To pick up where I left off in my previous post: Robert Nozick’s “Wilt Chamberlain Argument” is a devastating takedown of the difference principle. To see why, recall Rawls’s main motivating rationale when he wrote A Theory of Justice, i.e. the reason why he thinks social inequality is unjust unless it somehow works to the advantage of the least-advantaged members of society:

Those who have been favored by nature, whoever they are, may gain from their good fortune only on terms that improve the situation of those who have lost out. The naturally advantaged are not to gain merely because they are more gifted, but only to cover the costs of training and education and for using their endowments in ways that help the less fortunate as well. No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society. (Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 87, reprinted in Cohen 2018, p. 697)

In other words, our social status is largely a result of luck, especially the cards we were dealt with at birth. We cannot control, for example, who are parents are. Nor can we control in which country we are born in or whether we are born healthy or with a disability. But these are precisely the variables in the genetic lottery that determine our social status, i.e. how much our good or bad fortune we will have in life! [1] The genius of the Wilt Chamberlain Argument is that Nozick accepts this genetic lottery argument at face value. After all, the fact that Wilt Chamberlain was such a great athlete was, in large part, a result of his good luck in the genetic lottery. [2]

Furthermore, Nozick’s Wilt Chamberlain Argument is simple, intuitive, and irrefutable:

Let us suppose … everyone has an equal share [of society’s wealth] …. Now suppose that Wilt Chamberlain is greatly in demand by basketball teams, being a great gate attraction. (Also suppose contracts run only for a year, with players being free agents.) He signs the following sort of contract with a team: In each home game, twenty-five cents from the price of each ticket of admission goes to him. (We ignore the question of whether he is “gouging” the owners, letting them look out for themselves.) The season starts, and people cheerfully attend his team’s games, they buy their tickets, each time dropping a separate twenty-five cents of their admission price into a special box with Chamberlain’s name on it. They are excited about seeing him play; it is worth the total admission price to them. Let us suppose that in one season one million persons attend his home games, and Wilt Chamberlain winds up with $250,000, a much larger sum than the average income and larger even than anyone else has. Is he entitled to this income? Is this new distribution D2, unjust? If so, why? (Nozick, ASU, p. 161, reprinted in Cohen 2018, pp. 716-717)

Thus the Wilt Chamberlain Argument not only shows why inequality is inescapable, i.e. why most pattern-based or end-state distributions are unstable; it also shows why such inequality is totally consistent with social justice! (ASU, pp. 160-164) To see why, let’s walk through each step of Nozick’s argument:

1. Everyone begins at time T1 with an equal share of society’s wealth.
2. As a result of Rawls’s genetic lottery, one person, Wilt Chamberlain, turns out to be a super-talented basketball player.
3. Fans want to see Chamberlain play ball and freely pay him an extra 25 cents per ticket to watch him play during the regular season.
4. At time T2 (the end of the season), Chamberlain ends up with $250,000 more than any other player in the league, while the fans who paid the extra 25 cents per tickets are collectively $250,000 poorer.
5. The last step in Nozick’s argument is a rhetorical question: is not the resulting inequality from Chamberlain’s contract “just” or fair? This is a rhetorical question because how can it not be? After all, if enough people freely want to pay an extra amount of their money to see their favorite player, then why shouldn’t the player be able to keep that extra money?

Alas, there are two possible blind spots with Nozick’s slam-dunk argument: what if the team decides to breach its contract with Wilt Chamberlain? In that case, Chamberlain could resort to self-help (not play the following season unless he is paid), or he could sue his team in a court of law to enforce his contract. [3] Yet courts are expensive to operate, and contract law (whether based on model legislation like the UCC or common law principles) doesn’t just arise out of thin air. Isn’t it “just” or fair, then, that Wilt Chamberlain be required to pay for this legal infrastructure out of his earnings?

Also, why doesn’t Wilt Chamberlain have a moral duty to share some fraction of his earnings with some less fortunate souls, say poor kids who would like to play basketball or with disabled children who are unable to play basketball altogether? Here, however, is where the second flank of Nozick’s pincer comes into play: Side Constraints. (To be continued …)

[1] Rawls goes even further: like a good Communist, he assumes that “the distribution of natural talents [is] a common asset ….” (Rawls, Theory of Justice, reprinted in Cohen 2018, p. 696)

[2] Of course, Wilt Chamberlain’s playing ability was also due to his own efforts, but let’s assume for the sake of argument that Rawls’s genetic lottery is the determining factor in Wilt Chamberlain’s greatness.

[3] Or, in the likely event the contract has an arbitration clause, Chamberlain could go to arbitration.