Robert Nozick Quotes on Justice
Robert Nozick was an American philosopher and a longtime professor at Harvard. This page collects quotes attributed to Robert Nozick on the topic of justice, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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“Whatever arises from a just situation by just steps is itself just.”
Ch. 7 : Distributive Justice, Section I, The Entitlement Theory, p. 151 -
“The minimal state is the most extensive state that can be justified.”
Preface, p. ix -
“Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor.”
Ch. 7 : Distributive Justice, Section I, Redistribution and Property Rights, p. 169 -
“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 -
“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