Author Archives: F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Today (1/26) was my first day of class! But I won’t be giving or recording any lectures this semester. In fact, this semester marks the first time in almost 20 years of teaching (I began teaching in August of 1998) … Continue reading →

Nozick grapples with Locke’s famous proviso (the one purporting to limit the right of private ownership) in the last few pages of Section I of Chapter 7 of ASU. In brief, according to Locke, the initial acquisition of private property … Continue reading →

Nozick devotes the next few pages of Chapter 7 (pp. 174-182) to Locke’s “sweat equity” or labor theory of property rights acquisition and to the so-called “Lockean proviso” — the moral claim that everyone has a right to acquire land … Continue reading →

Nozick continues his devastating critique of so many theories of distributive justice on pp. 167-174 of ASU. He is on a major roll now, and his arguments are compelling. Here is just a small sample of some of Nozick’s most … Continue reading →

We will resume our review of Anarchy, State, and Utopia in a day or two.

The next subsection of Chapter 7 (pp. 164-166) contains a dense digression on Chapters 6 and 6* of Amartya K. Sen’s advanced treatise on Collective Choice and Social Welfare (pictured below). We won’t comment on Nozick’s treatment of Sen’s work … Continue reading →

Nozick introduces his “Wilt Chamberlain Argument” on pp. 160-164 to show why most pattern-based or end-state distributions are unstable. The argument is not only simple and intuitive; it also shows why massive amounts of inequality can be consistent with justice. … Continue reading →

Nozick considers other historical or “patterned” approaches to justice on pp. 155-160 of ASU, such as “distribute according to moral merit” and “distribute according to usefulness to society” and other formulations. Putting aside definitional problems — i.e. the awkward fact … Continue reading →

On pp. 153-155 of ASU, Nozick launches a powerful and stinging critique against “welfare economics” and equality-based theories of distributive justice. (Welfare economics is a branch of economics that purports to measure a society’s overall well-being or welfare at the … Continue reading →

Nozick begins Chapter 7 with a point of terminological order. He explains why he prefers the phrase “justice in holdings” over the term “distributive justice” (pp. 149-150, emphasis in original): “There is no central distribution, no person or group entitled … Continue reading →