Robert Nozick Quotes

Only the refusal to listen guarantees one against being ensnared by the truth.

Maximising the average utility allows a person to kill everyone else if that would make him ecstatic, and so happier than average.

From each as they choose, to each as they are chosen.

un Estado mínimo, limitado a las estrechas funciones de protección contra la violencia, el robo y el fraude, de cumplimiento de contratos, etcétera, se justifica; que cualquier Estado más extenso violaría el derecho de las personas de no ser obligadas a hacer ciertas cosas y, por tanto, no se justifica; que el Estado mínimo es inspirador, asi como correcto.

When I was 15 years old, or 16, I carried around on the streets of Brooklyn a paperback copy of Plato's Republic, front cover facing outward. I had read only some of it and understood less, but I was excited by it and knew it was something wonderful.

A distribution is just if it arises from another just distribution by legitimate means.

If D1 was a just distribution, and people voluntarily moved from it to D2, transferring parts of their shares they were given under D1 (what was it for if not to do something with?), isn't D2 also just? If the people were entitled to dispose of the resources to which they were entitled (under D1), didn't this include their being entitled to give it to, or exchange it with, Wilt Chamberlain? Can anyone else complain on grounds of justice? Each other person already has his legitimate share under D1. Under D1, there is nothing that anyone has that anyone else has a claim of justice against. After someone transfers something to Wilt Chamberlain, third parties still have their legitimate shares; their shares are not changed. By what process could such a transfer among two persons give rise to a legitimate claim of distributive justice on a portion of what was transferred, by a third party who had no claim of justice on any holding of the others before the transfer?

You can't satisfy everybody; especially if there are those who will be dissatisfied unless not everybody is satisfied.

Once a person exists, not everything compatible with his overall existence being a net plus can be done, even by those who created him. An existing person has claims, even against those whose purpose in creating him was to violate those claims.

Political philosophers now must either work within Rawls' theory or explain why not.

Is there really someone who, searching for a group of wise and sensitive persons to regulate him for his own good, would choose that group of people who constitute the membership of both houses of Congress?)

Прудон дал нам описание «неудобств», сопутствующих государству. «Когда вами ПРАВЯТ — это значит, что за вами наблюдают, проверяют, шпионят, вас направляют, преследуют по закону,
пересчитывают, регулируют, регистрируют, внушают идеи, поучают, контролируют, обследуют, оценивают,
хвалят, порицают и командуют создания, не имеющие нужных для этого прав, мудрости и достоинств.
Когда вами ПРАВЯТ — это значит, что при каждой операции, при каждой сделке вас отмечают,
регистрируют, пересчитывают, облагают налогом, штемпелюют, нумеруют, штрафуют, лицензируют, дают
разрешение, указывают, предостерегают, запрещают, улучшают, исправляют, наказывают. Это значит под
предлогом общественной пользы и во имя общих интересов подвергаться сборам, муштре, поборам,
эксплуатации, монополии, вымогательствам, притеснениям, обману, изъятиям; а при малейшем
сопротивлении, при первом слове протеста вас усмиряют, штрафуют, чернят, изнуряют, преследуют,
жестоко обращаются, избивают, разоружают, связывают, душат, бросают в тюрьму, осуждают, выносят
приговор, расстреливают, высылают, приносят в жертву, продают, предают и, в довершение ко всему, над
вами глумятся, издеваются, превращают в посмешище, оскорбляют, бесчестят. Таково государство; такова
его справедливость; таковы его моральные правила» (P. J. Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution in the
Nineteenth Century, trans. John Beverly Robinson (London: FreedomPress, 1923), pp. 293 — 294, с некоторыми
вставками из перевода Бенджамина Такера в его книге: Benjamin Tucker, Instead of a Book (New York, 1893),
p. 26.

One persistent strand in utopian thinking, as we have often mentioned, is the feeling that there is some set of principles obvious enough to be accepted by all men of good will, precise enough to give unambiguous guidance in particular situations, clear enough so that all will realize its dictates, and complete enough to cover all problems which actually arise. Since I do not assume that there are such principles, I do not presume that the political realm will whither away. The messiness of the details of a political apparatus and the details of how it is to be controlled and limited do not fit easily into one's hopes for a sleek, simple utopian scheme.

Is not the minimal state, the framework for utopia, an inspiring vision? The minimal state treats us as inviolate individuals, who may not be used in certain ways by others as means or tools or instruments or resources; it treats us as persons having individual right with the dignity this constitutes. Treating us with respect by respecting our rights, it allows us, individually or with whom we please, to choose our life and to realize our ends and our conception of ourselves, insofar as we can, aided by the voluntary cooperation of other individuals possessing the same dignity. How dare any state or group of individuals do more. Or less.

Some anarchists have claimed not merely that we would be better off without a state, but that any state necessarily violates people's moral rights and hence is intrinsically immoral. Our starting point then, though nonpolitical, is by intention far from nonmoral. Moral philosophy sets the background for, and boundaries of, political philosophy. What persons may and may not do to one another limits what they may do through the apparatus of a state, or do to establish such an apparatus.