Nozick versus Rawls libertarian quandry

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
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I am involved in a Philosophy course that is discussing the following:

Nozick’s argument that liberty upsets patterns is based on his concept of liberty as a negative liberty, which in turn makes taxation incompatible with liberty. Rawls holds a more positive concept of liberty - allowing him to consistently maintain that protecting liberty and redistributing some goods in the interest f distributive justice are compatible.

Who is correct? Does protecting liberty block a state from trying to achieve a sense of distibutive justice that requires the redistribution of goods?

If Nozick is negative based, how does a Rawlsian properly counter this through a positive concept of liberty? What exactly is it that Nozickians endorse and Rawlsians deny with regards to this issue?

My group is going in circles on this and I am seeking any enlightenment that this board can offer. Please be gentle.

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Is the redistribution of goods really “justice”?

Yes, when it applies to law enforcement, fire and national protection services.

If you’re significantly poorer than me, do you deserve my money?

Maybe. Does a two year old orphan deserve the chance at happiness? Does the octogenarian invalid deserve affordable health care?

If you do maintain that you deserve my money, do you have the right to obtain it by any means?

Neither Rawls nor Nozick allows violence as a means to secure personal gain.

Can you hire proffessional thieves?

Sure, if it involves repatriating property that you procured from me prior.

We are digressing from my issue. I am interested strictly from the academic POV. Do Rawlsians have a better argument for redistributive justice than Nozickians for not justifying it? How???

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[“Tortoise”]Your replies were unsatisfying.
If you “deserve” my money when you are significantly poorer than me, why can’t you steal it?

Why should I have to resort to criminal activity? Are the poor somehow unworthy of moral behavior?

And, I’d also like to ask, where are the lines drawn?

Like many things in this world, it is a fluid concept.

How do you determine who deserves whose money?

Why are you worthy of wealth simply because you inherited it?

Anybody who makes over 60 grand a year has to give a portion to anybody who makes under 10 grand?

Okay…I can live with that if it makes the world a safer place.

Isn’t it inevitably arbitrary?

Of course…expecting a static world is not logical, right?

And your reply to my “hire thieves” question was off.

No, it wasn’t. You could not counter the argument successfully.

We’re not talking about me stealing your money.

You asked a very broad question. I answered very specifically.

We’re talking about me being rich and you being poor.

Understood, but I requested substantiation from Nozick and/or Rawls, not arbitrary personal opinions. If you are unable to provide them, I truly appreciate your effort, but I require something else in order to complete my task. Thank you.

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Yes, but you are supporting it with your convictions rather than what I need for this class. I can truly appreciate that, but I need to be able to justify this to a couple of contrarians within my group before we summarize it for in-class debate.

How would a Nozickian support your/his ideals? I can justify the greater good theory of Rawls and how a limited sharing actually strengthens liberty.

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Please don’t answer a question with a question.

It is absolutely clear that revenue is required to protect the safety of the community. Having a defense, police and fire protection system protects liberty.

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it all depends who who makes the decisions regarding an individual’s life. if the individual has the choice, choose nozick. if individuals have no freedom and are merely cogs in the machine of state “benevolence” then rawls is correct.

it becomes a question on the focus of freedom and choice.

is the slave or the master correct?

-Imp

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When Rawls talks about redistributing goods, he is not specifically talking only about money. He does, at times, seem a little “cute” about this, I will admit. But he is talking about any social good.

The distribution of social goods is not, in Rawls, a zero-sum game. It is not clear that the distribution of a given good requires the diminution of another party’s share. Again, this can get a little cute in the details. And I belive that you can’t read Rawls without thinking “tax code”, for instance.

The question for Rawls is not “Is (his) fairness really liberty?” - it’s “Is fairness really justice?” That’s what Rawls seeks to show. Or, at least, that fairness can be justice. Rawls is a social contractarian, so there is room for the members of the group to choose. Rawls’ innovation (which I think fails) is that the choices need not be set in stone.

I don’t read Rawls as championing liberty primarily, so I disagree with the premise of the question.

Tortoise - Rawls does have a notion as to how to determine who deserves money, in a given instance. But he leaves open the question of “how much”. His device is quite clever, and not so easily shot down, at least for certain social policies.

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Sure. Wouldn’t want you to have to actually read Rawls.

Firstly, like any Social Contractarian, Rawls isn’t promoting “liberty” - whatever the hell that means, as a primary goal of society. he is promoting social order.

Let’s use tax policy as an example.

This is allowed by Rawls - the justification is fundamental to his theory. I’m not sure I have time to spell all of that out.

Let’s say it is proposed that we cut the tax rate for the highest tax bracket by 2%. And let’s say the reason for that is not to put more money in the pockets of the rich per se, but to encourage investment. In other words, the justifcation for the tax cut comes from some broader economic strategy than the tax cut itself - let’s just say that the cut is part of a larger policy goal, which may include interest rate adjustment, finacial market regulation - or any number of other factors.

Rawls requires that every taxpayer then deserves some type of compensation. This may not be a tax cut, but in practise, probably only a tax cut will fill the bill. Distributive justice, in Rawls, requires not that everyone get the same amount of a social good - the same dollar amount of tax cut, for uinstance, but that everyone gets something - no matter what the impetus may be for the original distribution of goods - each distribution of a good acts as a “trigger”, in other words.

This is based upon every group’s (and I think you have to group people in a large economy) “reasonable expectations”. The details of this are tricky, to say the least - how to determine reasonable expectations - but in practise, in a representative democracy cum capitalism, this is often exactly the way things work. George Bush did this with his $400 tax rebate - throw everyone a bone, to quell any objections to, say, a reduction in the capital gains rate.

I know that’s brief, but I am trying to keep it simple. The operative idea here is that everyone automatically deserves something, when a good is distributed to a small group within society as a whole.

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Tortoise - it’s just an example.

It’s a specific case of a general principle.

You have to be able to extrapolate.

Why do I try?

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Social Order really means a where everyone is reasonably satisfied with the way society is functioning, a minimizing of social disorder. What Rawls explored was what are the foundations of a society that would give the most satisfaction to the greatest number of participants. ie what are the consensus values of a society and how does society accomplish this.

As far as taxes go, the taxes you pay return benefits in the form of police and fire protection, roads, education for the children, support for the needy, etc.

While the benefit any one person recieves will vary quite widely, everyone recieves some benefit.

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Tortoise, you’re killin’ me.

Whatever the first Google hit says - I’ll go along with.

Okay, I tried it. It’s a wiki article. Mentions Hobbes and the Social Contract. Didn’t read the rest, but I bet I go along with it.

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Faust,
Thanks for the input…I was chatting with a couple members in my group today and one said that we need to identify the key issue for each with regards to the redistribution of goods. Am I missing something or is it as simple as Nozick says “No, never!” while Rawls thinks that limited redistribution is okay?

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That is the sort of thing that tyrants say from balconies.

Why stop with police, fire, roads, education and charity??
Why not use the same logic to have government provide everything? like food, clothing, entertainment and recreation?

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Yeah, Nozcik says “nyet”. Rawls says “yes” - it can be limited - as I laid out, there is a a sort of rule that regulates it. But it defines, in a way, the minima, and not really the maxima. Check the Difference Principle in the index. I assume it’s in the index - I don’t have a copy on hand. Or it’s a chapter heading.

Samuel has touched upon one of the big problems with Rawls - like Utilitarianism, which Rawls seeks to counter, it puts the government (in effect) in a paternalistic role - perhaps too paternalistic. Always keep in mind that Rawls is writing about the US in the present - he isn’t attempting to formulate a plan that would work anywhere, any time.

Traditional contract theory is, in Hobbes, all about the State, of course, and in Rousseau, not so - Natural Rights guarantee the primacy of the individual. Rawls seeks to split the difference, and this kind of waffling is what undoes his system, in my view. But he is still stuck with a very powerful and large government - he is an american liberal, of course, and seeks to appeal to other liberals first.

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Sorry for my tardiness but I just read your PM. I’ve studied Rawls and Nozick, both eons ago, but I have a dim recollection of their theories.

The central claim in Nozick’s theory is that if we assume that everyone is entitled to the property they currently possess, distributive justice flows from people’s free exchanges. For government to tax these exchanges is unjust, even if the taxes are used to redress expenses flowing from someone’s undeserved handicaps. The only legitimate tax is to raise revenues to maintain the system of policing and the justice system needed to enforce people’s free exchanges.

Rawls’ general conception of justice consists of one central idea: “All social primary goods – Liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self-respect – are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution … is to advantage of the least favoured”(ATOJ:301). We treat people as equals not by removing all inequalities, but only those which disadvantage someone.

Rawls departs from Nozick, among other ways, in theorizing a just distribution as endowment sensitive. It is unfair for the naturally disadvantaged to starve just because they have nothing to offer others in exchange. Hence Rawls favours taxing free exchanges in order to compensate the naturally and socially disadvantaged.

Nozick’s model leaves the genetically unlucky to the whims of private charity. Bad luck leaves a portion of the populace to suffer in poverty, sickness, and even to perish, just to uphold the property rights of the advadtaged. Rawls would use progressive taxation to remove the inequalities that leave the unlucky unable to fend for themselves. Who is right rests on what we hold more of value: untrammelled private property or health or even life. Rawls is right, in my opinion.