Political Philosophy

by Phil Parvin

  COHEN AND SELF-OWNERSHIP

  G.A. Cohen accepts that the idea of self-ownership is very attractive. However, self-ownership leads to extremely undesirable consequences, most obviously to significant inequalities of resources that are not mitigated by state help since there will be no welfare safety-net. Libertarianism also rules out state education and healthcare as these are essentially redistributive goods. All but the minimal state is abandoned. Cohen is a strong egalitarian, and shares with egalitarian liberals deep disgust for these consequences.

  As we saw in Chapter 1, Cohen argues that poverty is actually a restriction of liberty, since those without money are subject to coercion. Cohen concludes that the concept of self-ownership must be abandoned, since it does inevitably lead to the undesirable consequences of inequality – which, in turn, leads to unfreedom. Redistributive taxation might be like slavery in that it restricts freedom, but poverty restricts freedom, too. Cohen argues that freedom should not be understood in purely ‘negative’ terms: it is not just about possessing rights; it is about being autonomous – in control of one’s life.

  ‘It is easy to think carelessly about the [Wilt Chamberlain] example. How we feel about people like Chamberlain getting a lot of money as things are is a poor index of how people would feel in the imagined situation. Among us the ranks of the rich and the powerful exist, and it can be pleasing, given that they do, when a figure like Chamberlain joins them. Who better and more innocently deserves to be among them? But the case before us is a society of equality in danger of corruption. Reflective people would have to consider not only the joy of watching Chamberlain and its immediate money price but also the fact, which socialists say they would deplore, that their society would be set on the road to class division. In presenting the Chamberlain fable Nozick ignores the commitment people may have to living in a society of a particular kind, and the rhetorical power of the illustration depends on that omission.’

  G.A. Cohen, ‘Robert Nozick and Wilt Chamberlain: How Patterns Preserve Liberty’, Erkenntnis 11/1 (May, 1977), p. 11.

  OKIN AND SELF-OWNERSHIP

  Susan Moller Okin argues that the thesis of self-ownership can be refuted, since it is incoherent. She points out that, if the thesis held, then mothers would own their babies. Babies are made from raw materials – sperm and egg – and gestational labour. A woman owns her own eggs, according to Nozick, and can justly acquire sperm (it is usually given freely by men!). She then transforms the sperm and egg, with nine months of demanding physical labour and risk, into a baby. Still more labour is required to transform the child into an adult capable of independence.

  It follows that, on Nozick’s account, all mothers own their children, and that no one owns themselves. Therefore, the principle of self-ownership is incoherent. If everyone is a self-owner, then no one is.

  Against patterned distributions: freedom vs. equality

  There is a final argument that Nozick makes against redistributive taxation: since liberty upsets patterns, maintaining any patterned distribution must necessarily restrict liberty. In other words, liberty and equality are incompatible.

  Nozick makes this argument with a famous thought-experiment: the Wilt Chamberlain example. Wilt Chamberlain was a very high-earning basketball player in 1974, when Nozick was writing. Nozick asks us to imagine that we start with whatever distribution we prefer. Perhaps everyone has equal holdings, or resources are distributed to the difference principle, or according to the Marxist slogan ‘From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs’. Whatever your favourite distribution of resources is, start with that.

  Nozick then asks us to imagine that Wilt Chamberlain is playing basketball, and that there is a pot placed at the entrance to the sports field with his name on it. Anyone who wants to watch Wilt play should put 25 cents into this box. Over time, one million people watch Wilt play, and all are happy to put their money into this box. The result is that Wilt has $250,000 more than anyone else. Nozick’s claim is that nothing can be wrong with this final outcome. After all, everyone started with a just amount of money, and everyone acted voluntarily.

  Nozick’s point is not that Wilt deserves to be rich. Nozick is not relying on any controversial claims about Wilt deserving to profit from his talents. It would not matter if Wilt were untalented but still popular. Instead, the key point of the example is that, in order to prevent the inequality from arising, we would need to restrict the audience’s freedom. We would have to impose a law against giving 25 cents to a basketball player. In fact, we would have to impose a great many laws against transfers of resources.

  Spotlight: Nozick on his private life

  In an interview with Julian Sanchez (JS) in 2001 Nozick (RN) reflected on the connection between his philosophical libertarianism and his personal life:

  RN: One thing that I think reinforced the view that I had rejected libertarianism was a story about an apartment of [Love Story author] Erich Segal’s that I had been renting. […] In the rent he was charging me, Erich Segal was violating a Cambridge rent control statute. I knew at the time that when I let my intense irritation with representatives of Erich Segal lead me to invoke against him rent control laws that I opposed and disapproved of, that I would later come to regret it, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

  JS: Do the other professors pick on you because you’re the ‘libertarian kid,’ so to speak? Has that been an albatross around your neck?

  RN: No, not in the [Harvard] philosophy department certainly. (And I have been treated very well by the university administration.) Behind my back at the university, who knows what goes on, but not to my face. There was a time some years ago in the aftermath of Anarchy, State, and Utopia when it was probably the case that my social life was somewhat curtailed. There may have been many parties I wasn’t getting invited to because people despised the views in my book. But if so, I didn’t notice it very much at the time.’

  Source: http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/NozickInterview.htm

  The problem with patterned theories of redistribution, which seek to determine exactly who gets what and why in any given society, is that they will inevitably be undermined by the choices that people make about how to spend the money they are left with after they have been taxed. The only way to solve this problem, and to maintain the redistribution stipulated by whatever theory of redistributive justice that is being used, is for the state to constantly police, and intervene in, the daily activities of its citizens and, hence, to substantially violate the freedom and individual rights of those citizens. This is why, if we value freedom, we must give up the idea of patterned theories of redistribution (like Rawls’s difference principle, for example) in favour of free markets based on the voluntary transfer of resources from individuals to other individuals.

  Conclusion

  Libertarianism is a profound challenge to the fundamental assumptions of egalitarianism, particularly liberal egalitarianism, for it suggests that it is not possible to be committed to both liberty and equality. A project such as Rawls’s is therefore doomed, if Nozick is to be believed.

  Nozick’s arguments are more problematic to some egalitarians than others. It is possible to avoid most of his critique if one is willing to reject the idea of freedom as being rights-based, and to argue that individuals are not entitled to the fruits of their labour. Nonetheless, Nozick’s account does demonstrate that at least some versions of liberty are in tension with establishing – and, more importantly, maintaining – distributive equality.

  ‘[Anarchy, State, and Utopia’s] conclusions are not in the least unusual. They articulate the prejudices of the average owner of a filling station in a small town in the Midwest who enjoys grousing about paying taxes and having to contribute to “welfare scroungers” and who regards as wicked any attempts to interfere with contracts, in the interests, for example, of equal opportunity or anti-discrimination. …[It is] quite indecent [that Nozick], from the lofty heights of a professorial chair, is pr
oposing to starve or humiliate ten percent or so of his fellow citizens (if he recognizes the word) by eliminating all transfer payments through the state, leaving the sick, the old, the disabled, the mothers with young children and no breadwinner, and so on, to the tender mercies of private charity, given at the whim and pleasure of the donors and on any terms that they choose to impose.’

  Brian Barry, ‘Review of Anarchy, State, and Utopia’, Political Theory (August 1975), pp. 331–2.

  Key ideas

  Libertarianism: A theory that prioritizes liberty and rights, rather than equality. Libertarians advocate a minimal state, which raises taxes only to provide law and order and national security, with few public services and no welfare state.

  End-state theory: A theory, such as Rawls’s, according to which justice is determined by the result or end-state of a series of transactions. A society is just or not depending on its outcomes for its members: how rich or poor they are at any given time. End-state theories will often seek to maintain a patterned distribution.

  Historical theory: A theory, such as Nozick’s, according to which justice is determined by the justice of the various transactions that take place on a daily basis. A society is just or not depending on whether it is the result of a series of just transactions.

  Patterned distribution: A distribution of resources that conforms to some principle or pattern. Examples include absolute equality (everyone has the same), feudalism (wealth is in the hands of the nobility) or the difference principle (inequalities are permitted only if they benefit the worst-off).

  Self-ownership: The idea that people’s relationship to themselves is one of full property ownership. A self-owner may legitimately sell any part of herself: her body, her organs, her sexual services, her ideas, her labour or even her whole self in a voluntary slavery contract. The person is treated as property like any other. The focus on property rights means that self-ownership is not the same as autonomy or bodily integrity.

  Dig deeper

  G.A. Cohen, Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

  Cecile Fabre, Whose Body Is It Anyway? Justice and the Integrity of the Person (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).

  David Gauthier, Morals by Agreement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).

  Susan Moller Okin, Justice, Gender, and the Family (New York: Basic Books, 1989).

  Thomas Nagel, ‘Nozick: Libertarianism without Foundations’, Other Minds: Critical Essays, 1969–1994 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 137–49.

  Jan Narveson, The Libertarian Idea (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988).

  Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974).

  Peter Vallentyne, Contractarianism and Rational Choice: Essays on David Gauthier’s Morals by Agreement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

  Jonathan Wolff, Robert Nozick: Property, Justice, and the Minimal State (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991).

  Fact-check

  1 What is the difference between libertarianism and liberalism?

  A Libertarians reject the value of distributive equality

  B Libertarians reject the value of freedom

  C Libertarians reject rights

  D All of the above

  2 What sort of freedom does Nozick defend?

  A Positive freedom

  B Rights-based freedom

  C Freedom as self-mastery

  D Freedom as autonomy

  3 Why is Nozick’s theory an ‘entitlement theory’ of justice?

  A It states that people are always entitled to whatever they have

  B It states that talented people are entitled to be rich

  C It states that a distribution is just if and only if people are entitled to their holdings

  D It states that people are entitled to receive redistribution of wealth

  4 What, according to Nozick, is wrong with ‘patterned distributions’?

  A They conflict with equality

  B They conflict with liberty

  C They conflict with charity

  D They conflict with security

  5 What point does Nozick want to make with the Wilt Chamberlain example?

  A That liberty upsets patterns

  B That justice is based on desert

  C That inequality is a good thing

  D All of the above

  6 What is self-ownership?

  A The claim that we cannot be the property of others without our consent

  B The claim that we should be allowed to sell our bodies

  C The claim that we have full property-rights over our bodies

  D All of the above

  7 What limits does Nozick place on the appropriation of natural resources?

  A Others must still be able to use some of that resource

  B Others must still be able to appropriate some of that resource

  C The environment must not be harmed

  D Liberty must not be affected

  8 Why, according to Nozick, is redistribution unjust?

  A Because it is like slavery

  B Because it violates the entitlement theory

  C Because it attempts to uphold a patterned distribution

  D All of the above

  9 What is Nozick’s solution to poverty?

  A The welfare state

  B The workhouse

  C Charity

  D Slavery

  10 Why is libertarianism problematic for egalitarian liberalism?

  A It suggests that poverty does not matter

  B It suggests that freedom and equality conflict

  C It suggests that we have no reason to help other people

  D It suggests that freedom is unimportant

  12

  Luck egalitarianism

  An important aim of contemporary theories of social justice is to determine what counts as fair grounds for inequality, and what does not. Rawls’s answer was that inequalities are only fair if they benefit the worst-off. Nozick argued that inequalities are fair if they arise from the free exchange of legitimately acquired resources. In this chapter, we discuss a third approach: luck egalitarianism. Luck egalitarianism is the idea that disadvantage is unjust if and only if it results from bad luck rather than from choice. Luck egalitarians therefore share Rawls’s view that our lives should not be determined for us by factors over which we have no control, and incorporate a stronger emphasis on individual responsibility than can be found in Rawls. In this chapter, we discuss some of the different forms of luck egalitarianism that have been proposed, and some problems with the approach as a whole.

  In this chapter, we discuss some of the different forms of luck egalitarianism that have been proposed, and some problems with the approach as a whole.

  Luck in Rawls

  There are many aspects of our lives over which we have little or no control. For example, we had no control over the parents we were born to, how much money they had, or how seriously they took our education. Similarly, we had no control over what talents we were blessed with. Rawls argues that, as these things were simply the result of good or bad luck on our part rather than a result of particular choices that we made, it would be very unfair if they had a significant influence on our life chances. It would be very unfair, for example, if some people got all the best jobs simply because their parents were rich, or if some children received very poor education simply on the grounds that their parents were poor.

  ‘The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that men are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just or unjust is the way institutions deal with these facts. Aristocratic and caste societies are unjust because they make these contingencies the ascriptive basis for belonging to more or less closed and privileged social classes. The basic structure of these societies incorporates the arbitrariness found in nature. But there is no need for men to resign themselves
to these contingencies. In justice as fairness men agree to share one another’s fate. In designing institutions they undertake to avail themselves of the accidents of nature and social circumstances only when doing so is for the common benefit. The two principles [of justice] are a fair way of meeting the arbitrariness of fortune.’

  John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), p.102.

  One of Rawls’s principal aims was to outline a conception of justice which mitigated the influence that such unchosen factors play in our lives – characteristics like race, sex and class, as well as natural endowments like intelligence, ambition and talents, are ‘morally arbitrary’ precisely because they are unchosen: they are neither deserved or undeserved, and so should not influence the distribution of benefits and burdens in a society. Rawls argues that we should exclude such factors from our deliberations about the distribution of benefits and burdens (by putting them behind a veil of ignorance). Doing so leads us to agree on a set of principles which emphasize choice and responsibility over luck, and a principle of equality of opportunity (according to which jobs are allocated on the basis of relevant skills rather than ascriptive characteristics that people do not choose).

  There are two important problems with Rawls’s argument:

  IT DOES NOT SUFFICIENTLY TAKE INTO ACCOUNT INEQUALITIES CAUSED BY NATURAL ENDOWMENTS