A CRITIQUE OF ROBERT NOZICK POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
A
CRITIQUE OF ROBERT NOZICK POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
Robert Nozick (1938-2002) was American
philosopher, best known for his rigorous defense of libertarianism in his first
major work, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974). During his high
school and college years, Nozick was a member of the student new left and an
enthusiastic socialist. At Columbia, he helped to found a campus branch of the
league for industrial democracy, a precursor of the students for a democratic
society. While in graduate school he read works by libertarian thinkers such as
F. A. Hayak and Ludwig Von Mises, and his political views began to change. His
conversion to libertarianism culminated in 1974 with the publication of Anarchy, State, and Utopia, a closely
argued and highly original defense of the libertarian “minimal state” and a
critique of the social-democratic liberalism of John Rowls.
The
main body of this work falls into four
parts; firstly the underpinning (if any) and the character and robustness of
the moral rights that constitute the basic normative framework for most of Anarchy, State and Utopia. Secondly, the
character and degree of success of Nozick’s defense of the minimal state
against the charge by the individualist anarchist that “the state itself is
intrinsically immoral”. Thirdly, Nozick’s articulation and defense of his
historical entitlement doctrine of justice in holdings and his associated
critique of end-state and patterned doctrines of distributive justice,
especially John Rawls’ difference principle (as defended in a theory of justice)
and fourthly Nozick’s argument that utopian aspirations provide a complementary
route to the vindication of the minimal state.
Email us for full access: mfonabasio@gmail.com
Trending: Sponsored Ads
Thanks for reading: A CRITIQUE OF ROBERT NOZICK POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, Sorry, my English is bad:)