Transcript The Entitlement Theory of Justice

The Entitlement Theory of Justice
Contents
Libertarianism
Nozick vs. Rawls
Property rights
Locke’s labor theory of property
Lockean proviso
Entitlement theory
History and pattern
Liberty upsets patterns
Taxation and redistribution
Criticisms
Libertarianism
Libertarianism starts from the
thought that, as far as possible,
we should keep government out of
individual lives.
It is not for governments to tell us
what we can do, provided that we
respect the rights of others.
Libertarianism
In particular, libertarianism opposes
coercive forms of redistribution of
wealth and income.
Libertarians advocate the minimal
state and argue that it is
illegitimate for the state
(government) to seize the money
of some and present it to others.
Libertarianism
Robert Nozick’s libertarianism starts
from the fundamental premise
that individuals have equal natural
rights against force, theft and
fraud.
These individual moral rights,
Nozick argues, permit only a
minimal state, that is, one limited
to protection of those rights.
Libertarianism
Notably, these rights include the
right to private property, which
includes the rights to possess, use,
exchange, and gain income from
trades of property in a market,
without interference, regulation or
taxation.
Libertarianism
Libertarians champion the idea of
‘self-ownership’.
They claim that individuals own
themselves – their bodies, talents
and abilities, labor, and by
extension the fruits or products of
their exercise of their talents,
abilities and labor.
Libertarianism
Justice, Nozick argues, is about
respecting people’s rights, in
particular, their rights to selfownership and their rights to
property.
People must be allowed the freedom
to decide what they want to do
with what they own.
Nozick vs. Rawls
Rawls’s influential book A Theory of
Justice (1971) is a systematic
defense of egalitarianism and the
welfare state, whereas Nozick’s
Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)
is a compelling defense of freemarket libertarianism.
Nozick vs. Rawls
Rawls’s theory of justice require
equal basic liberties, political
equality, equal opportunities, and
redistribution of income and
wealth from the rich to the poor,
which, he argues, is necessary to
maximize the position of the least
advantaged members of society.
Nozick vs. Rawls
Nozick criticizes the idea of
redistribution inherent in Rawls’s
proposals.
Nozick claims that inequality of
wealth and income is just if it is
the result of voluntary
transactions.
Nozick vs. Rawls
Nozick notes that Rawls does not
include property rights among the
liberties protected by his first
principle (equal liberty).
Nozick objects that Rawls treats
wealth as if it belongs to society,
to share out, rather than to its
producers, in proportion to their
productive contributions.
Nozick vs. Rawls
The state or government, in Rawls’s
view, must engage in
redistributive taxation in order to
ensure a fair distribution of wealth
and income among its citizens.
Nozick, on the other hand, argues
against the redistribution of
income through taxation and
social welfare.
Nozick vs. Rawls
To put Rawls’s ideas into practice,
one must override already
existing property rights.
Nozick concludes that a conception
of justice like Rawls’s requires an
exceedingly interventionist
government that continually
meddles with voluntary exchange
and free agreement among
citizens.
Nozick vs. Rawls
The only sort of state that can be
morally justified is what Nozick
calls a minimal state or ‘nightwatchman’ state, a government
which protects individuals, via
police and military forces, from
force, fraud, and theft, and
administers courts of law, but
does nothing else.
Property rights
Nozick thinks that the very idea of
distributive justice, or a just
redistribution of goods, is
misleading because it implies that
an existing state of property
holdings is the result of a
deliberate or planned distribution
by state authority.
Property rights
Nozick maintains that resources are
not, and should never be, collected
into a sum total to be allocated by
a central distributing authority.
In a free market, there is no central
distributor, no person or group
entitled to control all the
resources, jointly deciding how
they are to be doled out.
Property rights
For Nozick, to give people liberty
means that we cannot impose any
restrictions on individual property
holdings.
Limiting how much property people
can acquire, and what they can do
with it, is a way of reducing
individual liberty.
Property rights
Nozick thinks that property rights
are important because they are
derived from ‘self-ownership’.
A person has a right to what they
produce, because they own their
own labor, which they invest in
creating the product.
Property rights
Each individual owns himself or
herself and the property he or she
has acquired in the right way.
Property owners have no moral
obligation to share their property
with those who need it.
Property rights
If someone attempts to take
property from someone who owns
it, the owner has the right to
resist this attempt with all the
force that is necessary to defend
the property.
Property rights
Force may permissibly be used to
take something back from
someone who has acquired it via
illegitimate means (through fraud
or theft, for instance), but it is
always unjust to force someone to
give up something that he or she
rightfully owns.
Property rights
According to Nozick, a minimal state
(a limited government) should be
established, which helps people to
protect their rights (liberty, selfownership and property rights).
But it is morally impermissible for
the state to uses taxation to oblige
individuals to give up their
property.
Locke’s labor theory of property
Consider a piece paper. It is made
from wood. The trees from which
that wood came might have been
deliberately planted as a crop, but
those saplings came from seeds,
and those seeds were descended
from trees which once belonged to
no one.
Locke’s labor theory of property
Thus at some point an object, be it
tree or seed, which belonged to no
one became someone’s individual
property. How could that be?
Locke’s labor theory of property
This question is even more pressing
in the case of land. Anyone may
use unowned land. As soon as it
becomes private property, no one
may use it without the permission
of the owner.
How can someone come to have the
right to exclude others in this way?
Locke’s labor theory of property
Locke assumes that initially the
world was owned in common by
all human beings.
How, then, could anyone come to
own anything as individual private
property?
Locke’s labor theory of property
According to Locke, a person has a
property in himself and in his
labor; each person has liberty to
decide what he will do (subject to
the rights of others), and a right
to reap the benefits of his own
actions.
Locke’s labor theory of property
Locke’s theory of property holds
that a person (being a self-owner)
owns his labor, and by ‘mixing his
labor’ with a previously unowned
part of the natural world thereby
comes to own it.
Locke’s labor theory of property
In other words, an individual owns
his labor and in laboring on an
object he ‘mixes his labor’ with
that object.
Thereby, so long as that object is
not already justly claimed by
another, he comes to own the
object on which he has labored.
Locke’s labor theory of property
To sum up, Locke’s idea of selfownership allows a person the
freedom to mix his or her labor
with a natural resources –
originally common property – and
in doing so makes them his or her
private property.
Locke’s labor theory of property
Nozick notices that there is a
problem with Locke’s argument:
the premise that mixing your
labor with land entitles you to the
land is obviously false.
Locke’s labor theory of property
Nozick provides a counterexample:
“If I own a can of tomato juice and
spill it in the sea so that its
molecules mingle evenly
throughout the sea, do I thereby
come to own the sea, or have I
foolishly dissipated my tomato
juice?”
Locke’s labor theory of property
It can be argued, however, that
mixing labor is not the same as
mixing tomato juice.
In laboring on land one massively
increases its value. This can be a
reason why laboring entitles the
laboror to appropriate cultivated
land.
Locke’s labor theory of property
But this argument too has an
obvious difficulty. The laboror
may have the right to keep the
added value but not the land itself.
The land is not part of the added
value; it was there before the
laboror came to work on it.
Locke’s labor theory of property
If land is scarce then it will be
taken by those first to stake their
claim by labor.
Those born to a later generation,
unable to find land of their own,
may complain that they have been
unjustly treated in comparison
with those who have inherited
land.
Locke’s labor theory of property
Before an item of property comes to
be appropriated by an individual,
everyone is at liberty to use that
item.
Once it becomes an individual’s
property, this liberty of nonowners is canceled. Others can
use it only with the owner’s
permission.
Locke’s labor theory of property
Why should anything I do to an
object overturn your previous
liberty to use it?
It is very hard to find an answer;
thus it is very hard to find a
satisfactory principle of justice in
acquisition.
Lockean proviso
Nozick uses as a starting point
Locke’s approach to justice in
property acquisition – namely,
that ownership of an object
originates in one’s mixing of labor
with that object.
He then calls attention to some
difficulties in Locke’s theory of
acquisition.
Lockean proviso
Nozick expresses some doubts about
Locke’s labor theory of property:
Why does mixing one’s labor with
something make one the owner of
it?
Why should one’s entitlement
extend to the whole object rather
than just to the added value one's
labor has produced?
Lockean proviso
The principle of justice in acquisition
is meant to govern the gaining of
exclusive property rights over
material objects.
But, as we have seen, it is not clear
why the first people to acquire
some part of the material world
should be able to exclude others
from it.
Lockean proviso
Nozick notices that Locke imposed,
as a condition on appropriation,
that ‘enough and as good’ be left
for others.
The Lockean Proviso: Natural
resources, such as land, come to
be rightfully owned by the first
person to appropriate it, as long as
he left ‘enough and as good’ for
others.
Lockean proviso
Nozick reinterprets the Lockean
proviso as requiring that no
individual be made worse off by
the use or appropriation of a
natural resource.
The Nozickean proviso: No one’s
condition is thereby worsened by
someone’s appropriation.
Lockean proviso
In other words, individuals may
justly appropriate items that are
not owned by others, and asserts
that appropriation is just if it does
not harm anyone in comparison
with their position had the item in
question remained unowned.
Lockean proviso
The Nozickean proviso expresses
the idea that one’s natural rights
to property extend only as far as
exercising them does not harm
others by appropriating goods
that they need in order to direct
their own lives.
Lockean proviso
Once an item is owned, others have
rights to use it only with the
permission of the owner.
However, because having exclusive
rights over an item might motivate
its owner to improve it, which
might in turn benefit others in
various ways. Therefore, property
rights might not worsen the
position of others.
Lockean proviso
Counterexample: Person X can
satisfy Nozick’s proviso by
‘acquiring’ a beach and charging
$1 admission to those who
previously were able to use the
beach for free, so long as Person X
compensates them with a benefit
they deem equally valuable, such
as a clean up or life-guarding
service on the beach…
Lockean proviso
…However, the beach-goers would
have been even better off if the
beach had been acquired by a
more efficient organizer, Person Y,
who would have only charged 50
cents for the same service. But
this alternative is never
considered under Nozick's proviso.
Entitlement theory
For Nozick, an ‘entitlement’ is a just
holding (possession), and a just
holding can come about in either
of the two following ways: [1]
direct acquisition by the holder, or
[2] transfer from some other
person or persons through
voluntary exchange or gift.
Entitlement theory
Nozick defends what he calls a
theory of entitlement (property
rights) according to which all
holdings which have been acquired
in a justifiable manner, or gained
through voluntary exchange with
those who acquired their holdings
in a justifiable manner, are just.
Entitlement theory
Nozick’s entitlement theory is
concerned with ‘justice in
holdings’.
It is designed to be able to assess
the holdings of any given person
at any given time, and determine
which of those holdings, if any,
are possessed justly by that
person.
Entitlement theory
For Nozick, there are three major
topic areas of justice: [1] original
acquisition of holdings, [2]
transfer of holdings, and [3] the
rectification of injustice in
holdings.
Entitlement theory
Accordingly, Nozick’s entitlement
theory consists of 3 propositions:
[a] A person who acquires a holding
in accordance with the principle of
justice in acquisition is entitled to
that holding.
Entitlement theory
[b] A person who acquires a holding
in accordance with the principle of
justice in transfer, from someone
else entitled to the holding, is
entitled to the holding.
[c] No one is entitled to a holding
except by (repeated) applications
of [a] and [b].
Entitlement theory
The first proposition [a] is an
account of justice in initial
acquisition, which explains how
anyone can be the first owner of
property.
The first claimant is entitled to a
holding provided that no one
should be rendered worse off by
the acquisition.
Entitlement theory
The second proposition [b] is a
principle of justice in transfer,
which explains how property may
pass from one legitimate owner to
another.
The owner has the right to give
property away as a gift or in
exchange as he or she sees fit. By
contrast, theft, fraud or breach of
contract violate the principle of
transfer.
Entitlement theory
The final proposition [c] would be a
principle of justice in rectification,
governing the proper means of
setting right past injustices in
acquisition and transfer.
It would require, for example, that
stolen goods be returned to the
legitimate owner.
Entitlement theory
Not all holdings are just
entitlements: a holding can be
acquired unjustly, by theft or
fraud, for example, or by forcible
seizure contrary to the wishes of
the original holder.
A person is entitled to a holding only
if it has been justly acquired or
justly transferred. If a holding has
arisen from a past injustice, it may
be just to rectify it.
Entitlement theory
To sum up: Nozick’s entitlement
theory of justice asserts that
anyone who got what he or she
has in a manner consistent with
the three principles (justice in
acquisition, justice in transfer, and
justice in rectification) would be
justly entitled to it.
Entitlement theory
A distribution of wealth obtaining in
a society as a whole is a just
distribution if everyone in that
society is entitled to what he or
she has, i.e. has gotten his or her
holdings in accordance with the
principles of acquisition, transfer,
and rectification.
It is therefore just however equal or
unequal it happens to be.
History and pattern
There are 3 kinds of principles of
justice:
[1] historical principles of justice
[2] end-state principles of justice
[3] patterned principles of justice
Nozick’s principles are ‘historical’ yet
‘unpatterned’. He rejects all other
principles of justice.
History and pattern
Nozick advocates a ‘historical’
conception of justice.
Nozick: “The entitlement theory of
justice in distribution is historical;
whether a distribution is just
depends upon how it came about.”
History and pattern
Nozick distinguishes what he calls
‘historical’ and ‘end-state’ (nonhistorical) theories of justice.
An end-state theory of justice
supposes that we can determine
whether a distribution is just
without considering how people
acquire their wealth or resources.
History and pattern
A historical theory, on the other
hand, supposes that to determine
whether a distribution is just, we
need to take into consideration
how people obtain their wealth
and resources.
History and pattern
For Nozick, justice is historical in the
sense that a just distribution of
resources is simply the result of
people’s different choices with
respect to investment,
consumption and giving within
certain specified rules.
History and pattern
Patterned theories of justice say
that the distribution should be
made according to some pattern
such as ‘to each according to their
need’ or ‘to each according to
their desert’.
Rawls’s difference principle, for
example, can be regarded as a
‘patterned’ principle of justice.
History and pattern
Nozick’s entitlement theory of
justice is historical yet
unpatterned: the justice of a
distribution is determined by
certain historical circumstances
(contrary to end-state theories),
but it has nothing to do with
fitting any pattern.
History and pattern
For Nozick, a particular distributive
pattern is not required for justice.
The free market is just, not as a
means to some pattern, but insofar
as the exchanges permitted in the
market satisfy the conditions of
just (voluntary) exchange.
History and pattern
In Nozick’s view, any distribution
will be just as long as each
possession was acquired either
through a proper initial acquisition
(as when one grows a crop on
one’s own land) or through a just
transfer (as when one either buys,
trades for, or is given something
from its rightful owner).
History and pattern
According to Nozick’s entitlement
theory, a distribution is just (i.e.
everyone is entitled his or her
holdings) if and only if everyone
has acquired what they own
through a sequence of
transactions in accordance with
the principles of just acquisition
and just transfer.
History and pattern
Whether a distribution is just
depends on how it came about. If
it came about in accordance with
the rules of acquisition, transfer
and rectification, then it is not
unjust, however unequal it may
be.
History and pattern
In summary, Nozick’s entitlement
theory of justice is historical yet
unpatterned.
All other theories of justice are
either non-historical or patterned
and therefore must be rejected.
Liberty upsets patterns
Nozick points out that if a patterned
distribution were established at
any moment, it would of necessity
be destroyed if persons could
freely (and hence unpredictably)
transfer some of their holdings to
others by means of purchases,
gifts, loans, etc.
Liberty upsets patterns
Patterns, Nozick argues, can only be
enforced at grave cost to liberty.
We have just two alternatives:
either we maintain the pattern by
banning certain transaction or we
constantly intervene in the market
to redistribute property.
Liberty upsets patterns
Either way we need to make
intrusions into people’s lives: by
stopping them from doing what
they want to do or limiting their
freedom in some other ways.
Proper respect for liberty, then,
rules out enforcing a patterned
distribution.
Liberty upsets patterns
Imagine a society in which the
distribution of wealth fits a
particular pattern – suppose, to
keep things simple, that it is an
equal distribution, and let us call
it D1.
Now suppose that among the
members of this society is Wilt
Chamberlain, a famous basketball
player.
Liberty upsets patterns
Knowing his popularity with
spectators, Wilt Chamberlain signs
up for a team in a contract
stipulating that for each game
played at the home ground he is to
receive twenty-five cents from the
price of every ticket sold.
Liberty upsets patterns
Suppose further that over the
course of the season, one million
fans decide to pay the twenty-five
cents to watch him play. The
result will be a new distribution,
D2, in which Chamberlain now has
$250,000, much more than
anyone else – a distribution which
thereby breaks the original
pattern established in D1.
Liberty upsets patterns
Is the new distribution D2 just?
Nozick’s answer is ‘Yes’. Why?
Because everyone who gave up
twenty-five cents in the transition
from D1 to D2 did so voluntarily,
and thus has no grounds for
complaint; and those who did not
want to pay to see Chamberlain
play still have their twenty-five
cents, so they have no grounds for
complaint either.
Liberty upsets patterns
If D1 is just, and people voluntarily
moved from D1 to D2, then,
Nozick argues, surely D2 is also
just.
But once we have conceded this,
then we have admitted that there
can be just distributions which do
not obey the original pattern. So
all patterned conceptions of
justice are refuted.
Liberty upsets patterns
The Wilt Chamberlain example
shows that a distribution (such as
D2) can be just even if it doesn’t
follow a particular pattern.
Free choice of action is essential to
justice, and such freedom will
upset any patterned principle of
distributive justice.
Liberty upsets patterns
The example also shows that ‘liberty
upsets patterns’, that allowing
individuals freely to use their
holdings as they choose will
inevitably destroy any pattern of
distribution.
Liberty upsets patterns
According to Nozick, all patterned
theories of distributive justice
restrict people’s free actions. We
will constantly have to intervene
with the distribution of property to
bring it back into line with the
original pattern.
A proper regard for liberty, Nozick
argues, is incompatible with
enforcing any patterned
distribution of property.
Taxation and redistribution
Nozick argues that any attempt to
impose a pattern of holdings will
violate individual liberty.
In order to preserve a pattern we
must either prohibit people from
making pattern-breaking
transactions, or forcibly
redistribute property on a regular
basis.
Taxation and redistribution
In Nozick’s view, taxation is
equivalent to forced labour.
Taxing earnings is, in effect, forcing
taxpayers to work unpaid. To take
the fruits of one person’s labor for
the benefit of another is
effectively to make one person
work for another against his will.
Taxation and redistribution
Taking a proportion of earnings is
like making a person spend a
proportion of his time working for
another’s purposes.
It is unjust, Nozick argues, to force
a person to work for another’s
benefit.
Taxation and redistribution
Taxation by the state for the
provision of social welfare – a
forced transfer – is unjust.
Each individual possesses inviolable
rights that all others, including the
state, must respect. To take
property away from people in
order to redistribute it violates
their rights.
Taxation and redistribution
The functions of Nozick’s ideal
‘minimal state’ are limited to the
protection against force, theft,
fraud, and the enforcement of
contracts.
Redistributive taxation violates
people’s property rights, and
therefore must be excluded.
Criticisms
Nozick’s position rests on the claim
that property rights are in some
way absolute.
His theory of entitlement appears to
rest on the dubious assumption
that rights of self-ownership can
be extended to include rights over
external objects.
Criticisms
One might agree with Nozick that a
person has the right to decide
what should happen to his or her
own self, but at the same time
refuses to extend this reasoning
to claims over external objects.
Criticisms
Most notably, Nozick himself
ultimately acknowledges that his
entitlement theory is inadequate,
since it can never be demonstrated
that existing holdings derive from
an unbroken series of voluntary
transfers.
Criticisms
History shows that a great deal of
initial acquisition of property was
unjust, based on theft,
exploitation, slavery and
colonization.
All property that derives from
unjust acquisition is unjustly held.
Criticisms
The problem is, it is almost always
impossible for us to rectify the
injustice of the past. We have no
way of establishing what rightfully
belongs to whom.
So Nozick’s theory has no
application unless we could trace
back the history of ownership of
property to its very beginning.
Criticisms
Another objection to Nozick’s view
is that taxation is unlike forcing
taxpayers to work unpaid for the
needy.
Forced unpaid labor would violate
the right to freedom of occupation,
but taxation of earnings is
compatible with that right.
Criticisms
A further reason why Nozick’s
theory is controversial is that it
could justify very unequal
distributions of property.
It can be argued, for example, that
economic inequality is likely to
produce unequal political
influence, which undermines
democracy.
Criticisms
Nozick claims that whatever
distribution results from voluntary
transactions is just, no matter how
unequal it is.
However, voluntary transactions
over time produce inequalities that
are unjust. For example, economic
inequalities produce inequalities of
opportunity for children from
different family backgrounds.
Criticisms
Economic inequalities have a
detrimental effect on the
liberties – or at least the
opportunities – of the poor.
Supporters of the welfare state
would argue that property must be
redistributed from the wealthy to
the less fortunate to ensure equal
liberty for all.
Criticisms
Self-determination requires
resources – income, housing and
education. The destitute, homeless
or uneducated cannot really be
free.
So, liberty for all, not just the
affluent, requires not the minimal
state but the welfare state, to
enable each citizen to lead their
own life.
Criticisms
Taxation for redistribution increases
liberty rather than reduces it,
because by increasing the income
of the poor it gives them a wider
range of choices that they would
not otherwise have had.