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Three Principles Of Nozick's Entitlement Theory

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Nozick proposes a definition of justice surrounding liberty. He formulates an entitlement theory comprising of three principles which result in freedom to be absolutely entitled to property and the self. Nozick defends his entitlement theory with a Wilt Chamberlain illustration.His argument maintains that patterned principles of just distribution depart from a historical scheme and, in doing so, involve unacceptable infringements of liberty. Despite being a persuasive and strong argument, the difficult aspect of this is that Nozick does not clearly tell us how to properly satisfy what those three principles require. There are three main principles of Nozick’s entitlement theory: justice in acquisition, which accounts how people come about …show more content…

Nozick supposes that any transfer, if it is freely consented to, is just. Liberty entails voluntary decisions because you decide how to constrain your life, but this makes Nozick’s theory seem very controversial, because it could justify very unequal distributions of property that may not respect what people deserve, nor what they need or give any kind of priority to people who are worse off. In a robbery, if a thief says “give me your phone or I will shoot you” and the victim gives his or her phone, they have voluntarily chosen to give the thief their phone and using Nozick’s theory this transfer would be …show more content…

All property that derives from unjust acquisition is unjustly held. You do not have a right to transfer property you stole, nor does the new owner have a right to what they receive from the transfer. It would be difficult, perhaps impossible to now attempt to rectify that injustice of the past. There is no way of determining what belongs to whom. Nozick’s theory cannot be applied without starting from a just beginning; a different theory of justice might have to be created that is not sensitive to past injustices that we cannot correct. Thus the historical nature of Nozick’s theory could be described as a weakness in his theory. Nozick’s theory embraces an idea that individuals should lead their lives as autonomously as possible. It gives a great amount of liberty to an individual, and it acknowledges a past of injustices. However, objections are that it might not be as good in practice as in theory as Nozick fails to clearly tell us how it should work and it prefers protecting interference of rights and not on the possible consequences of the

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