PPE 2023

 I really found the latter part of "How Liberty Upsets Patterns" and the beginning of "Redistribution and Property Rights" to be the most fascinating parts of Nozick's Chapter 7 of Anarchy, State and Utopia. In particular, the section wherein Nozick clarifies that the whole point of the Wilt Chamberlain analogy is to demonstrate that "no end-state principle or distributional patterned principle of justice can be continuously realized without continuous interference with people's lives." (Nozick 163) He goes on to explain that any artificial state of egalitarianism would instantly be upset by people's voluntary actions; for example, the mere act of giving a gift would tilt the balance of total equality. The only way, therefore, in Nozick's words, to achieve a truly equal society on all levels is by constantly interfering "to stop people from transferring resources as they wish to, or continually (or periodically) interfere to take from ...

Nozick’s principle of distribution states that “a distribution is just if everyone is entitled to the holdings they possess under the distribution” (151). To consider if one is entitled to this distribution, Nozick states that the distribution must follow the historical principle versus non-historical principles (current time-slice and end-result principles). This means that we must look at how the distribution came about and what actually happened rather than how things are distributed and who ends with what. For example, distribution following a non-historical principle may look like distribution according to the “weighted sum of moral merit, usefulness to society, and need…” (156). Nozick argues that if we view distribution using the end-result principle, a pattern of justice can arise. A pattern of justice dictates and justifies distribution on the account of how and where things are distributed. For example, in a utilitarian society, things are distributed in a way that would resu...

I found Nozick’s interpretations a little dense, and wanted to outline my understanding of some of his points to see if I’m grasping them accurately in application to his later arguments. In Nozick’s “Entitlement Theory,” he discusses three main topics, or rules, on property as he interprets Locke. From the empirical issues, he draws three principles of justice:  1. “The principle of justice in acquisition,” (150): He generally defines this principle as the ways in which the “unheld” can come to be property, the items that are capable of being held, and the extent of such holdings. He emphasizes that this principle is not patterned, meaning that the ways in which people can acquire property is not in one same dimension. He outlines the example that valid ways to gain property (like gambling, receiving gifts, sharing, taking a loan, etc.) have no pattern in common, yet are all valid ways to have property. 2. “The principle of justice in transfer,” (150): This stems from how a perso...

 I want to think through Nozick's argument on how liberty upsets patterns and its greater implications. To start, Nozick distinguishes between patterned and unpatterned principles. Patterned principles, which distribute goods based on some natural dimensions, differ from unpatterned approaches, Nozick's preference, which distributes goods without a pattern.  Nozick argues how liberty upsets patterns to assert that patterned approaches to distribution are unjust. Nozick presents his infamous Wilt Chamberlain analogy to rule out ALL patterned principles. First, we start in D1, any patterned distribution of our choosing (from each according to their height, wealth, intelligence, etc) – any distribution we find just. Then, Nozick introduces Wilt Chamberlain, a great basketball star who many people want to watch play. Wilt Chamberlain then signed a new contract stipulating that he would make 25 cents off each purchased ticket to see his team. So, all attendees buy their tickets and...

 To begin, Hobbes and Locke fundamentally disagree on the degree of property rights that one possesses in the state of nature. Firstly, Locke believes that everyone "has a property  in his own person : this no body has any right to but himself." (Locke 19) Already, this is at odds with Hobbes' conception, as he says that " every man has a Right to every thing; even to one anothers body. And therefore, as long as this naturall Right of every man to every thing endureth, there can be no security to any man, (how strong or wise soever he be,) of living out the time, which Nature ordinarily alloweth men to live." (Hobbes 105) Fundamentally, we see a dichotomy here in Hobbes and Locke's conception of natural rights; Locke maintains that everyone has the right to life even without the existence of a state to enforce it, which Hobbes disagrees with. I thought about this in the context of last class's discussion, and I still maintain that Locke's conception ...

Something that stuck out to me about Locke’s understanding of property rights was his conception of labor in relation to the acquisition of property. According to Locke, laboring upon a common resource makes that resource one’s property. This is because man has a right to his labor, so mixing his labor with anything makes that thing his property. Furthermore, Locke claims that because labor takes effort, people have no incentive to acquire more property than they can enjoy: “it was a foolish thing, as well as dishonest, to hoard up more than he could make use of” (28). However, with modern technology, people can “labor” upon common resources without exerting very much effort. For example, the modernization of farming technology allows farmers to harvest more crops with the same, or even less, amount of effort. Thus, while people were once disincentivized from taking more property than they could enjoy, they now have little reason to limit their acquisitions as they can acquire much gre...

     When Locke conceives of Earth as a common land given to all men by God, of which we all have an equal right to ownership over. How, then, does a piece of common land become the property of any one man? If they can work the land to produce materials essential to maintain the human condition, the land becomes private property. Through this system, no person may possess more than they can reasonably develop or hoard more goods than they can consume or trade.       Locke's argument fundamentally rejected the feudal system, which stipulated that rulers owned land and distributed it to vassals. The idea of common land in which all men have equal rights uproots the system of power the traditional aristocratic class of Locke's time relied on. Locke's ideals mirrored the rise of a landed class of common people. By extension, the birth of the democratic system of government centered around protecting natural rights, such as private property. Despite Locke's...

  I found Locke’s tethered analysis connecting God’s purpose of giving mankind earth to a justification for property rights compelling (despite it being a heavily religiously backed argument rather than one solely based on reason). Whether one believes in God or God’s purpose, human beings have been put on an earth full of materials meant for human sustenance. He writes, “God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life, and convenience” (18). This means of appropriation accounts for human use of the fruits of the earth to help them live and prosper. This is done through means of labor, which Locke connects to individual property. If one has planted a seed, which produces a vegetable after farming (labor), that vegetable belongs to the person who combined the “seed” with their labor to thus produce something that is theirs. In a natural state, the world has been given “to men in common,” expressing equalit...

  Locke establishes a unique and independent role for women within the state of nature. He makes a clear distinction between the power and responsibilities of men and women. First he shows the dynamic within the family by outlining that the mother has equal title and power when it comes to the family’s children. He quotes scripture to display that God intends the family structure to include the influence of both parents. He goes on to say that parental power is a more accurate way to describe the family than the word paternal (30-31). Women also play a role in raising the children and for this reason deserve honor and respect as well, “the obligation on the parents to bring up their children, and the obligation on children to honor their parents” (39). Both the mother and father share the role of bringing up the children and receive honor in return.        Locke goes on to explain that humans were made as social beings and have a natural tendency to look for sup...

     Locke makes us focus on what the "right of property" means. He starts with the idea that all men are created equal but that "every man has a  property  in his own person: this nobody has any right but himself" (19). The definition made sense to me, but my mind automatically applied his definition to today's government in the United States. We are in a present time where the body of women is being dictated to and criminalized by the government, thus contradicting one's right to themselves. The politics on abortions tend to dismiss the women's existence because their body's autonomy (which I think Locke is hinting at) is becoming debated by leaders who are supposed to value consent.        Furthermore, Locke moves on to state that the right to oneself is their labor and work, but that is not the case in the United States. Coming from an immigrant household, I question my parent's property rights. Why is there no written existence of their ...

 These chapters on property, consent, and government were striking to read as they are so foundational to the government that I have lived under. As I read, I thought a lot of the start of American government. Not only did the reading inspire me to think about the past, I also thought about how Locke's writing has implications on property and government today. Locke raises an objection to his assertion that property can be obtained by taking any part of what is common, and removing it out of the state nature leaves it in through labor, without the consent of any body. The objection, which addressed a worry that I generated, was that a man could ingross as much as he will, and take more than his share. To this objection, Locke says that God has given us all things to the extent that we can enjoy them. And whatever is beyond that is more than his share, for God did not make anything for men to spoil or destroy. Additionally, with land, water, etc. there needs to be enough left over f...

One of the most interesting aspects of Hobbes' Leviathan to me was his conception of freedom. What first got me thinking about this was when he writes, "there does not follow from it that misery which accompanies the liberty of particular men" (78). It struck me to hear misery as a description for freedom. When I imagine freedom from the government, my mind immediately thinks of it as a good thing. I often think of humans before government as pure and free. I imagine it as freedom from the burdensome constraints of social pressures and government laws. However, Hobbes believes that we basically lose everything if there is freedom from government. Hobbes' perspective is very convincing and I agree with him that there are many side effects to freedom. This idea of the misery of freedom lead me to think about freedom in my own life, even if it isn't freedom from government. A concept that I have read about is how having too many choices can be a really bad thing for ...

  Thomas Hobbes’s conception of nature ties into the modern international relations theory of anarchy. Both suppose that humans exist in a state of anarchy in which there is an absence of a supreme authority. With no “external impediments,” such as the absence of supreme authority, mankind has a natural right to freedom/liberty. There is no objective sense of what is right or wrong, or just or unjust. Thus, to Hobbes, this allows for a constant state of war that humans must strive to create peace in order to protect themselves, as he says, “...the first and fundamental law of nature, which is: to seek peace and follow it” (80). He lays out his conditions in a list of laws of nature, which he summarized as, “Do not that to another which thou wouldest not have done to thyself,” (97), which is essentially the golden rule principle; treat others as you would want to be treated.  This reminded me of our analysis of King’s speech in the previous class, where he separates desegregati...

  There were multiple parts of Locke's " Second Treatise of Government"  that caught my eye and left me questioning. More specifically, chapter II (Of the State of Nature) and chapter III (Of the State of War).     Starting with the State of Nature, the idea of "perfect freedom" was interesting because of the connection to the availability of decision-making/choices, which relates to the previous King's essay. More specifically, I focused on Locke's idea that "power and jurisdiction are reciprocal, no one having more than another," but that the exception is when a "lord or master" placed someone in a higher position of power (8). My mind when straight to the responsibility of one who holds power. At times the issue then becomes that power evolves to be the driving factor in marginalizing individuals within communities. Having this exist shows the opposite of Hooker's perspective that "...brought men to know that it is no less...

The state of nature is one in which society is free to govern themselves, or as Locke puts it, “That in the state of nature every one has the executive power of the law of nature.” (Locke 12) The law of nature also dictates that no individual has the right to infringe on another’s life, liberty or property (which seems fair as the bedrock for civil society). If the law is broken, then in the state of nature, the injured party must themselves enact retribution. Locke (quite lengthily) details this principle as follows:  “Which being a trespass against the whole species, and the peace and safety of it, provided for by the law of nature, every man upon this score, by the right he hath to preserve mankind in general, may restrain, or where it is necessary, destroy things noxious to them, and so may bring such evil on any one, who hath transgressed that law, as may make him repent the doing of it, and thereby deter him, and by his example others, from doing the like mischief. And in the...

  Locke and Hobbes differ in their conception of the state of nature, which contributes to their differing understandings of what legislative power and sovereign power should entail. According to Locke, the State of Nature is a state of perfect equality and freedom in which all men are bound to preserve themselves. In the State of Nature, men can only do harm to one another for the purposes of reparation and restraint. Otherwise, Locke writes, “no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty,or possessions: for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker…they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one another’s pleasure” (Locke 9). Thus, because all men are made equally by God, it would be unjust to bring harm to other men without reason, even in the state of nature. Conversely, Hobbes argues that there is nothing just or unjust in the State of Nature, and that justice and injustice are constructs of socie...

  Locke's view of property and the role of government in protecting it has always struck me as the biggest flaw in his understanding of the laws of nature. In the state of nature, Locke claims that a person has "uncontrollable liberty to dispose of his person and possessions," and so government, established to enforce the laws of nature without the need for violence, can only be legitimate if it protects the liberty to dispose of property. Infringements on that liberty can only be for the purpose of protecting it, such as the imposition of taxes to raise an army. Locke's theory of legitimate government therefore does not allow the legislative to infringe on property rights in order to promote general welfare, something almost every modern state does. I think that this results from Locke's reductive emphasis on "liberties" in his view of the state of nature and the reason that we choose to leave it. Humans are naturally social. We have always lived in gro...

 Locke describes the natural state of man as "a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature," (8). He argues that this natural state binds all liberties and actions simply by virtue of existing, distinguishing man's actual liberty from a "state of license," (9). While man has the facilities to act in his own freedom, he may not take liberty "to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession," (9). These bounds seem to govern the actions of man through what Locke describes as the "law of nature." The way in which he expanded from here was slightly confusing to me, but this is what I grasped as his meaning: 1) since men are all "equal and independent," they do not have the freedom to inflict harm to another's "life, health, liberty, or possessions;" 2) people are called to preserve themselves and ...

The Hobbesian state of nature is a "condition of war" (80) of "every man against every man" (78). "The life of man," Hobbes writes, is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" (76). Hobbes posits that the state of nature results in war because men are roughly equal in their capabilities such that any man can kill another man. This equality, coupled with scarcity, results in what Hobbes calls "diffidence" (75), the anticipation of an attack. From diffidence, arises war. Other causes of war include competition and glory, which respectively stem from men attacking for gain or reputation (77). Since the state of nature is chaotic and unpredictable, "there is no place for the industry" (76) and therefore no creation of any of the landmarks of civilization (culture, navigation, architecture, etc.). Hobbes argues that to remedy the state of nature, men transfer their rights to a sovereign power---this is the process of entering in...

In Locke's State of Nature, everyone is born with natural rights to life, liberty, and property. He writes that men are naturally in a "state of perfect freedom," and that humans are born into equality with no power or jurisdiction over another (Second Treatise of Government, 8). Locke's State of Nature is similar to Hobbes' in the sense that the State of Nature is inherently chaotic and because of this, contracts need to be formed for the protection of these rights.  In chapter 14 of Leviathan in which Hobbes states that men should “be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defense of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself " (Leviathan, 81). Hobbes essentially argues that men should simply renounce and transfer their rights to some common power in the defense of their lives and the protection of peace...

 An Analysis of Property Rights and Equality - Dara Schoolcraft      According to John Locke in his book The Second Treatise of Government , property rights start with the individual. He says, "every man has a property in his own person" (19). The most fundamental part of property is the right of each individual to own and control their own body. It is this right that is then extended to create a property right in material things outside of the person. Locke describes an acorn or an apple that is gathered by a person as being their property because, "he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and hereby makes it his property" (19). Combining goods or material found in the natural world with labor combines the goods with the right to property in each individual. By mixing labor and goods a right to property is established and a distinction is made between what is a common good and what is now private property.      The wa...

I found Locke's view of consent interesting while reading the Second Treatise. Locke asserts that men join contracts and form governments to protect their property and ensure fair systems of punishment (and a common judge to appeal to). But, Locke's argument on consent to join and live under a government is subject to objections. Consent is a focal point of Locke's argument on government. Locke requires individual consent to form a government. In fact, he argues that men can become full members of society by expressing consent to a government. Locke's argument on tacit consent does not entirely convince me that most people consented to the government they live under.  Locke's argument on consent leaves an important question unanswered: how can people born into a government consent to its rule? Locke argues that there is a difference between people who gave expressed or tacit consent to be governed. Expressed consent exists when an initial group  leaves the State of ...

  What is Hobbes’s conception of the State of Nature, and what role does this conceit play in his account of Sovereign power? What are the Laws of Nature, and what are their force? How are to understand moral right and wrong in the absence of a Sovereign power? What role does the human faculty of  reason  play in our obligation to obey the Sovereign? Why should we keep our contracts? How do property rights arise, and what are their limits? Why does Hobbes say the family, even in a state of nature, is a monarchy? What are the differences and similarities between natural and civil laws? Between relations of dominion and relations of right? What forms of liberty or freedom should political subjects care about? Does Hobbes’s conception of the liberty of subject adequately account for them? What is Locke’s conception of the State of Nature, and does it play the same role in his account of legislative power as Hobbes’s plays in his account of Sovereign power? What is the Law of...

 As Allen points out, understanding life-quality freedom as both positive and nonsacrificeable challenges the traditional liberal view of positive freedoms, and thereby places a higher and more complex ethical burden on society. Her and King's understanding of life-quality freedom, however, does not change the structure of the relationship between freedoms and material goods. It simply moves those material goods necessary for life-quality freedom to the side of the equation with other nonsacrifceable freedoms such as "autonomy, association, and expression."  Allen describes exactly how these nonsacrifeable freedoms interact: "freedom can be restricted to to expand freedom or to ensure that all have the same basic liberties." Life-quality freedom for a single person, and the provision of "basic goods" towards material well-being that it entails, can therefore be foregone to maximize the combined life-quality freedom and traditional nonsacrificeable free...

  This week when opening Instagram, I noticed many organizations calling out politicians and politics on various posts for washing down King's message to American society. Luckily the reading "The Ethical Demands for Integration" allowed some exposure to King's beliefs and philosophy towards desegregation during the 1960s. I agree with King's assertion on how we as a society can move towards a United States that stays true to its constitution. The truth is that "desegregation alone is empty and shallow," and we also need integration (118).    However, King's three needed recognitions for the demanded issue left me with some thoughts and questions. Starting with his first point, which centered around the "recognition of the sacrednesses of human personality," he left me questioning the importance of integration (118). I agree with King's analysis of religion and politics when discussing how each individual within the human race is an ...

While I'm not sure I agree with Allen's argument on a mathematical fantasy to its full extent I do agree that there is a sort of idealism that a lot of King's arguments carry. When she first addresses the idea of a "mathematical fantasy," she raises the question of what image is evoked by the "I Have a Dream" speech (150). In doing so, she aptly points out the assumption that most of us carry in imagining equal representation - like a checkerboard, as she puts it. I found this section of her argument to be compelling context for the argument she then weaves. She says, "it was never possible for black and white to be, as in King's words, elbow-to-elbow, in the sense of evenly distributed throughout the population," and that this fact (in combination with King's words) creates a mathematical fantasy (151). I was reminded of some of the discussions surrounding college campus diversity in this segment of her writing, as I have heard similar...

  MLK writes that denying freedom is a denial of life while outlining his second ethical demand for integration. After outlining what freedom is, King ultimately asserts that the evilness of segregation eliminates man’s ability to deliberate, decide, and respond (his qualifications for freedom). But what does King’s analysis surmount to considering the concept of negative and positive liberties? I believe that one can utilize King’s work alongside the political theory of liberty to distinguish between positive and negative liberty and King’s argument on integration and desegregation.  Negative liberty, from my understanding, is freedom from interference. A person is free under a negative definition of liberty when they are free from interference in their religious practices or free from persecution because of their race or gender; they can do what they want without any obstacles. Meanwhile, positive liberties are the freedoms to act however they choose. So, positive freedom ...