Robert Nozick Quotes
Robert Nozick was an American philosopher and a longtime professor at Harvard. His Anarchy, State, and Utopia, published in 1974 in part as a response to Rawls's Theory of Justice, defended a libertarian minimal state on the grounds of individual rights and a historical, entitlement-based conception of justice. The quotes below are attributed to Robert Nozick, organized by topic.
Browse Robert Nozick by topic
Robert Nozick on Freedom
-
“Utopia is a meta-utopia: the environment in which Utopian experiments may be tried out; the environment in which people are free to do their own thing; the environment which must, to a great extent, be realized first if more particular Utopian visions are to be realized stably.”
Anarchy, State, and Utopia(1974) | Ch. 10 : A Framework for Utopia; The Framework, p. 312
Robert Nozick on Happiness
-
Attributed to Robert Nozick:
“Plug into an experience machine and you will not have lived a real life.”
Robert Nozick on Justice
-
“Whatever arises from a just situation by just steps is itself just.”
Ch. 7 : Distributive Justice, Section I, The Entitlement Theory, p. 151 -
“Individuals have rights and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do. How much room do individual rights leave for the state?”
Preface, p. ix -
“Justice in holdings is historical; it depends upon what actually has happened. We shall return to this point later.”
Anarchy, State, and Utopia(1974) | Ch. 7 : Distributive Justice, Section I, The Entitlement Theory, p. 152 -
“A distribution is just if it arises from another just distribution by legitimate means.”
Anarchy, State, and Utopia(1974) | Ch. 7 : Distributive Justice, Section I, The Entitlement Theory, p. 151 -
“It goes without saying that any persons may attempt to unite kindred spirits, but, whatever their hopes and longings, none have the right to impose their vision of unity upon the rest.”
Anarchy, State, and Utopia(1974) | Ch. 10 : A Framework for Utopia; The Framework as Utopian Common Ground, p. 325
Robert Nozick on Knowledge
-
“When I was 15 years old, or 16, I carried around on the streets of Brooklyn a paperback copy of Plato 's Republic , front cover facing outward. I had read only some of it and understood less, but I was excited by it and knew it was something wonderful.”
The Examined Life (1989) -
“Whatever the practical origins of aesthetic discernment may have been, it has been used to create great works of art . When the very loftiest human creations are seen to derive from humble origins and functions, what needs revision is not our esteem for these creations but our notion of nobility .”
The Nature of Rationality (1993), Ch. V : Instrumental Rationality and Its Limits; Rationality's Imagination, p. 181 -
“Is there really someone who, searching for a group of wise and sensitive persons to regulate him for his own good , would choose that group of people that constitute the membership of both houses of Congress?”
Ch. 2 : The State of Nature; Protective Associations, p. 14
Robert Nozick on Life
-
Attributed to Robert Nozick:
“Philosophy is not just doctrine; it is a way of living.”
-
“The Examined Life (1989)”
When I was 15 years old, or 16, I carried around on the streets of Brooklyn a paperback copy of Plato 's Republic , front cover facing outward. I had read only some of it and understood less, but I was excited by it and knew it was something wonderful. -
“Our principles fix what our life stands for, our aims create the light our life is bathed in, and our rationality, both individual and coordinate, defines and symbolizes the distance we have come from mere animality. It is by these means that our lives come to more than what they instrumentally yield. And by meaning more, our lives yield more.”
The Nature of Rationality (1993), Ch. V : Instrumental Rationality and Its Limits; Rationality's Imagination, p. 181 -
“Some people steal from others, or defraud them, or enslave them, seizing their product and preventing them from living as they choose, or forcibly exclude others from competing in exchanges. None of these are permissible modes of transition from one situation to another.”
Anarchy, State, and Utopia(1974) | Ch. 7 : Distributive Justice, Section I, The Entitlement Theory, p. 152
Robert Nozick on Politics
-
“The minimal state is the most extensive state that can be justified.”
Preface, p. ix -
“There is no social entity with a good that undergoes some sacrifice for its own good. There are only individual people, with their own individual lives.”
Ch. 3 : Moral Constraints and the State; Why Side Constraints?, p. 32 -
“Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor.”
Ch. 7 : Distributive Justice, Section I, Redistribution and Property Rights, p. 169 -
“Some anarchists have claimed not merely that we would be better off without a state, but that any state necessarily violates people's moral rights and hence is intrinsically immoral. Our starting point then, though nonpolitical, is by intention far from nonmoral. Moral philosophy sets the background for, and boundaries of, political philosophy . What persons may and may not do to one another limits what they may do through the apparatus of a state, or do to establish such an apparatus.”
Ch. 1 : Why State of Nature Theory?; Political Philosophy, p. 6 -
“Ch. 1 : Why State of Nature Theory?; Political Philosophy, p. 6”
Some anarchists have claimed not merely that we would be better off without a state, but that any state necessarily violates people's moral rights and hence is intrinsically immoral. Our starting point then, though nonpolitical, is by intention far from nonmoral. Moral philosophy sets the background for, and boundaries of, political philosophy . What persons may and may not do to one another limit -
“No state more extensive than the minimal state can be justified.”
Anarchy, State, and Utopia(1974) | Ch. 10 : A Framework for Utopia; The Framework, p. 297