View source for The Entitlement Theory of Justice

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[[Category:Mike Huben]]
[[Category:Huben on Nozick]]
{{DES | des = Like most of Nozick's arguments in [[Anarchy, State and Utopia]], the strength of the Entitlement Theory of Justice is illusory.  It suffers critically from a lack of foundations and vulnerability to simple counterexamples.}}
Nozick's "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" was very influential, in part because
of the novelty and creativity of the arguments.  One of the most striking
arguments is the entitlement theory of justice.  However, like most of Nozick's
arguments in ASU, its strength is illusory.  It suffers critically from a lack
of foundations and vulnerability to simple counterexamples.  And since it is the
basis of Nozick's criticisms of other principles, many of his arguments are
greatly weakened.

The least verbose version of his ETJ is:  "Whatever arises from a just
situtation by just steps is itself just." [Nozick 151]

== Justice in Acquisition ==
Justice in acquisition tends to ignore opportunity cost: there is not "as much and as good" afterwards.  Whenever price appears, there is not as much or as good.

Nozick does consider a few examples of violations of his idea due to the Lockean
proviso.  [178]  But these all consider only justice in terms of baseline
conditions in cases of extreme monopoly examples such as water holes in the
desert.  He does briefly touch on the possibility of monopoly being arrived at
by just transactions.  To salvage his theory, he invents the "historical shadow
of the Lockean proviso on appropriation." [180]  This attributes all the fault
to the initial acquisition being imperfectly just, and protects his notion of
justice maintenance.  Then he says "I believe that the free operation of a
market system will not actually run afoul of the Lockean proviso."  [182]  So
any problems would come from faulty initial acquisition, and mightn't happen
anyway.  Ah, the airtight logic of the ivory tower!

== Justice in Transfer ==
Nozick is much lauded for the clever application of induction in his principle of justice in transfer.

Fameously, Nozick fails to give an account of justice in acquisition, though he does discuss Locke's. [174]  At least as important though, is the fact that Nozick does not make any demonstration that justice in transfer works.  

You pay busfare and board a bus.  You sit in the last seat, which is marked
"Give up this seat to the elderly."  At the next stop, an elderly person pays
busfare and boards the bus.  The elderly person wants the seat he is entitled
to, but cannot take it because you occupy it.

So what?  Well, justice is not maintained: you need to get up and allow the
elderly person to take the reserved seat.

Let's look at what happened.
# The right to sell rides on the bus and the money of you and the elderly person are presumed to be just.
# The condition of access to the seats is a just exercise of the ownership of the bus.
# You justly paid fare and boarded the bus.
# You justly took occupancy of the empty seat.
# The elderly person justly paid fare and boarded the bus.
# You are now unjustly denying the elderly person his entitlement.

The initial conditions and the steps are all just by the standards of ordinary market transactions and the Nozickian ideas of justice in acquisition and transfer.  However, an injust situation has arisen.  Justice has not been maintained, contrary to Nozick's claim.

So what has gone wrong?

The basic problem is that Nozick has pulled a fast one.  He identifies [151] his theory as inductive, but it's not the frequently fallaceous logical induction of "all swans are white".  It's an illusion of mathematical induction.

Mathematical induction has two steps: a base step that shows an initial condition to be true, and an inductive step that shows that the next condition from a true condition will also be true.  Nozick's base step is justice in acquisition, and his inductive step is justice in transfer.
Perfection of the original situation and the steps is required.  Just initial situations are required (an impracticality.)  And a demonstration of perfect justice-maintainance of the steps is required: a step may be just without maintaining justice. (This is a big problem: he's making an inductive argument without showing the critical step.)  But worse, in real life we can't ever have perfect justice of steps or starting situations.  So the question is whether the steps move us closer or further from justice, and where an equilibrium will be reached (if one exists.)  The Nozick statement has an implied binary logic model which real life doesn't match.  Nozick provides neither, and thus gives us only an illusion of a valid argument.  So why is he using the form of mathematical induction?

Nozick simulates mathematical induction (and uses the word induction), without meeting the requirements.  His real trick is concealing an assumption: if something is just at time A, then it is just for all time.  The Lockean proviso means that if you re-evaluated justice in acquisition at a later time, something that is just now may not be just later.  I could justify acquisition a piece of land now when there is enough and as good left, but not rejustify acquiring the same land later when there is not enough and as good left.  He needs that trick in order to simulate mathematical induction.  In computing, we talk about when evaluation occurs in getting a result, because you will get different results with different times and orders of evaluation.  Nozick wants to stack the results in his favor by silently assuming one evaluation in the past applies to all future times.

Cohen [42] points out that the term justice in transfer is ambiguous: it could mean that the step is a just action and/or it could mean that the step preserves the just status.  This example provides steps that are just actions, but that clearly do not preserve the just status.  (Cohen provides a complex example of a rolling pin accidentally being transferred: this one avoids the needs for accidents, and is based on just, deliberate actions.)

Ironically, Nozick's claim that "liberty destroys patterns" applies to his own theory of maintaining a pattern of justice.  That's what the bus example shows

Likewise, this failure of induction shows that scarcity of land causes the exact same failure to maintain justice according to the Lockean Proviso.  As soon as there isn't "enough and as good" land (Locke's standard), the previously just situation requires a different explanation of why it may not be unjust now.  Nozick does not address this.  We can easily tell when "enough and as good" occurs: price for the value of land alone arises, because prices are symptoms of scarcity.

== The Principle of Rectification ==
The principle of rectification is a "continuous inerference in people's lives" to compensate for unjust initial acquisition and unjust transfer and externalities.  A glib way to sweep all the problems under the rug without having to measure their magnitude or ubiquity.  But Nozick fails to consider injustice that can arise from correct application of his two steps, as shown in the bus example above.  He only treats violations of those two steps. (152-153)  This third case is enormous: all land ownership violates the Lockean Proviso because there is not enough and as good.  It also makes the need for rectification much greater than Nozick recognizes.

In the bus example above, the rectification would be to yield your seat to the elderly person.  For property, we already have some (insufficient) principles of rectification: they are called land taxes.

== Missing Justice in Externalities ==
Nozick's entitlement theory only presumes that there are no externalities from the two steps,
ie. there are no side effects that involuntarily affect other people.  Any acquisitions or transfers or use that cause prices to arise or change involuntarily affect other people, and thus may be unjust.  Use of property can create injustice.  Levee building, conspicuous protective
services, etc. all divert hazard to others.  The whole legal principle of
attractive nuisance is based on this.

== Maintaining Patterns ==
I think Nozick is missing a much more serious problem.  When he bashes other
conceptions of justice because "liberty upsets patterns" [160], he does so
because he claims his own notion (historical entitlement) is unpatterned.  [157]
But of course, to the extent that he describes it, it IS patterned, and the
just owners of property can create situations by just steps that violate that
pattern, as the bus example demonstrates.
The pattern of nightwatchman state is assumed (162)
Nozick is attempting to create a pattern of perfection in justice, instead of
distribution of goods.  This pattern too fails if voluntary transfers can create
any injustice.  Then people will attempt to create the amount of injustice they want.  After
all, justice too is a good.

Nozick's "patternless" entitlement theory of justice relies on an enormous
interference with people: the whole system of property rights.  A system of
periodic taxation is trivial compared to the continual, omnipresent duties of forbearance that other people's property impose on us.  I cannot walk there
because somebody else owns that land.  While I can walk down a city street, I cannot make use of the vast wealth surrounding me unless I bribe the owners with an adequate payment.  Denying this is a pattern maintained at a cost of huge expense and interference is ridiculous.



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Old Notes:
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Nozick, Justice, and the Sorites (Jstor)

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