Robert+Nozick

====** Biography**: Robert Nozick was born in [|Brooklyn, NY] on November 16, 1938. He was an American Political Philosopher, a professor at [|Harvard], and is best known for his book [|Anarchy, State, and Utopia]. Robert's parents both Jewish immigrants and Robert made sure his received many opportunities in America. In 1959, Nozick received B.A. degree ==== ====at [|Columbia University] where he was a part of the Students for a Democratic Society and a socialist. Nozick also went to [|Princeton University], where he went on to get his Ph.D. and his M.A. Robert's book //Anarchy, State and Utopia// received much fame because he was well known around the Harvard Yard; Nozick was a former professor in Princeton, Harvard, etc. This book was discussing how individuals have certain rights and how those rights cannot be taken from any person and/or group. Also, Nozick discussed how a minimal state is justified where an extensive state is unjustified. The reason being is because the minimal state is the government's responsibilities (narrow force, fraud, theft, etc.) and these responsibilities can not be reduced without making anarchy. This book received a National Book Award in 1975. The book implied freedom of speech, business and taxation. Nozick felt people had the "entitlement" to own their own property and do whatever they desire with it. Nozick was a strong libertarianist because he wanted to place a large importance on liberty. Robert really disliked taxation because he believed that it was interference with peoples' lives. He did not think it was right to take money from the wealth and give it to the poor. Robert Nozick accepted "no presumption in favor of equality." Robert did not even think about government, but he thought about other forms of philosophy. In his book, //Philosophical Explanations// (1981), Robert discussed metaphysics, "the meaning of life", ethics and epistemology. Nozick's recent works include //The Examined Life//(1989), which discusses what is important in life, and //The Nature of Rationality// (1993), which discusses rational belief. Robert Nozick died from stomach cancer in Cambridge, Massachusetts on January 23, 2002. ====

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3. What can be done to correct any injustices that violate the possessions of individuals
====This idea of justice is better explained in the [|Entitlement Theory] under Entitlement below. ====

**Taxes**:
==== Nozick felt that taxation was forced labor that people should not do. He did not feel that it was right to take money from the rich and use it on the poor. Redistributive taxation is unjust because you are working for the benefit of others. Taxation is theft and goes against one on Nozick's rules that states that people can do what they please with their own property. In Nozick's argument, he explains why taxation is wrong. People work for money, using their skills (either physical or mental). By making their money, they have changed their labor into currency. Therefore that currency is the equivalent for the amount of labor it took (and this applies for money not made by people, for instance, allowance. The child's parents did the labor to get the money instead of them, but it is still the equivalent of the labor their parents underwent). By forcefully taking a portion of that currency through taxation, it is the equivalent of forcefully taking a person's labor. Forced labor is slavery and therefore is wrong. ====

**Desert**: According to Robert Nozick, people are deserving of something only if they got it through their own responsibility. For example, if a football player won an all-star award because he had a natural “God-given” talent, then he is not deserving of it. But if someone did not have a given talent worked for that prize, then they are deserving of the award. People who are deserving are strictly people who are responsible for it and did not start off any better than their competition.

**Entitlement**: theory of distributive justice and private property “Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only.” * 3 Main Principles of:

**Entitlement Theory:**
====1. Principle of Justice in Acquisition- how people own their own things - This deals with people who make something from scratch, so to speak, and actually go out into nature to find materials and take them not from the possession of a human being. This does not mean buying metal and changing it into a fork, but rather mining the metal on claimless land and changing the ore you found into the fork. ====

2. Principle of Transfer- how you can get holdings from others. - Both people must being willing and give their things with consent.
====3. Rectification of Injustice principle- how to deal with holdings that are unjustly acquired or transferred and how to deal with long past injustifications. ====

-In an ideal world, only the first two principles would be needed because there would be no injustice (in theory).
====**The Role of Government:** Robert Nozick believes that the Government should stay out of people’s lives, not charge taxes, and interfere little if at all. Ideally, there would be no use for government if people followed Robert Nozick’s entitlement principles. According to Nozick, the government should be more interested in rewarding people who work the hardest, rather than people who start off already in a higher social and economic position. ====

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====<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Robert Nozick has written six books (Anarchy, State and Utopia; Examined Life; Invariances; The Nature of Rationality; Philosophical Explanations; Socratic Puzzles) in which he brings innovation to many new ideas. He came up with or added on ideas to problems such as the Experience Machine, Justice as Property Rights, the Entitlement Theory, and Deductive Closure. Because of his innovation in these places, he has made a major impact on philosophy. I (Mason Loots) personally believe that the ideas that Robert Nozick present are very rooted and, in a perfect world, would work. However, there are many faults to this system. For instance, the idea that people are going to follow these rules are kind of idealistic (and not in the philosophical term). Nozick attempted to fix this with the third principle he gave, but if people did not follow the first two, why would they follow the third? Ultimately, I think that Nozick's views are a good basis for some moral ideas and how people make decisions, though they should only be used to a limit. I (Chiquanna Anderson) believe that Nozick's views are accurate because it's basically every man for himself. He says what's mines is mines and what's yours is yours; it's survival of the fittest. I especially agree with his viewpoint towards taxes because I do feel that people are getting their money taken away from them and it's not always for a good cost (or a cost that will benefit them). I do believe that taxtion is theft. One of the philosophers that would disagree with us would be Rawls because he believes in assisting people and Nozick doesn't believe that at all. John Locke was actually one of the philosophers that Nozick liked and looked up too. I (Liz Murphy) don't really agree with Nozick. When he says that you don't deserve something if it is simply based on your natural born talents, it's really hard to discriminate what anyone really deserves. You could say that nobody deserves anything, because almost all of what we do is based on at least a bit of natural talent. I also don't agree that taxes are theft. While taxes are inconvenient and we'd rather not pay them, they still go towards very important things in our society, such as public schools. However, I do agree with Mason that his principles would work well in a perfect world. ==== =<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">**Works Cited** =