1. “Present Payments, Past Wrongs: Correcting Loose Talk about Nozick and Rectification”
by Jan Narveson
Abstract: It is widely thought that Robert Nozick’s views on rectification of past injustices are of critical importance to his theory of distributive justice, even perhaps justifying wholesale redistributive taxes in the present because of the undoubted injustices that have pervaded much past history. This essay undertakes to correct this impression—not mostly by disagreeing with Nozick’s claims, but nevertheless proceeding on basic libertarian theory. Of enormous importance is the role of putative innocents, who are defrauded by miscreants carefully covering their tracks so that these recipients have no reason to think they are buying stolen property. But of equal importance is simply that the duty to rectify past injustices is not comparable to the original duty to respect property rights in the first place.
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Congrats on your opening, and thank goodness for the internet. MSM tends to dumb you down.
[...] first paper is up, Jan Narveson’s “Present Payments, Past Wrongs: Correcting Loose Talk about Nozick and Rectification.” Check it [...]
I too want to congratulate the beginning of this badly needed publication. And good paper by Narveson, very convincing defense of Nozick.
This is great — I’m looking forward especially to reading the Narveson piece.
While my congratulations also go to everyone involved with this wonderful project, I find it impossible to not dive right in to the concepts revealed in the particular article. (Forgive me but I’m not an academic or libertarian scholar, I’m just a guy who wants to learn more.)
The most thought-provoking to me was the briefly mentioned “negative rights” as opposed to “positive rights”. I take this to refer to the fact that we don’t have the right to do anything we want (our rights are not additive/positive) but instead the right to not be interfered with (reductive/negative). This concept is something that seems to me to be completely lost on the large part of society that views the idea of Anarchy as something to be feared and loathed instead of embraced. I’d be very grateful for any feedback or elaboration on this concept and how others interpret it and how it affects our culture.
(I haven’t read Nozick, so perhaps this would be clear if I did, but…)
I don’t follow why in case 2 (page 9) when A sells something to B that A stole from C, how this puts “B to considerable trouble and perhaps expense.” Especially in the case where B keeps and uses the stolen item.
Kathryn, I think (unless I’m misreading the paper) that what puts B to considerable trouble and perhaps expense would be requiring B to compensate A.
I just wanted to say how glad and pleased I am to see this project take shape. Well done.
From olde London towne,
Tom
Great piece, even though I am unfamiliar with Nozick’s work on redistributive justice, I feel this paper would help me immensely in reading it.
[...] young and independent scholars–as well as from established libertarian intellectuals such as Narveson, Higgs, van Dun, Salin, Kukathas, Block, and Machan. And, astoundingly, in our first half year we [...]
[...] young and independent scholars–as well as from established libertarian intellectuals such as Narveson, Higgs, van Dun, Salin, Kukathas, Block, and Machan. And, astoundingly, in our first half year we [...]
well done, great paper. The Indian lands issue had always been on my mind as an injustice that I had no idea what could be done about it within the libertarian framework of theory.
More to learn.
The issue, I think, is that this paper looks at things in a transactional-analysis type of way, while what we’re concerned with is global ideas. As libertarians, we seek a free world. If our ideas end up leading to forms of tyranny, we need to rethink things. If we would allow massive theft in the past to go uncorrected in the future, we are opening the door to forms of tyranny. In our connected world, yes, the fact that billions of dollars are regularly transferred from taxpayers to major corporations does suggest to me that the current property situation, prima facie, enjoys no particular merit.
I read Nozick about thirty years ago. I don’t like the term ‘rectification.’ For me the term ‘restitution’ is preferable. The idea of historical restitution is absurd.
Would modern day Germans have a case against Italians for the deeds of Julius Caesar? Would modern day Indians on the Asian subcontinent have a case against Macedonians for the deeds of Alexander the Great? The suggestion that this sort of thing might be the case is nonsense.
Restitution is owed by the party which has committed some violation of natural rights in the first place. It is not owed by their descendants many generations later.
We may lament any perceived imperfection in this, but it should stir us to the resolute determination of timely justice.
I appreciate this thought provoking article.