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From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Reparations, Indians, Property
Message-ID: <5384@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 31-Mar-85 06:15:07 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5384
Posted: Sun Mar 31 06:15:07 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 31-Mar-85 06:15:07 EST
References: <863@wucs.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 32

Paul,
Not all libertarians find Nozick's entitlement theory palatable. There
is a book called ``reading Nozick'' which outlines some of the objections.
In it there is an article on Indian land rights, as well...

I have a problem with Nozick's formal definition of a ``rightful holding''.
Anything that you have acquired, either through mixing your labour with
something unclaimed is yours, and anything that you acquired through a fair
exchange of goods is also rightfully yours. The problem is that when Nozick gets
down to this as a principle of justice several problems arise.

Suppose I am a believer in the Volcano God and in a fit of religious frenzy
I rob all of my neighbours of goods and toss them into the volcano. Next
morning my neighbours wake up. All of the goods which they now have they
have obtained fairly. All of the goods which I now have I have obtained
fairly. According to Nozick, following his definitions, this distribution
is just. This does not square with my definition of justice.

Worse, suppose I steal your vegetables and trade it to another man for a
chicken. Following Nozick, I find that the robber is entitled to what he
has and that the chicken seller has to give the chicken back, since the
chicken seller is not entitled to the vegetables. There is something wrong
here as well.

Somebody (Jeffery Paul? Ellen Frankel Paul) has reformulated Nozick's
entitlement theory to avoid these problems. But other libertarians think
that to worry about entitlement is foolish -- you just prevent injustices
(like robbery and murder) and then whatever is left over is just, since it was
not as a result of injust actions.

Laura Creighton
utzoo!laura