Nozick's Argument Analysis

Rawls advises that if people would choose a different principle to regulate liberty, such as from a position of self-interest, then the result would be discrimination against some people viz., those who are not like oneself. The subsequent situation would then be an approval of a reduced liberty for everyone. Therefore, by using the veil of ignorance, and justifying that the people in the original position are “rational and mutually disinterested,” Rawls is able to answer the objection of self-interest (12). The original position reveals that no “rational and mutually disinterested” person would ever agree with discrimination, or potential loss of liberty, if his or her own particular social position, psychological motive, etc. were unknown (Rawls 12).

Now, the argument from Nozick is a little more …show more content…
As an example, Nozick uses “the principle of distribution according to moral merit” (Nozick 156). This supposition requires a variation of total distributive shares centered on moral merit. Nonetheless, the principle could easily be changed to the principle of distribution “…according to usefulness to society” (Nozick 156). Either way, the point is that a principle of distribution is patterned “if it specifies that a distribution is to vary along with some natural dimension, weighted sum of natural dimension, or lexicographic ordering of natural dimension” (Nozick 156). Perhaps the most famous of this type of patterning principle is the Marxist declaration “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!” (Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program, 465). Nozick explains that this type of patterning of principles undermines the task of a theory of distributive justice. If the task of distributive justice is “to fill in the blank in ‘each according to his _______’ is to be predisposed to search for a pattern” (Nozick