Mind the economy

Robert Nozick and the right to self ownership: why welfare is 'a robbery'

In general terms, philosophical reflection on politics can be seen as an analysis of the nature of those values that are most relevant to our life together: freedom, well-being, equality, happiness, power

by Vittorio Pelligra

16 June 2024

9' min read

Key points

The starting point is the anarchist vision of freedom
The eye lottery
The protected sphere of rights
An end and not a means

9' min read

Robert Nozick and his departmental colleague John Rawls constitute, as we saw last week, the two extreme poles of the landscape of 20th century political philosophy. Both start from the same critique of utilitarianism and both propose to overcome this perspective by adopting the Kantian premise that each individual must be treated as an end in itself and never as a means. Individualised rights therefore cannot be exchanged or reduced even for greater social benefit. What is surprising is that despite the fact that the starting point is the same and the path proposed is the same, the outcomes reached by the two philosophers are so diametrically opposed: Rawls' egalitarianism on the one hand, Nozick's libertarianism on the other.

In general terms, philosophical reflection on politics can be seen as an analysis of the nature of those values that are most relevant to our life together: freedom, well-being, equality, happiness, power. How compatible are these values with each other? How much do they conflict? Which of these should we give pre-eminence to? The answers to these questions generally take three different forms. The first is typical of utilitarians, who hold that there is a single prevailing principle - the maximisation of social utility - to which all other principles must be subordinated because they are in some way derivatives of it. A second approach is the one that focuses on a plurality of values but still recognises a hierarchy of them. Rawls, for example, falls into this category. His 'principle of priority', in fact - we have spoken about it at length in recent weeks - states that between the principle of equality and that of freedom it is necessary to recognise a 'lexicographic' priority for freedom. Finally, there are others, such as Isaiah Berlin, who accept a form of radical pluralism whereby citizens can have, and very often do have, worldviews and values that are incompatible and irreducible with each other.

Cases in which it is necessary to find rules of coexistence that overcome this value incompatibility. It would be easy, almost taken for granted, to place the Nozick libertarian approach in the first category, the one centred on the role of a pre-eminent value, and to identify that value with that of freedom. It would be easy because indeed Nozick's approach falls into the single value category. It is less obvious to recognise that this unique value is not that of freedom but, rather, that of ownership, and in particular of 'self-ownership'. One of Nozick's most insightful interpreters, British philosopher Jonathan Wolff, explains this point as follows: 'No one has the right to interfere with your person or your property unless you have consented or you have forfeited your rights by violating the rights of others - this right to freedom is simply a consequence of this right to self-ownership' (Robert Nozick: Property, Justice and the Minimal State, Polity, 1991). It is therefore the idea of 'self-property', according to Nozick, that is placed at the foundation of all other rights from which they derive and that should be used as a decision-making compass in the face of every possible political problem. The political implications of such a view of freedom are analysed by Nozick in the first part of Anarchy, State and Utopia.

The starting point is the anarchist vision of freedom

In this regard Benjamin Tucker writes: 'If the individual has the right to govern himself, all external forms of government are tyranny' ('State Socialism and Anarchy', in Woodcock, G., ed., The Anarchist Reader, Fontana, 1977, p.151). If we accept the absolute pre-eminence of the principle of freedom, we cannot consider any form of state power as legitimate, says Tucker. Nozick's task is to depart from this assumption, with which he is sympathetic, and demonstrate, instead, that an albeit minimal form of legitimate state can exist. A form of state that can be considered legitimate because it acts without violating the fundamental right of 'ownership of self' or the other rights that derive from this. Nozick's task, in other words, is to try to show that anarchy is not the only logical consequence of taking the inviolability of the right to individual freedom seriously. But let us return to the subject of 'self-ownership'. This is, in fact, the concept through which Nozick develops the Kantian idea of the 'separateness of persons'. We saw last week how the critique of utilitarianism, Rawls' as well as Nozick's, starts precisely from the Kantian assumption that others can never be considered as a means to my ends.

The eye lottery

This means, for instance, that redistributive policies that limit the freedoms of a few in order to promote the welfare of the many - perfectly legitimate policies in a utilitarian framework - cannot be admissible neither for Kant, nor for Rawls or Nozick. To decline this Kantian idea of the 'separateness of persons' Nozick chooses the path of 'self-ownership', of self-ownership. This is the thesis according to which only the subject has the right to decide on what concerns him or her and therefore cannot be forced to sacrifice himself or herself for the sake of someone else. Although it is legitimate and even commendable to do so, this is only possible when this decision is an autonomous decision that does not result from external interference. The welfare state, for instance, violates in this sense the right to 'self-ownership'. Indeed, the welfare state, through taxation, provides for the provision of goods and services that benefit the most disadvantaged. Since this taxation is compulsory and not voluntary, the production of these goods and services is based on a form of violence, an outright robbery. In this regard, Nozick gives the example of the 'eye lottery'. Let us imagine that surgical technique has reached such a level as to allow perfectly safe eye transplants for both the donor and the recipient who, after the transplant, will be certain to regain full sight. In a world where there are unfortunately many who are born blind or who become blind as a result of disease or trauma, the redistribution of one eye from those who have two to those who do not even have one healthy eye would represent an increase in overall usefulness.

In fact, the loss of well-being of those who switch from two eyes to one is less than the increase in well-being experienced by those who switch from no eyes to at least one healthy eye. Such a policy according to Nozick would be compatible with both utilitarian logic and Rawls' difference principle. So why not force those who have two healthy eyes, perhaps through a lottery, to 'donate' one to those who cannot see? That would be very strange, says Nozick. So why, instead, are we in favour of the redistribution of income that takes place in the welfare state? Just as the redistribution of eyes understandably violates the principle of 'self-ownership' the same can be said of any form of non-voluntary redistribution of resources or property, such as those that take place in the welfare state. It is therefore by virtue of this principle of 'self-ownership', Nozick explains, that each of us can claim the freedom to do as we please without any external interference, only as long as we do not violate the similar rights of others. Thus, except for cases in which someone has to defend himself against my aggression or I have to be punished for breaking some law, no one has the right to make me do something without my consent.

The protected sphere of rights

Every individual, Nozick argues, is surrounded by a 'protected sphere of rights' that no one can enter without the consent of the person concerned. This conception of inviolable individual rights is certainly not exclusive to Nozick. We find a similar idea in Locke, in Mill and in many other liberal thinkers. What is original in Nozick, however, is the absolutization of the role of these rights and the centrality given to them in his entire political system. Let us imagine, with Nozick, that the rights of liberty that derive from the fundamental right of 'self-ownership' are indeed inviolable. Why then should we not accept the conclusion of individualist anarchism represented, for example, by Tucker's position that all forms of public power are immoral? This is exactly the point of Nozick, who accepts the premises of anarchism but at the same time sets out to refute its conclusions. The starting point of his reasoning is the construction of an actual theory of rights. These, in his scheme, possess three main characteristics: firstly, they must be understood in a negative sense, then they must be considered as collateral constraints and, finally, they must be considered exhaustive. The first point derives from the classic distinction between a positive and a negative right. Take, for example, the right to life. In a positive sense, this right implies that if I am in danger of my life, someone else has a duty to mitigate that risk and protect my life.

If I am starving, someone else has a duty to provide me with food. The negative meaning of this right, on the contrary, only implies that no one can actively endanger my existence. It implies that no one has a duty to actively protect it. According to Nozick, individual rights are generally negative rights. They can only become positive as a result of a voluntary agreement. For instance through a contract. If my life is in danger but I have taken out an insurance contract or hired a bodyguard, then in the event of illness the insurer has a duty to pay for the treatment necessary to cure my illness or the bodyguard has a duty to act to avert dangers that could endanger my safety. Only in this case can one speak of a positive right to life. But in general, Nozick tells us, rights are to be understood in a negative sense, as rights to non-interference. The second point in Nozick's theory of rights concerns the possibility of rights coming into conflict with each other. In Anarchy, State and Utopia, the example is given of an angry mob that riots, loots and kills in response to a crime of which it believes a single individual is guilty. This mob naturally violates the rights of all those citizens who suffer its violence. 'It may be tempting,' Nozick writes, 'to justify punishing a person whom we know to be innocent of the crime that triggered the mob's fury, on the grounds that punishing this person would help to prevent even greater violations of rights by others.

This would end up practising a kind of 'rights utilitarianism', whereby it becomes legitimate to violate the right of an individual in order to protect the rights of many others. Nozick's solution to this problem is to consider rights as 'collateral constraints' on the choices of individuals. Rights, in this sense, are not something to be 'maximised', as the utilitarian approach would suggest, but constitute constraints on action that need only be respected; constraints, that is, that must place limits on actions considered legitimate and just. The choice of condemning the innocent citizen in order to eliminate the negative consequences of the revolt, although utilitarianistically necessary, is, in Nozick's approach, absolutely immoral. Finally, the third element that characterises the theory of rights in Nozick's approach is the fact that they are 'exhaustive'. This means that every legitimate right must be based either on 'self-ownership' or on free and voluntary consent. No other condition can legitimately infringe individual freedom.

An end and not a means

If these three conditions are fulfilled - negative rights, collateral and exhaustive constraints - then it is possible, as Nozick suggests, to infer that these should not be subject to any consideration of the common good. One point remains to be clarified, however. What makes us, Kantianly, bearers of the right not to be treated as means? Nozick answers in this regard: 'Traditionally, the following have been proposed as important distinguishing characteristics associated with moral constraints: sentience and self-awareness; rationality (the ability to use abstract concepts, unconstrained by reactions to immediate stimuli); free will; being a moral agent, capable of behaving in accordance with moral principles and of engaging in reciprocal constraints of conduct; having a soul. In other words, people are to be treated as ends and not means because they have the capacity to attribute meaning to their lives. 'A person's commitment to shape his life according to an overall plan,' the philosopher writes, 'is his way of giving meaning to his life; only a being with the capacity to shape his life in this way can have a life endowed with meaning, or strive to have it. It is this faculty that gives every human being the right to be treated as an end in itself and not as a means. For one cannot freely generate a meaningful life unless it is free from external interference. A meaningful life, therefore, necessarily includes the right to 'self-ownership'. We shall see in the coming weeks what this means for the idea of state and justice. The central theme of our exploration.