Difference between revisions of "The Entitlement Theory of Justice"

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basis of Nozick's criticisms of other principles, many of his arguments are
 
basis of Nozick's criticisms of other principles, many of his arguments are
 
greatly weakened.
 
greatly weakened.
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The least verbose version of his ETJ is:  "Whatever arises from a just
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situtation by just steps is itself just." [Nozick 151]
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== Justice in Acquisition ==
 
== Justice in Acquisition ==
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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.
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Nozick does consider a few examples of violations of his idea due to the Lockean
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proviso.  [178]  But these all consider only justice in terms of baseline
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conditions in cases of extreme monopoly examples such as water holes in the
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desert.  He does briefly touch on the possibility of monopoly being arrived at
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by just transactions.  To salvage his theory, he invents the "historical shadow
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of the Lockean proviso on appropriation." [180]  This attributes all the fault
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to the initial acquisition being imperfectly just, and protects his notion of
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justice maintenance.  Then he says "I believe that the free operation of a
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market system will not actually run afoul of the Lockean proviso."  [182]  So
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any problems would come from faulty initial acquisition, and mightn't happen
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anyway.  Ah, the airtight logic of the ivory tower!
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== Justice in Transfer ==
 
== Justice in Transfer ==
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Nozick is much lauded for the clever application of induction in his principle of justice in transfer.
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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. 
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You pay busfare and board a bus.  You sit in the last seat, which is marked
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"Give up this seat to the elderly."  At the next stop, an elderly person pays
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busfare and boards the bus.  The elderly person wants the seat he is entitled
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to, but cannot take it because you occupy it.
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So what?  Well, justice is not maintained: you need to get up and allow the
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elderly person to take the reserved seat.
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Let's look at what happened.
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# The right to sell rides on the bus and the money of you and the elderly person are presumed to be just.
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# The condition of access to the seats is a just exercise of the ownership of the bus.
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# You justly paid fare and boarded the bus.
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# You justly took occupancy of the empty seat.
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# The elderly person justly paid fare and boarded the bus.
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# You are now unjustly denying the elderly person his entitlement.
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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.
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So what has gone wrong?
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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.
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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.
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Perfection of the
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> original situation and the steps is required.  Just initial situations are
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> required (an impracticality.)  And a demonstration of perfect
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> justice-maintainance of the steps is required: a step may be just without
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> maintaining justice. (This is a big problem: he's making an inductive argument
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> without showing the critical step.)
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But worse, in real life we can't ever
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> have perfect justice of steps or starting situations.  So the question is
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> whether the steps move us closer or further from justice, and where an
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> equilibrium will be reached (if one exists.)  The Nozick statement has an
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> implied binary logic model which real life doesn't match.
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Nozick provides neither, and thus gives us only an illusion of a valid argument.
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So why is he using the form of mathematical induction?
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Nozick simulates mathematical induction (and uses the word induction), without meeting the requirements.  Google induction "justice in transfer"
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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.)
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== The Principle of Rectification ==
 
== The Principle of Rectification ==
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The principle of rectifivcation is just such 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.
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== Missing Justice in Externalities ==
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Nozick's justice in transfer presumes that the transfer is entirely voluntary,
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ie. there are no unjust side effects.  Levee building, conspicuous protective
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services, etc. all divert hazard to others.  The whole legal principle of
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attractive nuisance is based on this.
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== Maintaining Patterns ==
 
== Maintaining Patterns ==
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I think Nozick is missing a much more serious problem.  When he bashes other
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conceptions of justice because "liberty upsets patterns" [160], he does so
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because he claims his own notion (historical entitlement) is unpatterned.  [157]
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But of course, to the extent that he describes it, it IS patterned, and the
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just owners of property can create situations by just steps that violate that
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pattern, as the bus example demonstrates.
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The pattern of nightwatchman state is assumed (162)
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Nozick is attempting to create a pattern of perfection in justice, instead of
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distribution of goods.  This pattern too fails if voluntary transfers can create
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any injustice.  Then people will attempt to create the amount of injustice they want.  After
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all, justice too is a good.
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Nozick's "patternless" entitlement theory of justice relies on an enormous
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interference with people: the whole system of property rights.  A system of
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periodic taxation is trivial compared to the continual, omnipresent duties offorbearance that other people's property impose on us.  I cannot walk there
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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 withan adequate payment.  Denying this is a pattern maintained at a cost of huge expense and interference is ridiculous.
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Revision as of 19:51, 31 March 2013

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