1. Nozick

2. Common Sense View
No one is obligated to give to charity to others; Chairty/Giving to others is superogatroy
Conflict: with taxation (with purpose of foreign aid, welfare, social aid, etc)
Nozick: reject the legitimacy of taxation (or any form of similar coersion)
Rawls: reject

3. Entitlement Theory 3 Principles
Principle of Transfer – whatever is justly acquired can be freely transferred.
Principle of Just Initial Acquisition – an account of how people come initially to own the things that can be transferred in accordance with principle (1)
Principle of Rectification of Injustice – how to deal with holdings if they were unjustly acquired or transferred.

4. The wealthy are within their rights to keep everything
they can have and throw away what they have down the sewer

5. State
Nozick thinks that the state (to a great extent) should be abolished
The same argument can be made for most goods that taxation is spent on
Nozick: only the minimalist state is the only morally justified state
Enforcement of contracts
Protection against force and fraud

6. Historical vs. End-Result Principles
Historical Principles: distributive principles that depends upon how a distribution came about.
Current Time-Slice Principles (End-Result Principles): justice of a distribution is determined by how things are distributed, based on structural principles.
Entitlement Theory results in a non-patterned distribution.
A distribution is patterned iff it specifies that a distribution is to vary along with some natural dimension, weighted sum – (e.g. moral merit, IQ)
Rawlsean Theory of Justice is a patterned, time-slice theory
Nozick is attacking Rawlsean theories of justice

7. Nozick: Problems with Distributive Patterned Theories
On Rawls theory of justice a parent cannot give the bulk of their wealth to their children, rather, via taxation, most wealth would go to the least advantaged in society
Nozick thinks this undermines family values

8. Nozick: Patterned Theories are…
Paternalistic
By taxing its citizens and spending the money on, for example foreign aid, the state is assuming that its citizens cannot decide on their own what to do with their money
The state its paternalistic – the individual citizen can’t make the best decisions on their own, so the state will make it for them

9. Problem 2: redistribution is a violation of human rights
Worse than that a patterned based (distributive) theory is focing people to work
When the state taxes its citizen, the time spent working to pay for the taxes would have been spent different. So, if a citizen is taxed 30% of their income, 30% of their work hours are forced labour
Liberals allow forcing people – taxation of those who are needy
Furthermore, notice that liberals “… oppose forcing unemployed hippies to work for the benefit of the needy.” yet they have no problem forcing the wealthy work for needy. This is a form of inequality.
Nozick goes as far as saying that this form of forced labor is tantamount to slavery
If people force you to do certain work, for a certain period of time, they decide what you are to do and what purpose your work is to serve apart from your decisions
This process makes them a part-owner of you; you are their property of a portion of the year
Just as having partial control and power of decision by right over an animal or inanimate object would be to have a property right in it
There is a Kantian backdrop to Nozick theory – recall that humans should not be used as means to an end – and by taxing them that is precisely what the state does, according to Nozick.

10. Wilt Chamberlain Example
How does Nozick argue for his Just Theory – Entitlement Theory
Suppose we are in a ‘patterned’ society – i.e. all wealth is largely uniformly distributed
Now, suppose that Wilt Chamberlain (a highly talented NBA player) negotiates a contract such that people place .25 cents in a separate box in order to watch him play.
He makes this deal transparently with the team he plays for, the fans gladly pay to see him pay, so they are aware of the contract as well.
At the end of the year Chamberlain receives $250,000, more than any other player in the league.
Nozick argues that even though Chamberlain has an income much higher than the average citizen, he acquired the capital by just means
There just isn’t anything wrong with they way he acquired the income, and so there is nothing wrong with him keeping the wealth
Just acqusition, and just transfer of money (between fans and Chamberlain) are all that matter to distribution of wealth
How can the fans now ask for Chamberlain to be taxed so that they get some of the money back? That would not be a just transfer of wealth

11. Objection
There are a host of logistical problems in trying to get people to
On Nozick’s view, the only role a state has is to protect people from fraudulent exchanges of goods (theft, fraud, etc).
But, then it is difficult to organize people and to avoid freeloading?
How would the citizens agree on how much money should be spent on military spending? What if some citizens want a fire station and other do not? Should the firefighters let a building burn down because its owner has not contributed to the maintenance of a fire station?
Note that in many cases these are not insurmountable obstacles – think of tolls, electronic tolls on roads, etc.

12. Objection:
Justifies extreme disparities in wealth and income – and there is nothing wrong with this as long as proper contracts were made and wealth was justly acquired
For some, this is an unacceptable consequence of the view. Think of Singer’s pond analogy

13. Objections: Higher Rights than Right to Property
Nozick’s Assumption: Violating someone’s right to property is violating her rights. 
Suppose Jones knows that Susie is about to be raped.  The only way to save her is to steal Smith’s car to save her. 
We should not impinge upon Smith’s property rights in order to save Susie.
But aren’t there more fundamental rights than property?

14. Objection: Most property not justly acquired historically
A great deal of initial property was unjust, based on theft, exploitation, slavery, colonization, war, etc.
But, on Nozick’s view all acquisition is unjust that derives from unjust acquisition, no matter how far back the unjust transaction occured
Example:
Communism in Europe
Worse: Slavery in the United States, restitution for income gained
Restitution?
How can that injustice be rectified or even quantified?
Can we no rectify the injustices of the past?
Nozick’s theory has no application if we do not start from a just beginning, we must therefore work out a different theory of justice that is not so sensitive to past injustices that we cannot correct.