Immigrant great man

Robert nozick, younger than Rawls 17 years old, died in 2002.

Nozick and Rawls are polar opposites in many ways. Rawls is extremely modest and gentle. He took all the criticisms and questions he received seriously and made many cautious responses. After the publication of Nozick's famous works, there was a flood of comments, but Nozick ignored it and turned to other research fields very early.

Rawls was born in a typical wealthy American family, but his theory pays special attention to equality and speaks for the disadvantaged groups. Nozick, on the other hand, is a second-generation immigrant with a poor family. He also joined a socialist group when he was a student, but in the end he became a philosopher who supported laissez-faire capitalism.

In academic style, the contrast between the two is also very clear. Rawls is a typical hedgehog master who devoted his life to the study of righteousness. Nozick, on the other hand, is like an active fox, and his research topics cover a wide range of philosophical fields. He has taught at Harvard for more than 30 years and has never given a second lecture in class.

The great difference between Nozick and Rawls does not prevent them from becoming good friends. Nozick spoke highly of Rawls' Theory of Justice. He said, "From then on, political philosophers must either work within Rawls' theoretical framework or explain why they don't. "

However, Nozick himself is precisely the most famous opponent of Rawls' theory. Within liberalism, Rawls and Nozick formed diametrically opposite poles, and the far-left Rawls and the far-right Nozick formed the choice boundary of social system in contemporary western countries.

What did Nozick criticize Rawls? In his view, Rawls did not fully respect individual rights, and his theory was not self-consistent, so he could only be regarded as a "semi-liberal".

Rawls said that a person's natural advantage is entirely accidental luck, and he should not get the advantage of distribution from it unless it can improve the people in the worst situation.

Nozick said, isn't this to allocate individual talents as public resources? Why? Nozick gave an example. You were born with two bright eyes, and I was born blind. So, in all fairness, should you donate an eye to me? This is obviously not in line with our moral intuition.

If there are two cake shops, one owner is a sales genius, the business is very good, and the other one is not patronized, and finally it closes down, and all employees are unemployed. Then, should a cake shop with good business pay the unemployed employees next door?

Nozick advocates the theory of complete liberalism, which puts individual rights in the highest position, whether in the political field or in social and economic issues. This liberalism is called "freedom first", and Nozick's argument has two key points.

First, the starting point of all his arguments is the absolute priority of individual rights. If you want to impose any restrictions on individual rights, you must give a strong justification.

Second, adhere to liberalism in politics, economy and society. He wants to make a moral defense of free market capitalism without any interference.

When people talk about the benefits of capitalism, they all mean that it has good economic benefits and rapid development. But Nozick doesn't care about these problems. He supports laissez-faire capitalism for moral reasons. He said that only in this way can we create the most just society.

How is this strange-sounding argument proved? Nozick said, let's not worry about distribution, let's see what we have first. The core question is, under what conditions, what we hold is morally justified?

First of all, of course, what we can legally own is ourselves. Nozick called it "self-possession", and this right should not be violated or interfered by any outside world.

But we can't live on our own. We also need resources and property. So Nozick put forward his three principles of justice.

The first principle of justice is "recourse to justice". If the property you originally acquired is legal, and you occupy natural resources through labor, for example, if you have reclaimed a piece of wasteland without owner and planted your own crops, it is legal to hold it.

The second is "transfer justice": if the property is transferred from one person to another, the whole process is free and voluntary exchange or gift, then the transfer is justified.

The third principle is "correcting justice". No matter how many changes have been made to the property obtained by improper means, it must be corrected.

Nozick believes that with these three principles, we can evaluate all justice issues about property holding.

What about society and country?

Nozick said that the answer is already included in these three principles. One of the basic functions of the founding of the People's Republic of China is to collect taxes. On the one hand, tax collection supports the government in exchange for public services, and on the other hand, it realizes the secondary distribution of social wealth through tax collection.

What about the disadvantaged groups? Nozick would say that it depends on how the weakness is caused. For example, because of racial discrimination, blacks have been violated many freedom rights, which has caused an unfavorable situation and needs to be compensated according to the principle of correction.

Other disadvantages, such as natural disability, mental deficiency or personal laziness and poverty, cannot be justified as long as they are not forced by others. Nozick said that poverty is unfortunate, but misfortune does not mean injustice.

What is Nozick's ideal country like? It is a "smallest country". The smallest country should not care about the distribution of social economy at all. As long as it guarantees the basic freedom and safety of the people and the procedural justice of holding property, it should not have other functions.

Nozick believes that such a smallest country will be a beautiful utopia, or a utopian framework that can accommodate all kinds of small utopia groups. Buddhists are free to form Buddhist associations, and producers can also form producers' associations. The only condition is the free and voluntary consent of both parties. In Nozick's view, this is a society where a hundred flowers blossom, and people can freely pursue the life they yearn for to the maximum extent.