Monday 4 July 2005

Nozick noodlings



My recent arguments with Richard at Philosophy et cetera (see below) might have put some of you off Robert Nozick altogether, which would be a little unfortunate. In the way of young philosophy students, Richard has taken Nozick's case for libertarianism to be the only case for libertarianism, and he's ended up criticising a caricature instead of the real thing; I spent some time pointing that out to no avail. (He subsequently decided that I'm "intellectually dishonest" because I don't fall into one of his favourite pigeon-holes, which is a pity, but at that point our discussion ended.)

Nonetheless, there is much of value in Nozick, as Jason Kuznicki at Positive Liberty has found:
I'm reading Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia right now, an my first impression is... "Holy Jesus this is good!"
That varies a little with the views of Sean Kimpton, who argued "while advocating a libertarian political philosophy [Nozick] is doing more harm than good." Feel free to form your own opinions. :-)
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* If you're interested in the arguments, the following posts give my side, which each link to those of Richard's to which they are responding:
Linked Posts
: Why libertarians don't own their own bodies
The ‘problem’ of initial acquisition
Freedom, through thick and thin

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I would say that he is only twenty, but that might be construed as 'intellectual honesty'. If I, as an individual do not own the products of my labour, who does? Richard? His universal income? Through blood, sweat and tears you work for something, build it, and then it belongs to everyone? Bah. Tie him up and leave him to his universal income. That's all he'll ever make as a philosophy student.