Justice and Rights in Nozick's Libertarianism: What Prospect for Community and Nation?
Institut Universitaire Le Grand Berger Benin (IUGB-Benin), Great Shepherd University Institute of Benin
judebernardonoja1@gmail.com
Abstract
This article analyses the absolutism of rights as a means to attain justice in a society and the credibility of justice as a standard for community and nation within Nozick's libertarian framework. Nozick presents human beings as rational, self-owning entities endowed with self-awareness, free will, and inherent dignity who cannot be treated as mere instruments. The article examines Nozick's entitlement theory, the minimalist state, and the concept of utopia as a framework for political society. Through engagement with scholars including Jeffrey, Cohen, and Lomasky, the article critically evaluates the prospects of applying Nozick's libertarian principles to contemporary community and nation-building. The article concludes that Nozick's libertarian theory of justice and rights, while academically credible, has failed to adequately account for the primordial demands for protection of lives and properties through political history, and cannot be straightforwardly applied as a model for 21st-century communities or nations.
Keywords
Introduction
Nozick's libertarianism is a reaction to Rawls' notion of liberty, particularly regarding the distribution and redistribution of property, rights, and resources in society. While Rawls tied justice to equality and fairness for the less privileged, Nozick tied justice to liberty, original possession of property, and resources, arguing that there are things even the government cannot do to infringe on individual rights. Nozick presents human beings as rational, self-owning entities endowed with self-awareness, free will, and the possibility of formulating a plan of life, possessing inherent dignity that cannot be violated. He argues that "Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights)." Nozick seeks to protect individual rights, freedom, and private property at the expense of extensive state functions, providing instead a minimalist state—the night-watchman state—meant only to protect individuals from external force.
Jeffrey's Critique: Procedural Rights
Paul Jeffrey, in his analysis of Nozick's libertarianism, agrees on its uniqueness while raising critical concerns about procedural rights. Jeffrey argues that Nozick's argument will not succeed if deprived of the notion of procedural rights, and that procedural rights cannot have the status Nozick's argument requires of them. Jeffrey identifies two key arguments: first, each individual has rights to be judged according to procedures, and if they deprive another of property protection, they must compensate sufficiently to enable re-acquisition. Second, Nozick demands that persons be known to be guilty before punishment, meaning procedures that do not lead to such knowledge may be prohibited. Jeffrey's position attempts to close necessary gaps in Nozick's argument, though it remains controversial in reconciling procedural rights with the compensation principle.
Cohen's Egalitarian Challenge
G. A. Cohen, in his work on Self Ownership, Property, and Equality, mounts a critical challenge to Nozick's libertarianism. Cohen argues that equality can be derived without breaching the rules of self-ownership, attempting to show that a union of self-ownership and unequal distribution of worldly resources leads to indefinitely great inequality of private property in external goods. Cohen proposes joint ownership as an alternative to Nozick's doctrine of appropriation, arguing that if resources are owned collectively, no single owner can privatize any part of the asset unilaterally, regardless of compensation offered. This argument effectively challenges Nozick's entire theory of appropriation by reducing it to the Lockean proviso, though Cohen himself never clearly defines how much inequality is too much or how one might determine this threshold.
Lomasky's Objections
Lomasky Loren criticizes Nozick's entitlement theory on the grounds that it fails to adequately account for historical injustices in property acquisition. Lomasky argues that one has justifiable title to items only if acquired through just original acquisition, just voluntary transfer, or just compensation for prior injustice. However, he questions how often one can determine with assurance that a chain of title is unsullied by any episode of injustice, noting that history is filled with episodes of rapine, murder, enslavement, plunder, and dispossession. Nozick himself acknowledges this limitation, admitting he does not know of a thorough or theoretically sophisticated treatment of such issues. Lomasky concludes that Nozick's inability to thoroughly account for the entitlement theory in a wicked world contributed to leading him away from libertarianism.
Principles of Imaginary Political World
Nozick's libertarian theory and principle is a framework for utopia—the totality of conditions we would wish to impose on societies we are pre-eminently qualified to call utopia. Nozick defines utopia as a state that is morally neutral, indifferent to all values rather than that of maintaining law and order, with the minimalist state as its only prevailing principle. In this imaginary world of associations characterized by no objective laws or moral order, individuals strive to identify with associations that are profitable and protective. Eventually, a stable world emerges that is competitive commercially, economically, and politically, where no rational member can imagine another world they would rather live in. This model, while theoretically interesting, presents challenges when applied to real communities and nations.
Prospects for Community and Nation
The cardinal similarity between utopia and community or nation is liberty—liberty based on volition of choice. Individuals have rights to opt out of particular provisions that infringe on their rights. However, Nozick acknowledges that no founder and member of a small communist community may properly refuse to allow anyone to opt out of equal sharing, as internal opting out would change the character of the group. The routine of opting out is self-defeating because one is opting out of a community to meet with allies of other communities or nations tied to international laws and organizations. Nozick's libertarian principle will not work as a model for 21st-century communities or nations when applied, as it would justify revolution since everyone wants to be self-autonomous. People are now so corrupt that they will not choose to cooperate voluntarily with experiments to establish justice, virtue, and the good life.
Conclusion
Nozick's libertarian theory of justice and rights must be based on claims of ethics and morality, not simply on the ability of the libertarian state to deliver superior material goods. Nozick's libertarian theory has failed to recognize that the primordial nature of the demand for protection of lives and properties through political history has passed through revolutionary processes that began from perfect freedom as postulated by Locke in his state of nature theory. Most fundamentally, Nozick's libertarianism has not heeded the notion that it is impossible to reflect on evolutionary processes without recognizing the intrinsic role of insurance. There are no grounds upon which Nozick's libertarianism could be applied in community or nation; it should maintain its theoretical status as an academic credibility and epistemic intelligence for modification. The article argues that while Nozick's framework offers valuable philosophical insights, its practical application to contemporary political communities remains deeply problematic.