Orinayo Ojo
Principles of Social Justice essay 1
GV250
4.)
“Nozick’s Entitlement Theory is perfectly correct. However, Nozick is mistaken to think that the Entitlement Theory supports a minimal state.” Discuss.
It is important to asses if Nozick’s Entitlement Theory supports a minimal state because it helps better understand how essential Nozick’s Theory is. it also helps us understand if Justice is best under the constitution of a minimal state. The assessment of Nozick’s Entitlement theory helps us reach a conclusion as to whether a minimal state is needed to achieve true justice. Understanding if Nozick’s Entitlement theory supports a minimal state is also essential because it helps answer a lot of questions like. Does the minimal state ensure justice? Is taxation just? etc.
In this essay, I will assume the position that Nozick’s entitlement theory and the minimal state are not necessarily in support of each other. I will begin by presenting Nozick’s stance on the idea of a minimal state and why he views it as the most important state for perfect justice. I will then go on to argue why the minimal state and Nozick’s entitlement theory are not as compatible as thought. I will present Nozick’s entitlement theory and how it fails under the circumstances of the Lockean principle and how the idea of compensation weakens the idea of a minimal state.
The minimal state is a state that does nothing more than protect the liberty, life and private property of its citizens. The state essentially maintains the power to protect the people and the people’s interest in regard to private property. The minimal state believes that outcomes and interactions should be left as they are and should not be influenced by the government unless it affects the protection of the citizens. In a minimal state, governments responsibilities are limited to protecting individuals from fraud and theft, defence of the borders, reparations to citizens etc. The state is incompatible with individual rights and cannot influence or control the people or force them to aid others.
Nozick assumes a libertarian approach in expressing the fundamentals of life, liberty and property and seeks to justify his stance with the help of John Locke’s state of nature. "no one ought to harm another in his life, liberty, and or property" (Goldwin, March 1976). He argues that the minimal state is the only just form of government and believes in a system whereby people are free to select and adopt any way of life they please without the coercion of the government and or any authority as long as they are within the guidelines of the laws of nature. Nozick very much believes in the minimal state in the sense that the government should have little influence in the lives of its citizens.
Nozick presents an argument for the minimal state and presents arguments opposing the idea of an extensive state. His entitlement theory states that everyone is entitled to whatever goods or property they possess as long as it has been acquired or gotten fairly. And that an individual's holdings and property are just if he/she holds the requirements through the principle of justice in acquisition and transfer or by the principle of rectification of injustice. Otherwise, the individual's holdings are unjust.
Though there are many arguments which seem to suggest that Nozick’s Entitlement theory does support the minimal state such as the right to self-ownership there are some other arguments which suggest otherwise.
The first argument suggesting that Nozick’s entitlement theory can co-exist and supports the minimal state is the fact (Nozick would argue) that state powers in a minimal state are very limited. Affording citizens their full entitlements to their rights and protecting them against the unjust loss of their entitlements and property. Nozick argues that the minimal state maintains the obligations to protect the properties of its citizens and punish those who violate this. Creating the best possible situation for its citizen's rights to be protected. Nozick says: "Taxation of earnings from labour is on a par with forced labour." He argues that taxation goes against the right of self-ownership and for this reason, the minimal state is the best and most just set for the protection of people’s rights because it does not encroach on this. Nozick argues that nothing more than the minimal state can be legitimately just.
He argues that the states legitimate use of power to prevent fraud and to confiscate property in situations declared unjust is a reason why the theory maintains relevance in the minimal state. Nozick argues that the state does not encroach into the rights of its citizens and that the state does not have the right to charge for its protection. He says, "The state does not violate individual rights since the anarchic state would evolve quickly into a minimal state' (R, 1974). Nozick is arguing that the natural transition from s an anarchic world state is the minimal state and so it supports the entitlement theory.
However, it can also be argued that the entitlement theory does not fully support the idea of a minimal state because Nozick seems to accept a limited form of taxation as legitimate. Nozick’s argument seems to go from it is not okay to tax citizens because it goes against the idea of liberty and the natural freedoms of man (who is a rational thinker), to it is okay to tax citizens under certain circumstances. Nozick argues that taxation is only acceptable if it is done to maintain the affairs of the minimal state to maintain its legitimacy. In other words, taxation is okay if its only reason is to maintain the minimal state. It cannot be done for other things such as state infrastructure etc. because that is unjust.
Nozick argues from the standpoint that it is wrong for a state to deny a person his basic rights in terms of property. And that the entitlement theory can work only under the constitution of the minimal state. However, under circumstances whereby there is an extreme scarcity of a vital resource, it can be argued that the rights of the people to property might be limited under the Lockean proviso Nozick Proviso. The argument is based around the idea that if there is a catastrophic event that results in the scarcity of a resource, constraints might be set on a person’s right to what he can do with his property. Nozick says: “Thus a person may not appropriate the only water hole in a desert and charge what he will. Nor may he charge what he will if he possesses on, and unfortunately it happens that all the water holes in the desert dry up, except for his.” (R, 1974) Nozick expresses that having certain resources might result in others falling below the baseline of welfare. In other words, “a person’s rights are overridden to avoid a catastrophe”2 This seems to go against the initial idea of the libertarian approach that seeks to protect the liberty and right of its citizens.
Nozick’s principle of compensation many would argue is a form of distributive justice as in the case presented above by Nozick. A person would have to forfeit his right to do whatever he pleases with his waterhole to ensure the greater good even though he might have originally acquired it within the constraints of the entitlement theory. This suggests that Nozick's entitlement theory does not support the minimal state because it provides the state with a means of redistributing wealth (A welfare power). The minimal state can no longer remain a minimal state because it has to redistribute wealth and resources to the less fortunate as opposed to maintaining its power of just facilitating the just acquisition and transfer of property.
For example, in a scenario whereby an individual maintains the right to possess a water source in the time where there are multiple sources of water. peradventure there was a hurricane that eventually led to the poisoning of all other water sources. Nozick would argue that the minimal state maintains the right to acquire and control the individual’s right on that property because it affects others.
Nozick would however also argue that even though it seems like distributive justice it is not.
“The Case of the Poor in Conditions of Moderate Scarcity” (Blincoe., 2018) is another argument that tests the foundations of the minimal state. In this case, for example, a resource such as land if deemed scarce and the Entitlement theory declares that a large group should be compensated would result in a situation beyond the minimal state. This would go beyond the minimal state as its powers would go beyond just justice and protection of citizens to conducting and wielding powers of welfare. In the situation whereby land is scarce, the minimal state would have to redistribute land to ensure the welfare of those who need it. A person who has acquired a vast amount of lands or land deemed too much would then be limited to exercise his full rights to his property because it affects the population this suggests that the entitlement theory does not support the minimal state but in fact an extraneous state.
In conclusion, Nozick's entitlement theory in my opinions does not seem to perfectly support the minimal state. This is because he is unable to justify the minimal state and the Lockean proviso under all circumstances. Circumstances such as extreme scarcities and the case of the poor in conditions of moderate scarcity prove too difficult and that his argument for a minimal state is not airtight, as it leads to scenarios whereby individuals are left without full liberty to use their properties (holdings) as the libertarian approach supports. It also shows that it impossible to have a minimal state in all situations. As presented above the minimal state in some situations has to gain increased powers to help protect the welfare of the less privileged.