The second subsection of Chapter 6 (pp. 126-130) anticipates the worldwide controversy over President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair’s ill-fated decision to invade Iraq in 2003, which in hindsight, turned out to be one of the worst and costliest decisions in history. Here, Nozick asks, when is a preemptive attack morally wrong, and when is such an attack morally justified?

Recall Nozick’s key question from our previous post: may I prevent others from joining a protection association in the state of nature if I know that their protection association will later prevent me from exercising my natural rights in the future? It turns out that this question and the preemptive war question are analytically the same! Nozick, however, draws an artificial and untenable distinction, invoking the “last clear chance” doctrine from tort law: if an act requires a subsequent decision to commit a wrong — i.e. if…