Ȅǿȅ Partʺʺ: Politics and Philosophynoting that it, like the racket, is an unproductive activity, whereas bona
fide protective services are productive (NozickȀȈȆȃ, pp.ȇȄ–ȇȅ). (Rothbard
ȀȈȆȆ, pp.ȄȂ–ȄȄ, rejects Nozick’s distinction, but with arguments that strike
me as feeble, even though they too are in part, unavowedly, utilitarian.)
Tacit utilitarianism creeps into the discussion of risky activities also.
Suppose that your neighbor handles explosives recklessly or plays Russian
roulette with a cannon mounted on a turntable. Even if he has liability
insurance, he harms you, probably by raising your own insurance rates,
lowering the value of your property, and striking fear and apprehension
into you. You might plausibly argue that your neighbor is infringing on
your rights, even though no explosion or cannon ball happens to damage
your house. Rothbard appears to brush aside such problems by asking, in
effect: If “fear” of others’ “risky” activities is allowed to justify action against
them, won’tanytyranny become justified? What about the greater risk of
having a state empowered to control activities it deems risky? (Rothbard
ȀȈȆȆ, esp. pp.ȃȇ–Ȅǿ. Ļe particular example used here is mine, not Roth-
bard’s or Nozick’s, but it suits the general tenor of their discussion.)
Nozick (ȀȈȆȃ, pp.Ȇȃ–ȆȄ,Ȇȇ), on the other hand, candidly recognizes
that “Actions that risk crossing another’s boundary pose serious problems
for a natural-rights position.... Imposing how slight a probability of a
harm that violates someone’s rights also violates his rights? ... It is difficult
to imagine a principled way in which the natural-rights tradition can draw
the line to fix which probabilities impose unacceptably great risks upon
others.” Many kinds of actions do impose some degree of risk on others.
A society that prohibited them all unless the actors had adequate means or
adequate insurance to pay for possible harm would “ill fit a picture of a free
society as one embodying a presumption in favor of liberty, under which
people permissibly could perform actions so long as they didn’t harm oth-
ers in specified ways.”—Again, the good-society approach, utilitarianism!
Other utilitarian strands are evident in Nozick’s book. His flexibility
about property rights is an example. He supposes that a natural disaster
destroys the entire supply of water except one man’s, which is sufficient for
everyone. Under these circumstances, other persons may take the water
or at least are not obliged to pay whatever exorbitant price its owner may
demand. Nozick appeals to the Lockean proviso that one man’s appropri-
ation of a resource is justified only if it leaves enough and as good of that
resource for others. He is not, in his own view, saying that recognized
property rights may be overridden. Instead, “Considerations internal to
the theory of property itself, to its theory of acquisition and appropriation,