Question

Nozick offers a Lockeian Theory of property and a reading of the Lockeian Proviso in order to justify his model of a minimal state, centered on the protection of a practically unlimited right to private property. Evaluate Nozick’s reading of Locke. Is his account of the origin, nature, purpose, and limits of property a faithful reading? Or does it miss or distort aspects of his thought? Be specific in your answer.

Answer 1

Robert Nozick was an American philosopher. He held the Joseph Pellegrino University Professorship at Harvard University, and was president of the American Philosophical Association.

Nozick's conception of the origins of the state is reminiscent of the social contract tradition in political thought represented by Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and, in contemporary thought, Rawls. The first would be a principle of justice in acquisition, that is, the appropriation of natural resources that no one has ever owned before.

Locke concludes that people need to be able to protect the resources they are using to live on, theirproperty, and that this is a natural right. Nozick used this idea to form his Lockean proviso which governs the initial acquisition of property in a society.

It does not miss the aspect of his thought Rationality has not been merely the Nozick special.His life's work, for which he won a Nobel Prize, illuminated the nature and significance of spontaneous order. The concept seems simple.