3Nozick
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As explained by Richard Arneson in this volume, there have been various
critical reactions to democratic equality. Some endorse Rawls’s concern to
share the eVects of luck in a fair way, but argue that his pursuit of that
objective is insuYciently thoroughgoing. According to Susan Okin, for ex-
ample, Rawls fails to recognize the extent to which his principles condemn
injustice arising from gender-based inequalities in the distribution of labor
within the family (Okin 1989 ; and Rawls 2001 , 162 – 8 ), whilst G. A. Cohen has
argued that Rawls’s defense of incentive-generating inequalities depends on
an arbitrary restriction in the scope of his diVerence principle (Cohen 1997 ).
One of the most widely discussed early critiques of democratic equality was
far more hostile. InAnarchy, State and Utopia, Robert Nozick denied that
justice requires any attempt to mitigate the diVerential eVects of the social
and natural lottery (Nozick 1974 , 213 – 31 ). The main positive strategy Nozick
employed to support this conclusion involved claiming that an adequate
account of distributive justice will be anhistorical entitlement theory.
In making this claim, Nozick meant not just that any such account must
treat the past as relevant when assessing distributions. He also, and more
controversially, assumed that individuals possess entitlements, or extensive
private property rights (Waldron 1988 , ch. 2 ) over their bodies and labor, the
products of their labor, and non-produced, or natural, resources. These
entitlements encompass not only claim rights against certain forms of inter-
ference by others in an owner’s property, but also extensive powers to dispose
of property via waiver, donation, bequest, and market exchange. Emphasizing
their stringency, Nozick suggested that entitlements have near absolute im-
portance, and implied that they can be defeated, if at all, only in exceptional
circumstances; for example, when ‘‘catastrophic moral horror’’ would other-
wise be unavoidable (Nozick 1974 , 32 ).
wealth of the least advantaged but implying that ones which increase their occupational opportunities
are permissible. Admittedly, some of Rawls’s statements do support the more familiar interpretation.
Consider, for example, his remark that ‘‘positions are to be not only open in a formal sense, but that all
should have a fair chance to attain them,’’ and immediate explanation, ‘‘it is not clear what is meant,
but we might say that those with similar abilities and skills should have similar life chances. More
speciWcally, assuming there is a distribution of natural assets, those who are at the same level of talent
and ability, and have the same willingness to use them, should have the same prospects of success
regardless of their initial place in the social system’’ (Rawls 1999 a, 63 ). Note, however, Rawls refers to
this as merely a possible interpretation of his view.
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