Robert Nozick Discussion• What principles ought to govern who gets what and how goods are distributed?• People want goods such as:• Property• Wealth, income, resources• Rights, liberties• Opportunities• Safety, security• Necessities of life• Power, social status, influence• Happiness, welfare• Capabilities• Often distribution cannot satisfy optimizing all of the goods that people want. By distributing one good in a specific way we might have to sacrifice anothergood.• Ex. If our distribution is based on equality then If we distribute wealth equally, happiness may be distributed unequally• People have different levels of needs and wants• We have to ask which goods should be distributed in a specific way?• How to distribute? • Equality is one way. but equal how? Two ways to look at equality1. Priority - People should be given as to how much less they have than others. Everyone have the same2. Sufficiency - People should be given enough. What matters is not for everyone to have the same amount, but that they have enough. Manysufficientarians argue that the threshold is higher than just basic needs, maybe we should bring in goods such as well-being. • Capabilities view says people should have a sufficient range of life options• Desert - People should given as much as they deserve. Good people should prosper, bad people should not• Need - People should at least be given the necessities of life• Another view is that there should be a plurality amongst distributive principles1. One way of pluralism - For any given good on the list there is a variety of factors that determine how that good should e distributed2. Another way of pluralism - Different distributive principle is relevant to a different good• Michael Waltzer tries to get a theory of the proper distribution of certain goods by finding out the nature of the goods themselves• Process - There is no single pattern upon which goods should be distributed, but rather what matters is the process by which people come to have differentvarious things. There are just and unjust processes.• Nozick outlines the processes of entitlement.• Dworkin will argue for equality of sources• The boundaries of other people’s rights contain our own full autonomy. Nozick calls such restraints “side-restraints”• According to Nozick. We can’t tell what is just and unjust by looking at the pattern, we must refer to how they got the goods.• Nozick’s argument is best suited in a situation where everyone starts with nothing or a state of nature• Even in a world where all things are owned, the second point (justice in transfer) allows for people to still attain stuff by offering ourselves in the form of laborand being paid for it• Nozick says that as long as the process is just a family gaining vast inheritance and having tons of wealth and all their generations starting out rich then thissituation is just• Critics and Nozick asked how can this be right?• How can it be right that some people have a slot and other’s have nothing just because their ancestors got their first?• We should constantly raise the baseline, wealth need not necessarily be redistributed to be equal, but rather redistributed to be helpful• Types of ways to acquire goods:• Born with goods (such as human rights)• Developed goods (Gained by individual choice, such as skills, happiness, well-being, etc.)• Allotted goods (opportunities, wealth, power)• We can appropriate goods to ourselves so long as no one else is made worse off by not being able to use the good.• With liberty we can lead autonomous livesCharles Taylor Discussion• Taylor argues the primacy of rights theories are incoherent. A critical part of the primacy of rights theories is basically that the only obligations we have is tonot violate the rights of other people• That means we do not have an obligation to participate in society, help others, etc.• Atomism is the view that we can be ourselves and develop into ourselves outside of society• Taylor is anti-commutitarian and his argument lines up best with Raz and Margalit• Because humans have rights we also have social obligationsDworkin Discussion• Dworkin agrees with Nozick in that in discussing theories of justice and property rights, the main thing we should be concerned about is resources.• Objections to egalitarianism:• One utilitarian reason against distributing wealth evenly is that there is a worry that people will not have incentive to work hard and be rewarded for theirwork is there is an equal distribution of wealth• There is also the idea that hard workers deserve more than slackers• Dworkin tries to come to grip with all of the objections against egalitarianism• Dworkin tries to piece together a theory for egalitarianism that accounts for choice• He is okay with inequality based on people’s choices, but not inequality based on luck• The first question Dworkin addresses is: • what is the good to be distributed in question?• He considers the distribution of welfare and resources• We can’t have equal distribution of both welfare and resources so Dworkin chooses resources.• The reason we can;t have equal welfare and equal resources is because of: expensive tastes and special needs• Dworkin uses a free-market/ auction to create equality• Suppose we have an island• First the land would be split up and bundles offered to where compensation is given for worse land, etc.• Then everyone is able to auction items in their bundle to get exactly what they want• Dworkin doesn’t even consider redistribution after the first time, because there would be no point of distributing everything evenly to the point of no oneenvying anyone else and then taking all of that away every year or so.• For Dworkin there are good equalities and bad equalities• Good equalities:• Effort• Optional luck - where one chooses to take a risk for a greater reward• Bad equalities:• Brute luck - when one gets lucky (or unlucky) through no action of their own• Talent• Dworkin has an expansive definition of resource• He counts leisure as a resource• Taking risks is something that people want and prize• Insurance provides a way out of dealing with brute luck• By introducing insurance to prevent things that occur due to brute bad luck, the ability to purchase insurance gives people the option to ward off theirlosses from brute bad luck• Dworkin uses