h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I disagree with all of the purported flaws highlighted in this review. The first two confuse the issue of the likelihood of practical success of a minimal state in the contemporary world with the more relevant issue of its philosophical legitimacy, and the third, I believe, misunderstands and misrepresents Nozick's entitlement theory of justice.

The question of whether or not the character of the members of a society is such that they would find a particular form of government congenial seems of no relevance to a discussion of political philosophy. Would it make sense to have similarly discredited writings on democracy, before the American revolution, on the grounds that in no society then extant was the notion of universal enfranchisement amenable to the majority of its constituents? The minimal state, by definition, respects the liberty of individuals; when it ceases to do so, it ceases to exist qua minimal state. Nozick's aim is to establish that this is the morally legitimate upper bound on the powers of the state, not that it is a stable equilibrium of a political evolution game. People may have constant incentives to disrupt the operation of the minimal state, but Nozick correctly argues that such action cannot be justified by any morally sound principles of government. As far as I can see, this first argument against his thesis merely holds that the notion of the minimal state is incorrect because an insufficient number of people currently agree with it.

The second point is an outgrowth of the first, and suffers from the same flaws. The question of whether or not a person believing himself or herself to be superior to another, is psychologically capable of respecting the liberty of the purported inferior is entirely irrelevant. If a person (for whatever reason) commits a transgression against another's liberty, he or she becomes a criminal, and is dealt with accordingly. It would undeniably be unfortunate if an epidemic of this behavior increased police and court costs to astronomical levels (though why is that any less of an issue in modern Western democracies, in which property rights are similarly enforced?) but this by itself does nothing to undermine the moral legitimacy of the libertarian notion of government.

Finally, it is claimed in the review that the entitlement theory of justice as adumbrated by Nozick is inherently dualistic (a global distribution of holdings is either entirely just or entirely unjust.) From where does this notion arise? I cannot recall Nozick making such a claim anywhere in the book. The entitlement theory says that an act is unjust if and only if it violates the principle of justice in acquisition or the principle of justice in transfer. The overall distribution is thus unjust to the extent that is brought about by unjust acts; the "sliding scale of justness" is in fact implicit in the theory throughout. But contra the opinion of the reviewer, this most emphatically does not open the door to patterned conceptions of justice. These are ruled out because of the impossibility (demonstrated convincingly by Nozick) of basing such conceptions on any morally coherent premises. The entitlement theory of justice does succeed in undermining patterned conceptions, but this is certainly not because it provides a dualistic definition of justice (because it doesn't.)

In short, the three objections to "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" presented in this review are either irrelevant or inaccurate, and thus the review does nothing to diminish its stature as a work of philosophical brilliance, and an eloquent exposition of the moral ideal that governments worldwide could and should aspire to reach.

Hi Daniel, thanks for your responses to my review.

If Nozick is demonstrating an upper limit on the 'morally legitimate' powers of a state, and those upper bounds are not compatible with a stable equilibrium (specifically, if it were so that in such a state there would be a tendency for an increase in state powers), then his work may not be wrong but irrelevant. It seems obvious to me that to advocate a particular form of government you either have to argue (at least plausibly) that it is stable or that it evolves into other desirable forms of government. Would you agree with that? If so, the question of stability, or of how a minimal state would evolve, are very significant. I'm certainly not saying it's incorrect 'because an insufficient number of people currently agree with it', but that it requires that everyone living in it abides by a very strict set of values (which I consider clearly antithetical to the spirit of libertarianism) in order to maintain stability.

"The overall distribution is thus unjust to the extent that is brought about by unjust acts; the "sliding scale of justness" is in fact implicit in the theory throughout."

OK, in which case you have to reply to the points in my second last paragraph in the review. What is to stop unjustness accumulating over time until it could, in principle and in my opinion probably in practice, reach huge proportions? Some, almost all socialists for example, would say that this is precisely what has happened in contemporary society.

Finally, I wasn't arguing that ASU is not a good work of philosophy, it obviously is, but that a minimal state is unfeasible, and that attempting to achieve a minimal state is undesirable. (The review emphasises the former point.)