Nozick

[Kukulofori]

Who is this guy, and is he worth taking seriously at all?

[Demogorgon]

He was a philosopher of the New Right providing an argument for an ultra-capitalistic minarchist state, though he later softened his views somewhat.

He is held in high regard by Libertarians (his early work anyway, they ignore his more moderate later work), but I would not consider him worthy of much serious consideration, his philosophy was based entirely on a priory values with no regard for the impact of his policies on the real world (though again he remedied this somewhat later on).

Aside from politics he also did a lot of work on epistemology where he also held some rather unusual views.

[Diagoras]

If you find yourself surrounded by many Objectivist types, and desire a "know thy enemy" project, then you may want to read him. Otherwise, he seems to have limited influence.

Demogorgon got it right.

[MarxSchmarx]

Robert Nozick was a Harvard philosopher.

For better or worse, he is credited with having exposed many of the flaws in John Rawls' theory. Since then, his own theories have been the subject of much criticism.

Having said that, his "Philosophical Explanations" is a worthy read. It deals not so much with politics but with metaphysics, epistemology, meta-ethics, that kind of stuff.

In that work, he has a good argument against any objective answer to the "meaning of life". Suppose the "meaning of life" for humans turned out to be to serve as inter-galactic snacks for some space traveling monster. Would it then be particularly fulfilling to "fulfill the meaning of life" if we got gobbled up on this space journey? Nozick answers in the negative, and I tend to agree.

"Philosophical Explanations" does help put his "libertarianism" in perspective, although I doubt very seriously his political philosophy is derivable, much less consistent with, the broader philosophical views he adopts in that work.

[Reclaimed Dasein]

They've hit it pretty hard. He's one of the early intellectual figures in defending libertarianism. While he was specifically dealing with Rawls, a lot of his arguments include communism, socialism, and most forms of Marxism within their scope. I give this argument to my students to study for their test.

Nozick argues for a minimal state and free market capitalism.
P1. Individuals have a right to choose what to do with their life.
P2. Choosing what a person does with their life includes entering into any free economic agreements.
L3. Individuals have a right to enter into any free economic agreements.
P4. Economic distributions violate the right to enter free economic agreements.
L5. Economic distributions violate rights.
P5. The state may not justly violate rights.
C. The state may not justly enact economic distributions.


The two deeply controversial premises are P2 and P4. For Nozick, free economic agreements mean consentual trade, gift, or free laboring on nature. However, we live in a world with history and most of the existant "stuff" was generated by none of those processes (see Marx's primitive accumulation). Also, it's not clear an individual has the right to enter into free economic agreements if those agreements directly or indirectly dominate third parties or the weaker party in the contract.


Also, P4 it may be the case that a certain amount of economic distribution is necessary as a background for free undominated interactions.


Just some background. Ask if you have further questions.