Robert Nozick (November 16th 1938 - January 23rd 2002) is university and philosophical American Libertarien near to the current minarchist.

Biography

Teacher with Harvard, it becomes famous by writing Anarchie, State and Utopie , where it takes in particular the defense of a ultra-minimal State. Its statute of academic was worth to him then to be regarded as the principal theorist of the movement Libertarien (although this one was initiated by Murray Rothbard, as Nozick reports it itself in its work and though he forsook political philosophy thereafter, as announces it Rothbard in the Ethics of freedom ).

It is usually presented like the principal opponent to John Rawls, his colleague in Harvard. It is thus usually in Nozick that the adversaries of the Libertarien S refer, forgetting or ignoring the other major authors of this movement. In particular its major work Anarchy, State and Utopie published in 1974 is regarded as the answer libertarienne to the Théorie of the justice of Rawls published 3 years before.

On the end of its life Nozick moderated the positions which it had defended in Anarchie, State and Utopie . In particular in one of its works, The Examined Life , it qualified some of its last positions of " seriously inadéquates". However, in a maintenance carried out on July 26th, 2001, it is reaffirmed like libertarien.

Theses

Robert Nozick believes that the minimal State is the only state right since widest of its capacities can be justified, and that the individual only has his own person. This is why he confronts the phenomenon “State” with the double requirement of the Kantian morals which implies that nobody can be only regarded as one means.

Nozick conceived the theory of the “enabling” ( entitlement ), which wants that any person must be entitled ( entitled ) to have goods. The right possessions are those which answer three criteria:

1.Le original principle of acquisition: Is Which its origin?

2.Le principle of transfer of possession: the exchange or is the transfer equitable?

3.La repair of the injustices: Would Which be the position of the victims of an injustice, if the latter had not taken place?

In particular, he is vigorously opposed to the principle obligatory redistribution because, by giving to others a right on oneself, she violates the Property right. Resting on coercion she violates moreover the principle of free assent and, passing by the tax (a spoliation for Nozick), she restores a forced labor.

It was also interested in the Paradoxe of Newcomb and many sectors of knowledge.

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Verneuil-in-Bourbonnais | Clement Emile Castlings | Known leopardus | Haar