羅伯特·諾齊克和美好的戰鬥教育阿特拉斯大學
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羅伯特·諾齊克和美好的戰鬥

羅伯特·諾齊克和美好的戰鬥

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September 9, 2010


March 2002 -- "Whoever makes something, having bought or contracted for all other held resources used in the process…is entitled to it. The situation is not one of something's getting made, and there being an open question of who is to get it. Things come into the world already attached to people having entitlements over them…. Those who start afresh to complete 'to each according to his ____' treat objects as if they appeared from nowhere, out of nothing."

I first read that passage in a book manuscript that was circulating in the Princeton University philosophy department in 1974. It reminded me of the words Ayn Rand put in the mouth of her hero in Atlas Shrugged :

"[I]ndividuals are ends and not merely means; they may not be sacrificed or used for the achieving of other ends without their consent. Individuals are inviolable."

-Robert Nozick

"The socialist society would have to forbid capitalist acts between consenting adults."  Nozick

Though he made ample use of economic theory in this critique, he wrote primarily from a moral point of view. Like Rand, he enraged the Left by denying them the moral high ground—and he did so with great wit. "The socialist society," said Nozick, "would have to forbid capitalist acts between consenting adults." In a discussion of the income tax as a device for redistribution, he argued that "taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor." On one issue after another, he punctured the political idealism of those who wanted government to pursue their vision of utopia; he did it by showing that any such program uses coercion to violate individual autonomy.

In the world of academic philosophy, Nozick became the most prominent advocate of libertarianism, the theorist with whom every other viewpoint had to contend. This was not because his case for freedom was fundamentally original. Many of the arguments he used can be found in the long tradition of classical liberalism, from John Locke in the seventeenth century to Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand in our own era. The reason for Nozick's prominence was principally that he cast the arguments in the method and style of analytic philosophy, the approach that dominates academic philosophy in English-speaking countries.

As the name suggests, analytic philosophers consider their job to be the close and detailed analysis of issues. They prize philosophical dissection: subtle distinctions, rigorous arguments, precise formulations of positions. Nozick was a master of this approach. He handled the scalpel of analysis with a speed and dexterity that awed his colleagues, even when they didn't like his views. And indeed, his book did much to clarify issues of distributive justice and the nature of the conflict between libertarians and egalitarians.

But the goal of close analysis creates occupational hazards. Analytic philosophers are often insensitive to the wider context of the issues they deal with and unwilling—or unable—to examine their own fundamental assumptions, concepts, and methods. As a result, they tend to take for granted the current state of play in their specialist domains, treating complex, derivative concepts and assumptions as axiomatic. Nozick was no exception.

This was nowhere clearer, to me at least, than in an early article he wrote criticizing Rand's moral and political philosophy. Nozick more or less completely failed to come to grips with Rand's theory, spinning his wheels in an effort to break apart her integrated view of human life and values. In Anarchy, State, and Utopia, the shortcoming of his method was most evident in his failure to explain why individuals are ends in themselves and why they are inviolable; his statement of the principle was about as far as he went. Nozick did not accept Rand's explanation that individuals are ends in themselves because life is metaphysically an end in itself, the fundamental value that each person seeks to realize. But he did not offer any alternative.

Nevertheless, Anarchy, State, and Utopia is a genuine classic in the literature of freedom. Robert Nozick fought the good fight with intellectual brilliance, moral idealism, and personal courage. Everyone else engaged in that fight owes him a large debt of gratitude.


This article was originally published in the March 2002 issue of
Navigator magazine, The Atlas Society precursor to The New Individualist.

大衛·凱利

作者簡介:

大衛·凱利

大衛·凱利是阿特拉斯協會的創始人。作為一名專業的哲學家、教師和暢銷書作家,他一直是客觀主義的主要支援者超過25年。

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David Kelley Ph.D
About the author:
David Kelley Ph.D

David Kelley founded The Atlas Society (TAS) in 1990 and served as Executive Director through 2016. In addition, as Chief Intellectual Officer, he was responsible for overseeing the content produced by the organization: articles, videos, talks at conferences, etc.. Retired from TAS in 2018, he remains active in TAS projects and continues to serve on the Board of Trustees.

凱利是一位專業的哲學家、教師和作家。1975年獲得普林斯頓大學哲學博士學位后,他加入了瓦薩學院哲學系,教授各級課程。他還曾在布蘭迪斯大學教授哲學,並經常在其他校區講課。

凱利的哲學著作包括倫理學、認識論和政治學方面的原創作品,其中許多作品以新的深度和新的方向發展了客觀主義思想。他是認識論論文感官的證據》的作者;客觀主義中的真理與寬容,論客觀主義運動中的問題;粗獷的個人主義:仁慈的自私基礎;以及《推理的藝術》,這是一本廣泛使用的入門邏輯教科書,現已出版第 5 版。

凱利曾就廣泛的政治和文化主題發表演講和出版。他關於社會問題和公共政策的文章發表在 《哈珀斯》、《科學》、《理性》、《哈佛商業評論》、《弗里曼》、《論原則》等雜誌上。在1980年代,他經常為 《巴倫週刊》財經和商業雜誌 撰寫有關平等主義、移民、最低工資法和社會保障等問題的文章。

他的著作 《一個人的生活:個人權利和福利國家》 批判了福利國家的道德前提,並捍衛了維護個人自主、責任和尊嚴的私人替代方案。1998年,他出現在約翰·斯托塞爾(John Stossel)的ABC/TV特別節目“貪婪”中,引發了一場關於資本主義倫理的全國性辯論。

作為國際公認的客觀主義專家,他廣泛地講授安·蘭德、她的思想和作品。他是電影《阿特拉斯聳聳肩》的顧問,也是《阿特拉斯聳聳肩:小說、電影、哲學》的編輯

 

主要作品(部分):

概念與自然:對現實主義轉向的評論(道格拉斯·拉斯穆森和道格拉斯·登厄伊爾)”,《理性論文》第 42 期,第 1 期,(2021 年夏季);這篇對最近一本書的評論包括對概念的本體論和認識論的深入探討。

知識的基礎。關於客觀主義認識論的六講。

存在的首要地位”和“感知的認識論”,傑斐遜學院,聖地牙哥,1985年7月

普遍性和歸納”,在GKRH會議上的兩次演講,達拉斯和安娜堡,1989年3月

懷疑論”,約克大學,多倫多,1987年

自由意志的本質”,波特蘭研究所的兩場演講,1986年10月

現代性黨”,卡托政策報告,2003年5月/6月; 導航員,2003年11月;一篇被廣泛引用的文章,關於前現代、現代(啟蒙)和後現代觀點之間的文化分歧。

"I Don't Have To" (IOS Journal, Volume 6, Number 1, April 1996) and “I Can and I Will” (The New Individualist, Fall/Winter 2011); Companion pieces on making real the control we have over our lives as individuals.

Ideas e ideologías
Filosofía política