infinitism · Innatism · Internalism and Externalism · Naïve realism · Naturalized epistemology · Phenomenalism · Positivism · Reductionism · Reliabilism · Representative realism · Rationalism · Skepticism · Theory of Forms · Transcendental idealism · Uniformitarianism Epistemologists Robert Audi · A.J. Ayer · George Berkeley · Laurence Bonjour · Rene Descartes · Edmund Gettier · Alvin Goldman · Nelson Goodman · Paul Grice · David Hume · Immanuel Kant · Søren Kierkegaard · John Locke · George Edward Moore · Robert Nozick · Alvin Plantinga · Plato · Louis Pojman · Peter Strawson · W.V.O. Quine · Bertrand Russell · Ludwig Wittgenstein · Vienna Circle · Portal · Category · Task Force · Stubs · Discussion

v • d • e Social and Political Philosophy Related articles Philosophy of economics · Philosophy of history · Jurisprudence · Philosophy of social science · Philosophy of sex Social concepts Society · War · Law · Justice · Peace · Rights · Revolution · Civil disobedience · Democracy · Social contract · more... Social theories Libertarianism · Authoritarianism · Liberalism · Socialism · Utilitarianism · Conflict theory Social and political philosophers Plato · Augustine of Hippo · Marsilius of Padua · Niccolo Machiavelli · Hugo Grotius · Jacques Maritain · Montesquieu · Auguste Comte · Bernard Bosanquet · Herbert Spencer · Nicolas Malebranche · Émile Durkheim · George Santayana · Josiah Royce · Confucius · Thomas Hobbes · Gottfried Leibniz · David Hume · Immanuel Kant · Jean-Jacques Rousseau · John Locke · Adam Smith · Jeremy Bentham · John Stuart Mill · Henry David Thoreau · Isaiah Berlin · Karl Marx · Giovanni Gentile · Mohandas Gandhi · John Rawls · Karl Popper · Robert Nozick · Noam Chomsky · Slavoj Žižek Portal · Category · Task Force · Discussion · Changes

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)