Robert Nozick's Original Position
An astute egalitarian in his fundamental system of beliefs, John Rawls’s theories and assertions established him as one of the great political thinkers of the modern era. Laying out the foundation of his work in the significantly debated A Theory of Justice, Rawls addresses the problem of distributive justice in contractual manner derived from prior Enlightenment thinkers such as Locke. Through it, Rawls looks to reach an end-state goal of basic liberties, such as the right to free speech and personal property, for all people as well as establishing a system where the poorest and least-advantageous people within a society may receive the greatest benefit possible, while also being assured the equality of opportunity, just the same as everyone
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As a contemporary of Rawls, and an unabashed libertarian, it was always safe to assume that Nozick and Rawls had fundamental disagreements on how societies should behave in order to adjudicate its members and produce the optimal outcome. Among Nozick’s chief concerns was the absolute right to property, what he saw as a fundamental right belonging to all people. Addressing this in his magnum opus, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), Nozick goes on to almost directly attack Rawls’s own views published just a few years prior. According to Nozick, under a veil of ignorance, where people are protected from outside notions, having absolute property rights contradicts Rawls’s theory since while it is an individual right, it has to be rejected in order for the Original Position to work. While this seems as if Nozick metaphorically shoots a hole through the veil of ignorance, it is instead a worthy suggestion that Nozick simply does not interpret the veil in a manner at all similar to Rawls. While Rawls does propose that the veil must let in individual rights so that they people can make a decision, in this instance there is nothing for the members of society to own as they are not yet participating members of said society. In turn, this would suggest that Nozick’s insistence on absolute property rights only becomes valid once the participatory members under the influence of the veil of ignorance enter society and have possessions to
As a contemporary of Rawls, and an unabashed libertarian, it was always safe to assume that Nozick and Rawls had fundamental disagreements on how societies should behave in order to adjudicate its members and produce the optimal outcome. Among Nozick’s chief concerns was the absolute right to property, what he saw as a fundamental right belonging to all people. Addressing this in his magnum opus, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), Nozick goes on to almost directly attack Rawls’s own views published just a few years prior. According to Nozick, under a veil of ignorance, where people are protected from outside notions, having absolute property rights contradicts Rawls’s theory since while it is an individual right, it has to be rejected in order for the Original Position to work. While this seems as if Nozick metaphorically shoots a hole through the veil of ignorance, it is instead a worthy suggestion that Nozick simply does not interpret the veil in a manner at all similar to Rawls. While Rawls does propose that the veil must let in individual rights so that they people can make a decision, in this instance there is nothing for the members of society to own as they are not yet participating members of said society. In turn, this would suggest that Nozick’s insistence on absolute property rights only becomes valid once the participatory members under the influence of the veil of ignorance enter society and have possessions to