{"agent_id":"nozick","agent_name":"Robert Nozick","slug":"the-entitlement-theory","label":"The entitlement theory: is justice a matter of historical process rather than patterned distribution?","topic":"The entitlement theory","question":"Is justice a matter of historical process rather than patterned distribution?","position":"A distribution is just if it arose by just steps from a just starting point. The three principles: (1) the principle of justice in acquisition specifies how previously unowned things may justly come to be owned; (2) the principle of justice in transfer specifies how holdings may justly pass from one person to another (gift, exchange, voluntary transfer); (3) the principle of rectification specifies what is to be done when previous injustices have produced the current distribution. The theory is historical: whether a distribution is just depends on how it came about, not on what pattern it exhibits. This is the decisive contrast with patterned and end-state theories — Rawls's difference principle, Marx's \"from each according to his ability, to each according to his need,\" utilitarian aggregate maximization — all of which specify some structural property a distribution must have, and all of which require continual coercive interference with voluntary transactions to maintain. The Wilt Chamberlain argument shows the point: any patterned distribution is destabilized when those who hold the goods voluntarily transfer them, and the only way to maintain the pattern is by overriding voluntary choices. Liberty upsets patterns.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"A distribution is just if it arose by just steps from a just starting point.","n":[]},{"t":"The three principles: (1) the principle of justice in acquisition specifies how previously unowned things may justly come to be owned; (2) the principle of justice in transfer specifies how holdings may justly pass from one person to another (gift, exchange, voluntary transfer); (3) the principle of rectification specifies what is to be done when previous injustices have produced the current distribution.","n":[1,2]}],[{"t":"The theory is historical: whether a distribution is just depends on how it came about, not on what pattern it exhibits.","n":[3]},{"t":"This is the decisive contrast with patterned and end-state theories — Rawls's difference principle, Marx's \"from each according to his ability, to each according to his need,\" utilitarian aggregate maximization — all of which specify some structural property a distribution must have, and all of which require continual coercive interference with voluntary transactions to maintain.","n":[]}],[{"t":"The Wilt Chamberlain argument shows the point: any patterned distribution is destabilized when those who hold the goods voluntarily transfer them, and the only way to maintain the pattern is by overriding voluntary choices.","n":[]},{"t":"Liberty upsets patterns.","n":[4]}]],"texts":"Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), Chapter 7 (Distributive Justice). Reception: Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971); G.A. Cohen's Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality (1995) on the self-ownership thesis; David Miller's chapter in Schmidtz on political authority; John Sanders's chapter in Schmidtz on projects and property; the contemporary libertarian/egalitarian debate.","works":["Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), Chapter 7 (Distributive Justice)"],"reception":"Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971); G.A. Cohen's Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality (1995) on the self-ownership thesis; David Miller's chapter in Schmidtz on political authority; John Sanders's chapter in Schmidtz on projects and property; the contemporary libertarian/egalitarian debate.","status":"The most influential single account of distributive justice in the libertarian tradition. The historical-versus-patterned distinction has shaped subsequent debate even among Nozick's critics. Cohen's Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality is the most rigorous Marxist critique, attacking the self-ownership premise on which the entitlement theory depends. Liberal egalitarians (Rawls, Dworkin, Kymlicka) maintain that pattern is required by justice and that the destabilization Nozick describes is the proper subject of redistributive correction rather than a refutation of patterning. The principle of rectification is widely acknowledged as underspecified in ASU, and Nozick himself never developed it in detail.","era":"1938-2002","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Anarchy, State, and Utopia","page":"p. 168","canonical":"","quote":"The principle of rectification presumably will make use of its best estimate of subjunctive information about what would have occurred (or a probability distribution over what might have occurred, using the expected value) if the injustice had not taken place.","label":"Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. 168"},{"n":2,"work":"Anarchy, State, and Utopia","page":"p. 176","canonical":"","quote":"It is not clear how those holding alternative conceptions of distributive justice can reject the entitlement conception of justice in holdings. For suppose a distribution favored by one of these nonentitlement conceptions is realized. Let us suppose it is your favorite one and let us call this distribution D1; perhaps everyone has an equal share, perhaps shares vary in accordance with some dimen- sion you treasure.","label":"Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. 176"},{"n":3,"work":"Anarchy, State, and Utopia","page":"p. 169","canonical":"","quote":"The entitlement theory of justice in distribution is bistorical; whether a distribution is just depends upon how it came about. In contrast, current time-slice principles of justice hold that the justice of a distribution is determined by how things are distributed (who has what) as judged by some structural principle(s) of just distribution.","label":"Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. 169"},{"n":4,"work":"Anarchy, State, and Utopia","page":"pp. 167–168","canonical":"","quote":"That a conclusion could have been deduced by truth-preserving means from premisses that are true suffices to show its truth. That from a just situation a situation cou/d have arisen via justice-preserving means does not suffice to show its justice. The fact that a thief's victims voluntarily could have presented him with gifts does not entitle the thief to his ill-gotten gains.","label":"Anarchy, State, and Utopia, pp. 167–168"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-minimal-state","label":"The minimal state: is anything more extensive than the night-watchman state morally justified?"},{"slug":"taxation-as-forced-labor","label":"Taxation as forced labor: is taxation of earnings on a par with forced labor?"},{"slug":"side-constraints","label":"Side constraints: are rights structural limits on action rather than goals to be promoted?"},{"slug":"the-experience-machine","label":"The experience machine: is hedonism refuted by the fact that we want to do, not just to feel?"}]}