Libertarianism Revision Notes

Intro to Libertarianism

• The crux of libertarianism is that only a minimal state is compatible with individual rights.
Libertarians accept that state, a body of coercion, is only justi ed in protecting individuals
against force and fraud.
• State coercion may not violate individual rights to pursue other projects.
• Libertarianism is most closely associated with Nozick’s Anarchy State and Utopia (1974), which
argued that only a minimal nightwatchman state is compatible with self-ownership. ASU was
written in response to Rawls’ theory of justice. It argues that distributive justice consists of the
absolute protection of individual property rights.
• To understand libertarianism, it is necessary to have a rm grounding on liberty, rights and
justice.
• Both liberalism and libertarianism share the same philosophical core and intellectual history.
McDermott sees libertarianism as a variant of liberalism. They share three philosophical
premises:
- Individualistic: individuals are the unit of moral value in political philosophy.
- Egalitarian: individuals are morally equal.
- Legitimate political authority is limited by nature: this is contrasted with political absolutism
where there is no area of life that the government does not have the right to invade.
- McDermott argues that the main di erences between the two are based on di ering
empirical understandings of what the state is good at (i.e. is the state working for us or
against us). They also understand the nature of self-ownership and strength of property
rights di erently.

Premises

• Following Kant, Nozick assumes that individuals possess self-ownership and are to be treated
as ends in themselves rather than means to others.
• Individuals are the moral agents to which political philosophy owes its attention. Since society is
not a conscious entity, individuals may not be compromised in the name of the social good.
• Property rights, if justly acquired, are absolute and inviolable.
• Individuals are autonomous entities with strong rights.
• Individuals are free and equal.
• The world belongs to no one unless they have mixed their labour with it.
• Patterned principles of distributive justice necessarily infringe upon liberty in an unacceptable
way.
• Rights are (almost) the exclusive basis of political morality.

Property Rights

• Nozick’s entitlement theory:

1. “A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in acquisition
is entitled to that holding
2. A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in transfer,
from someone else entitled to the holding, is entitled to the holding.
3. No one is entitled to a holding except by (repeated) applications of 1 and 2” (Nozick, 1974)
4. Nozick also asserts that individuals are entitled to rectify holdings that have previously
been acquired unjustly. He is not clear about how this recti cation of goods might occur.
• Property rights are (almost) absolute because they are an extension of self-ownership:
- As such, “Taxation of earnings from labour is on a par with forced labour.” (Nozick, 1974).
- Nozick is critiquing redistributive taxation, not the taxes required for the minimal state.
- BUT surely owning my house is di erent to owning my eyes.
• The basis of property rights:
- Nozick argues that ownership arises from labour when labour improves something and
makes it valuable.
- Private property increases the overall social product because it facilitates innovation.
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 - Property is used more e ciently if only one person controls it. (Friedman, “Nobody spends
somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own.)
- Private property allows individuals to control the risks associated with their possessions.
- Private property creates more employment opportunities as unpopular individuals have more
potential employers.
• Nozick follows Locke in his principle of justice in acquisition. One may claim ownership of an
unowned object by mixing one’s labour with it:
- Mixing my labour with an object derives ownership because my labour is mine and I have
used it to add value to something.
- There is some confusion over how much ‘mixing of labour’ is required to confer ownership.
For example, if an astronaut on the moon builds a fence around a large area, do they then
own that plot of land? Nozick says you don’t own the ocean by mixing some of your own
water supply into it.
• Just acquisition is limited by the Lockean proviso:
- “A process normally giving rise to a permanent bequethable property right in a previous
unowned thing will not do so if the position of others no longer at liberty to use the thing is
thereby worsened” (Nozick, 1974, p. 178). This seems to suggest a thick proviso, not a rarely
enforceable caveat to just acquisition. Much of libertarian justice depends on the strength of
the proviso.
- Nozick posits that under free market conditions the Lockean proviso will rarely come into
play. This is because a system of private property produces bene ts for everyone.
- The proviso may only be invoked if acquisition restricts “the total supply of something
necessary to life” (Nozick, 1974, p.179). e.g. someone owns the only water hole in a desert
and charges high prices for water; e.g. someone owns an island and orders a castaway to
leave when he is washed up on the island because he sees the castaway to be trespassing.
- Nozick quali es the proviso as such: if a medical researcher synthesises a new life-saving
cure to an illness, they are not obliged to give it to everyone. They may sell the formula and
everyone may access it because he has not made others’ lives worse below a baseline, but
o ered a way to improve their lives through innovation.
- Limits to the property acquisition according to the proviso suggest that property rights can
be trumped by other more fundamental considerations.
• The distinguishing characteristics of libertarian property rights:
- Although liberals and libertarians agree about how property rights come about, libertarians
conceive of property as as strong an ownership as self-ownership whereas liberals do not.
• Christman (1991) outlines a distinguishes property rights and self-ownership:
- In outlining what a property right does to an object, Christman distinguishes between the
right to control an object (possess, manage, add to, destroy, sell) and the right to control the
object’s income (e.g. sell for pro t, rent, etc.).
- Christman suggests that di culties faced by egalitarians and libertarians in treating property
rights arise because of a failure to recognise this distinction.
- The components of ownership that comprise personal control and consumption of a
resource must be justi ed according to importantly di erent considerations from those that
justify the right to gain income from the resource.” (Christman, 1991). He asserts that
infringements on control rights must be justi ed through an individualistic moral framework
whereas collective frameworks can justify rights to income.
- “Income rights, then, are uniquely connected to the distribution of goods in an economy”
because markets depend on other people, infrastructure, social stability, and information.
BUT control rights over property can be important to the overall distribution as well e.g. if I
destroy scarce resources. BUT Christman’s point is that the two ought to be considered
separately.
- Taxation over income does not destroy the right to trade, but merely attaches certain terms
to it.
- Christman applies this distinction to the con ict that Cohen identi es between self-
ownership and equality (freely using myself and my talents creates inequality). By separating
income and control rights to property, Christman argues that self-ownership’s link to property
rights extends over areas that are not dependent on externalities e.g. peaceful institutions,
schooling, information.
- “The value of control rights from people is independent of the distribution of goods. This
value is grounded in the individual need for autonomy and independent existence, given an
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 allotment of goods. But the value of income rights is purely conditional on the contingencies
of the market sector, in particular, others' endowments.” (Christman, 1991).

The Libertarian State

• Nozick argues from the premise that “individuals are inviolable” (Nozick, 1974) to assert that a
minimal ‘nightwatchman state’ is the only justi able state:
- Its functions are restricted to 1) protection against theft, violence, and fraud and 2) the
enforcement of contracts.
- Nozick argues that the notion that all individuals are separate and inviolable leads him to
assert a right against aggression from another.
- The libertarian state totally eschews paternalism.
- The state may not coerce individuals to aid others or prevent individuals from helping
themselves.
- Nozick argues, “The minimal state is the most extensive state that can be justi ed. Any state
more extensive violates people’s rights” (Nozick, 1974, p. 149).
• The libertarian response to the philosophical anarchist:
- Nozick justi es the state using a state of nature argument. Individuals are likely to form rival
protective associations, which will have incentives to combine. Essentially, this is a
hypothetical contract argument.
- In the state of nature individuals are free and equal. They have rights to life, health, liberty,
and property which may not be infringed upon by others. An individuals may transgress the
rights of another where the other has infringed upon their rights, but only in proportion to the
original infringement.
- Locke asserts that the state of nature results in certain inconveniences: individuals are likely
to consider themselves in the right and take disproportionate retribution when they consider
their rights to have been violated. This leads to endless feuds. Furthermore, some individuals
may not be able to take retribution for rights violations against most powerful individuals.
- ‘Private protective associations’ are the solution to these problems; however, in order to
avoid merely scaling up con ict, they must monopolise control over a certain area.
Individuals who opt out of protective associations pose a risk to their members and may,
then, be absorbed.
- Thus, Nozick asserts that a minimal state can emerge without any explicit social contract.
Individuals act rationally to resolve problems of resolving rights disputes and eventually a
dominant protective association is formed. Nozick calls this an ‘invisible hand explanation’.
- Nozick believes the state is formation of the minimal state from dominant protective
associations is legitimate because it results from individuals’ voluntary actions.
- Nozick does not argue that the state has ‘special rights’ to political obligation. Still, a de facto
monopoly of power is endowed in everyone’s individual interest.
- The minimal state is redistributive in that it obliges individuals to pay for the help of others.

Libertarian Distributive Justice

• Nozick’s main argument is that there is a contradiction between supporting self-ownership/

individual rights and supporting redistribution.
• Nozick’s theory of distributive justice is that the distribution of goods is fair if it arises in
accordance with the just principles of acquisition and transfer:
- Nozick summarises his theory of distributive justice as “From each as they choose, to each
as they are chosen” (Nozick, 1974, p. 160).
• Nozick contrasts ‘historical’ principles of justice and ‘patterned’ principles, criticising the latter:
- While patterned theories evaluate whether an outcome is just based on its result, historical
theories evaluate them based on the validity of the actions that led to that outcome.
- Nozick’s main critique of patterned theories of justice is that they cannot “be continuously
realised without continuous interference with people’s lives” (Nozick, 1974, p. 163). Patterned
principles necessarily tend away from their ideal distribution due to individual choices, which
means that interference becomes necessary. e.g. Wilt Chamberlain example.
- “Rights do not determine a social ordering but instead set constraints within which a social
choice is to be made” (Nozick, 1974, p. 166). This is the only real way of respecting rights.
- Benevolence is suppressed by patterned principles.
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 - Patterning encourages people to not do things that upset the pattern (e.g. innovate).
• Nozick against Rawls:
- Nozick admired Rawls’ work, but rejected it as another patterned principle that undermines
individual rights. He noted that Rawls would not reject self-ownership, so set out to show
that this premise was incompatible with patterned principles of redistributive justice.
- Nozick argues that Rawls is inconsistent in attributing wealth to social cooperation and from
this premise calling for redistribution while also admitting that incentives can motivate
individuals to work harder in maximising the minimum. i.e. Rawls attributes wealth to both
social cooperation and individual e ort. BUT surely it is always a combination?
- Rawls ‘maximising the minimum’ is attacked for seeking to maximise the worst o group
rather than individual.
- Rawls’ di erence principles seems to suggest that individual A is responsible for individual B
being less well o than them because they have not helped them become more well o .
- Since social cooperation gives less talented individual access to the bene ts produced by
more talented individuals, it seems to doubly bene t the less talented by redistributing further
bene ts from the more talented.
- Nozick suggests that many principles of justice might be chosen by individuals in the
individual position other than Rawls’ two principles. Rawls later admits this.
- The original position device constrains individuals to choosing patterned principles of justice.
As such, Nozick asserts that the device could not evaluate his own historical theory.
- Nozick asserts that goods do not fall 'like manna from heaven’. Individuals produce property.
- Rawls’ attempts to prevent 'morally arbitrary’ factors like talent from the distribution of
resources ignores the extent to which talents result from voluntary e ort. Like property,
natural goods are the result of individual e ort.
- Nozick argues that Rawls contradicts himself in suggesting that assets ought not to be
accrued due to moral desert while advocating the redistribution of talents and social status.
Indeed, even Rawls permits the distribution to be to some extent ‘morally arbitrary’ by
providing incentives for the more talented to work harder.
- Even if natural assets (like talent) are distributed in a morally arbitrary way, they are integral to
each person, so they ought not to be redistributed. Rawls conceives of “the distribution of
natural talents as a common asset” (Rawls, 1971, p. 102), which contradicts the
separateness of persons. Nozick uses the example of redistributing eyes to blind people to
illustrate this BUT Rawls’ rst principle is prior to his second.
- McDermott argues that Rawls and Nozick address di erent questions and, controversially,
that there is no substantive di erence between liberal and libertarian conceptions of property
rights and distributive justice:
- Rawls accepts self-ownership in agreement with Nozick. In contrast, Rawls does not
equate the strength of self-ownership to property rights.
- Rawls does not answer the question of how property rights arise, but rather how the
bene ts of a social cooperative institution ought to be distributed (the cooperative
surplus).
- Rawls might permit stronger property rights for objects acquired without cooperation.
Nozickean reasoning is useful for understanding acquisition in unexplored territory (e.g.
Mars). Rawls main question is about how the fruits of social cooperation ought to be
distributed. It does not ask whether the status quo of property distribution is fair, but how
the bene ts of social cooperation ought to be distributed.
• Left libertarians can reach egalitarian conclusions by asserting a strong right to the produce of
one’s own labour, but also an obligation to support the external circumstances that facilitated
that production. The Lockean proviso is also interpreted strongly.
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 Critiques

• Critiques of Nozick’s property rights:

- It may be argued that entitlements are moral values among others. Liberties seem to exist as
far as they are compatible with one another.
- Rawls considers taxation and welfare to not entail any serious infringements upon liberty.
However, if private property is legitimate in the way that Nozick claims it is, how can any
such infringement be justi ed?
- The suggestion that taxation is akin to forced labour is awed because one can control one’s
working hour and one’s job in their labour, even if they are losing some of their money to
taxation.
- Wol argues that “an argument for rights to property must be made on a basis other than
Lockean liberty” (Wol , 1991, p.96) because Lockean rights are themselves the basis of
liberty. It is as such a circular argument.
- Cohen argues that Nozick is far too willing to allow others’ prospects to be worsened by
property acquisition despite the proviso he attaches to it.
- Nagel (1982) criticises Nozick for failing to substantiate his absolute commitment to
individual rights without consideration for other moral values.
- Nagel (1982) points out that Nozick is inconsistent for seeing the exercise of property rights
as restricted by certain considerations (like to not kill, steal, etc.), but not admitting that
property could be violated in order to save the life of another person.
• Sen argues that individual rights ought to exist within an overarching social order that is decided
upon; however, this does not permit the real protection of rights because they are trumped by
an overarching social criteria.
• Exdell (1977) points out that Nozickean property acquisition depends on no other individual
having any moral claim to an object; however, if all the world is deemed to be held in common
by all humanity, then surely no just acquisition can take place:
- “For the view that land and natural resources are held inalienably by mankind or by society,
stands as a rational alternative to or restriction upon the doctrine that they may be privately
appropriated under Locke's principle of acquisition” (Exdell, 1977, p. 149).
- Despite this, a system of private property might be justi ed so long as it bene ts all society.
• In his attack on patterned principles, Nozick fails to see that some combination of historical and
patterned distributive justice is possible (e.g. the pursuit of some desirable ends constrained by
a varying degree of respect for rights).
• Cohen (1979) explains how libertarian self-ownership is gained at the cost of autonomy. Only
the two together can capture the value of freedom:
- It is farcical to claim to support liberty if one pursues such a disregard for autonomy.
- “It should now be clear that ‘libertarian’ capitalism sacri ces liberty to capitalism” (Cohen,
1995, p. 37).
- The restriction of some liberties is necessary for autonomy (Raz). e.g. taxation to fund
education and healthcare.
- It is worth noting that ASU doesn’t touch on the question of the extremely disadvataged (e.g.
disabled orphans).
- Cohen (1979) suggests that both liberals (Nagel) and libertarians (Nozick) are wrong to see
capitalism as an essentially free system of economic relations. This is because they fail to
see that in a system of private property ownership one’s ownership of property constrains all
others from using that property.
- Cohen (1979) identi es an inconsistency in the liberatarian conception of freedom:
“Libertarians want to say that interferences with people’s use of their private property are
unacceptable because they are, quite obviously, abridgements of freedom, and that the
reason why protection of private property does not similarly abridge the freedom of non-
owners is that owners have a right to exclude others from their property and non-owners
consequently have no right to use it.”
- Cohen (1979) asserts that libertarianism sacri ces several types of freedoms in order merely
to protect property rights.
- Cohen (1995) asserts that “there is no con ict between equality and what the libertarian
Right calls freedom.” He points out that Nozick’s concept of self-ownership does not
address property rights initially until it accepts the premise that “The external world, in its
native state, is not owned, in whole or in part, by anyone.”
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 - From this condition, Cohen (1995) draws the conclusion that “Each person may gather to
himself unlimited quantities of natural resources if he does not thereby harm anyone.” Thus,
inequality becomes unavoidable. BUT Cohen (1995) rebuts that the Lockean proviso requires
Nozick to limit the extent to which acquisition can lead to inequality unless he de nes harm
very narrowly.
• Ignorance of non-contractural obligations:
- Raz (1986) points out that non-contractural obligations work both ways. If I am obliged to
help a drowning man, the drowning man has no more power to absolve me of that obligation
than I do. Under this conception, non-contractural obligations arise from morality that exists
above self-ownership. BUT the libertarian would counter that the state has no right to
enforce such obligations upon us.
- Raz’s (1986) interest theory quali es rights in relation to their service of more fundamental
more ends. e.g. right of ownership over a Basquiat limited against destroying because of its
value to collective cultural heritage.
- Cohen (1995) seeks to reject the utter primacy of self-ownership by showing that non-
contractural obligations to others exist. Nozick asserts that such a principle is tantamount to
endorsing slavery because an individual’s labour is at the disposal of someone else and as
such that other person has property in the individual.
- Cohen (1995) points out that Nozick is willing to justify taxation that supports a
nightwatchman state. He asserts that a state that prevents violence, supports property
rights, and enforces contracts is just. Still, this assertion cannot be justi ed in terms of self-
ownership. It follows that Nozick needs to explain why the state is restricted to these
purposes but not redistribution.
- Cohen (1995) argues that Nozick claims to protect freedom, but really just protects “the
freedom of private property owners to do as they wish with their property.” This freedom
overrides the moral value of one person to contribute to another’s healthcare.
- A Nozickean framework could justify using an impoverished proletariat to work in dismal
conditions that show no respect for his human dignity so long as consent is granted.
• Thomas Nagel (1982) de nes liberalism as a two pronged political ideology. It idealises the
protection of individual rights as well as the establishment of democratic society where
inequalities and impoverishment are limited:
- Nagel argues that libertarians fasten too tightly to this rst principle just as Leftist are too
attached to the second. He argues that Anarchy, State and Utopia is “theoretically
insubstantial” (Nagel, 1982, p. 193) because it fails to consider other values and justify its
attachment to individual rights.
- Nagel suggests that support for Nozick’s view comes more from the state’s willingness to do
bad things than the theoretical view that states will always do bad things by infringing upon
rights. As such, it is based on a pessimistic view of the state.
- Nagel argues that the ‘separateness of persons’ does not create absolute rights and
disqualify moral considerations that weight lives up against one another. For example, if we
have a choice to save one person or ten persons, it is obvious that we should save ten. The
separateness of persons is Nozick’s reason for believing in rights. As such, the main basis of
his argument falls apart.
- Nagel asserts that rights to the use of property and contract enforcement are less serious
that rights against harm, imprisonment, or murder, which Nozick admits. This is because
rights are derived from some fundamental purpose. Thus, an infringement of a right may be
justi ed in relation to the seriousness of the right and the desirability of the moral purpose it
goes on to serve.
- Nagel suggests that Nozick’s conclusions are based on premises (a limited number of
inviolable rights exist) that no one who did not already accept the conclusions he nds would
follow. BUT Nozick seeks to employ Rawls’ commitment to self-ownership.
- Nagel criticises Nozick for deriving principles of justice by looking at small numbers of
individuals instead of extrapolating how these principles work in large scale societies.
- Nozick creates some hierarchy of rights (e.g. being killed more important than property), but
still argues that property may not be infringed to prevent another person from dying.
- Nagel argues that it is wrong top con ate taxations with theft because in the former one
earns money with the knowledge that certain conditions will apply.
- Though Nozick demonstrates that his entitlement theory is purely historical, surely one could
set up a historical principle of justice whereby transactions must be conducive to some
pattern. This means we have in e ect a patterned principle from historical processes.
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 - “Nozick does not acknowledge the right of the state to limit liber to produce any merely
desirable outcome.” (Nagel, 1982). All moral systems weigh di erent rights, but Nozick does
not explain why he is unwilling to.
- BUT Nagel (1982) does argue that “arbitrariness is a moral defect only if it can be contrasted
with an alternative that is selected on the basis of moral relevant factors”, which quali es
egalitarian conceptions of distributive justice.
• Cohen (1982) also argues that Nozick has misconstrued Kant’s principle:
- Kant argued that individuals are ends, not means. However, according to Waldron, this does
not exclude the use of an individual as a means as long as you recognise the individual as an
“independent centre of value” (Waldron,. 1991, p. 239).
- Waldron argues that it is possible to reject absolute self-ownership without rejecting the
Kantian principle. I may force an able-bodied individual to help keep a disabled person alive
while also treating the able-bodied individual with respect and taking consideration for their
problems.
- Waldron points out that it is possible to use someone in the absence their consent without
violating their self-ownership. e.g. I stand behind someone to block the sun from going into
my eyes.
• Scanlon (1982):
- Nozick does not pretend to justify the rights to which he attaches so much importance.
However, Scanlon (1982) suggests that his conception of rights is so hard and so extreme
that it requires some further justi cation.
- Scanlon’s main critique is that Nozick’s distinction between patterned and unpatterned
principles of justice is not an important one.
- Rawls includes the notion of entitlement by adhering to procedural justice in the setting up of
just institutions.
- Scanlon argues that for a right to be strong, it must be protected. As such, a right against
being attacked should imply that just institutions defend people from attackers.

Examples

• Walt Chamberlain, a basketball player, plays on the condition that spectators pay an extra 25
cents for each game he is at. He gains a very large sum of money through a large volume of free
choices. BUT the wealth resulting from individual actions is also the result of fruits of social
cooperation. As such, redistribution might be justi ed.
• According to a patterned theory of justice, inequality between members of a family that arise
due to benevolence and love (e.g. parent sacri cing wellbeing for children) would be
suppressed.
• The di erence principles might justify the redistribution of sighted individuals’ eyes to the blind.
BUT the rst principle holds lexical priority over the second.
• University professors are appointed on the ‘patterned’ basis of intelligence and knowledge, but
they do not have the right to sell their posts to anyone they please. If one possesses a right to
something, it does not follow that they can do whatever they want with it. e.g. you own a knife
but it doesn’t give you the right to kill someone with it.
• If farmer Fred owns a eld through which farmer John has a right of way, then it violates John’s
rights for Fred to build a fence across John’s path through the eld. If, however, farmer Will also
uses the path, but only via Fred’s goodwill, then Nozick would assert that Will is no less free if
Fred (legitimately) erects a fence across Will’s path. This is implausible.
• Pouring a can of soup into the ocean might be mixing your labour with it, but it doesn’t supply
ownership of the ocean.
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Past Questions

Does taxation reduce citizens’ freedom? (2020)

Is it a mistake to apply the notion of justice to the distributions generated by markets? (2019)

What, if anything, follows from the claim that the distribution of natural talent is arbitrary from a
moral point of view? (2018)

Do we have persuasive reasons to regard the distribution of income and wealth produced by
market forces as just? (2017)

Does anything of value in Nozick’s entitlement theory survive the claim that all property holdings
are ultimately rooted in bloody injustice? (2015)

Is private property just? (2014)

Do the industrious owe anything to the lazy or the reckless? (2012)

Does justice ever require some individuals to work for the bene t of others? (2010)

Is the state a necessary evil? (2007)

‘Either property is theft or taxation is theft.’ Discuss (2007)

What role, if any, should the notion of entitlement OR incentives play in our thinking about
distributive justice? (2007)

Is taxation ‘on a par with forced labour’? (sample)

Is the libertarian principle of full self-ownership coherent and attractive? (sample)

Why are libertarians so critical of states? (sample)

Are libertarian accounts of individual rights over external objects, such as natural resources,
plausible? (sample)

Given evident historical injustice, what implications does a libertarian view have for present day
distributions? (sample)

‘Nozick shows conclusively that freedom and equality must con ict.’ Do you agree? (sample)

Is the libertarian principle of full self-ownership coherent and attractive? (sample)

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