Funding for this program provided by Additional funding provided by When we finished last time, we were looking at John Stuart Mill's and his attempt to reply to the critics of Bentham's utilitarianism in his book Utilitarianism, Mill tries to show that critics to the contrary, it is possible within utilitarian framework to distinguish
between higher and lower pleasures, it is possible to make qualitative distinctions of worth, and we tested of that idea with the Simpsons in the Shakespeare excerpts and the results of our experiment seemed to call into question Mill's distinctions because a great many of you reported that you prefer the Simpsons but that you still consider Shakespeare to be the higher for the worthier pleasure that's the dilemma with which our experiment confronts Mill. what about Mill's attempt to account for especially weighty character of individual rights and justice in chapter
five of utilitarianism? he wants to say that individual rights are worthy of special respect in fact he goes so far as to say that justice
is the most sacred part and the most incomparably binding
part of morality but the same challenge could be put to this part of Mill's defense why is justice the chief part and the most binding part of our morality? well
he says because in the long run if we do justice and if we respect rights, society as a whole will be better off in the long run. well what about that? what if we have a case where making an exception
and violating individual rights actually will make people better off in the long run is it all right
then? to use people? and there's a further objection that could be raised against Mill's case for justice and rights suppose the utilitarian calculus in the long run
works out as he says it will such that respecting people's rights is a way of making everybody better off
in the long run is that the right reason is that the only reason to respect people? if the doctor goes in and yanks the organs from the healthy patient
who came in for a checkup to save five lives there would be adverse effects in the long
run eventually people would learn about this and would stop going in for checkups is it the right reason is the only reason that you as a doctor won't yanked the organs out of a healthy
patient that you think well if I use him in this way in the long run more lives will be lost? or is there another reason having to do with intrinsic respect for the
person as an individual and if that reason matters and it's not so clear that even Mill's utilitarianism can take account of it fully to examine these two worries or objections to Mill's defense we need to we need to push further we need to ask in the case of higher or worthier pleasures are there theories of the good life that can provide independent moral standards for the worth of pleasures? if so what do they look like? that's one question in the case of justice and rights if we suspected that Mill is implicitly leaning
on notions of human dignity or respect for persons that are not, strictly speaking, utilitarian we need to look to see whether there are some
stronger theories of rights that can explain the intuition which even Mill shares the intuition that the reason for respecting individuals
and not using them goes beyond even utility in the long run. today we turn to one of those strong theories of rights strong theories of rights say individuals matter not just as instruments to be used for a
larger social purpose or for the sake of maximizing utility individuals are separate beings with separate lives worthy of respect and so it's a mistake according to strong theories rights, it's a mistake to think about justice or law by just getting up preferences and values the strong rights theory we turn to today is libertarianism libertarianism take individual rights seriously it's called libertarianism because it says the
fundamental individual right is the right to liberty precisely because we are separate individual
beings we're not available to any use that the society might desire or devise. precisely because
we're individual separate human beings we have a fundamental right to liberty and that means a right to choose freely to live our lives as we please provided we respect other people's rights to do the same that's the fundamental idea Robert Nozick one of the libertarian philosophers we read for this course puts it this way individuals have rights so strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything the state may do. so what does libertarianism say about the role of government or of the state well there are three things that most modern states do that on the libertarian theory of rights are illegitimate are unjust one of them is paternalist legislation that's passing laws that protect people from
themselves seat belt laws for example or motorcycle helmet laws the libertarian says it may be a good thing if people wear seat belts, but that should be up to them and the state the government has no business coercing them, us to wear seat belts by law its coercion so no paternalist legislation number one. number two no morals legislation many laws try to promote the virtue of citizens or try to give expression to the moral values of the society as a whole. libertarians say that's also a violation of the right to liberty take the example of, well a classic example
of legislation offered in the name of promoting morality traditionally, have been laws that prevent sexual intimacy between gays and lesbians the libertarian says nobody else is harmed nobody else's rights are violated so the state should get all of the business entirely of trying to promote virtue or to enact morals legislation. and the third kind of law or policy it is ruled out on the libertarian philosophy is any taxation or other policy that serves the purpose of redistributing income or wealth from the rich to the poor redistribution is a kind of, if you think about it says libertarianists, a kind of coercion what it amounts to is theft by the state or by the majority if we're talking about a democracy from people who happen to do very well and
earn a lot of money now Nozick and other libertarians allow that
there can be a minimal state that taxes people for the sake of what everybody needs the national defense police force judicial system to enforce contracts and property rights but that's it. Now I want to get your reactions to this third feature of the libertarian view I want to see who among you agree with that idea and who disagree and why and just to make a concrete and to see what's at
stake consider the distribution of wealth in the united states. The united states is among the most In-egalitarian societies as far as
distribution of wealth, of all the advanced democracies now is this just or unjust well what is the libertarian say the libertarian says you can't know just from the facts I just given you you can't know whether that distribution it's just or unjust. you can't know just by looking at a pattern
or a distribution or a result whether it's just or unjust you have to know how it came to be you can't just look at the end state or the
result you have to look at two principles the first he calls justice in acquisition or in initial holdings and what that means simply is did people get the things they use to make their money fairly so we need to know was there justice in the initial holdings,
did they steal the land or the factory or the goods that enabled them to make all that
money? if not, if they were entitled to whatever it was that
enabled them to gather the wealth the first principle is met. the second principle is did the distribution arise from the operation of free consent people buying and trading on the market as you can see the libertarian idea of justice corresponds to a free market conception of justice provided people got what they used fairly didn't steal it and provided the distribution results from the free choice
of individuals' buying and selling things the distribution is just and it's not it's unjust. so let's, in order to fix ideas for this discussion, take an actual example who's wealthiest person in the united states, wealthiest person in
the world Bill Gates, it is, you're right. here he is. you'd be happy too now, what's his net worth? anybody have any idea? that's a big number during the Clinton years remember there was
a controversy, donors, big campaign contributors were invited to stay overnight in the Lincoln
bedroom at the white house I think if you contributed twenty five thousand
dollars or above someone figured out at the median contribution that got you invited to stay a night
in the Lincoln bedroom Bill Gates could afford to stay in the Lincoln
bedroom every night for the next sixty six thousand years somebody else figured out how much does he get paid on an hourly basis and so they figured out since he began Microsoft suppose the worked about fourteen hours per day a reasonable guess and you calculate this is net wealth it turns out that his rate of pay is over a hundred and fifty dollars not per hour, not per minute a hundred and fifty dollars, more than a hundred
and fifty dollars per second which means which means that if on his way to the office Gates noticed a hundred-dollar bill on the
street it wouldn't be worth his time to stop and pick it up now most of you would say someone that wealthy surely we can tax them to meet the pressing needs of people who lack of education or lack enough to eat or lack decent housing they need it more than he does and if you were a utilitarian what would you do? What tax policy would you have you'd redistribute in a flash wouldn't you because you would know being a good utilitarian that taking some, a small amount, he's scarcely going to notice it, but it will make a huge improvement in the lives and in the welfare
of those at the bottom but remember the libertarian theory says we can't just add up and aggregate preferences and satisfactions that way we have to respect persons and if he earned that money fairly without violating anybody else's rights in accordance with the two principles of justice
in acquisition and justice in transfer, then it would be wrong it would be a form of coercion to take it away Michael Jordan is not as wealthy Bill Gates but he did pretty well for himself you want to see Michael Jordan? there he is his income alone in one year was thirty one million dollars and then he made another forty seven million
dollars in endorsements for Nike and other companies so his income was in one year seventy eight million the require him to pay say a third of his earnings to the government to support good causes like food and health care and housing and education
for the poor that's coercion that's unjust that violates his rights and that's why redistribution is wrong. Now, how many agree with that argument agree with the libertarian argument that redistribution for the sake of trying to help the poor is wrong? and how many disagree with that argument? all right let's begin with those who disagree? what's wrong with the libertarian case against redistribution? I think these people like Michael Jordan have
received, we're talking about working within the society they received a larger gift from the society and they have a larger
obligation in return to give that through distribution you know you can say that Michael Jordan may
work just as hard as someone who works you know doing laundry twelve hours, fourteen hours
a day but he's receiving more I don't think it's fair to say that you
know it's all on his inherent hard work. All right let's hear from defenders of libertarianism why would it be wrong in principle to tax the rich to help the poor. My name is Joe and I collect skateboards. I've since bought a hundred skate boards and
live in a society the hundred people I'm the only one with skateboards suddenly
everyone decides they want skateboard they come into the house to take my, they take ninety
nine of my skateboards. I think that is unjust now I think in certain circumstances, it becomes necessary to overlook injustice and perhaps
condone that injustice as in the case of the cabin boy being killed for food if people are on the verge of dying perhaps it is necessary to overlook that injustice but I think it's
important to keep in mind they were still committing injustice by taking people's belonging or assets. Are you saying
that taxing Michael Jordan say at thirty three percent tax rate for good causes to feed the hungry is theft I think it's unjust, yes I do believe it's theft,
but perhaps it is necessary to condone that theft. But it's theft. Yes. why is it theft, Joe? because why is it like your collection of skateboards? it's theft because or at least in my opinion and by the libertarian opinion he earned that money fairly and it belongs to him and so take it from him is by definition theft. alright let's see if there is who wants to reply to Joe? yes go ahead I don't think this necessarily a case in which you have
ninety nine skateboards and the government, or you have a hundreds skateboards
and the government is taking ninety nine of them it's like the it's like you have more skateboards than there are days in the year, you have more skateboards than
you're going to be able to use your entire lifetime and the government is taking part of those. And I think that if you're operating in society in which the government in which the government doesn't redistribute
wealth that that allows for people to amass
so much wealth that people who haven't started from the equal footing in our hypothetical
situation, that doesn't exist in our real society, get undercut for the rest of their lives. so you're worried that if there isn't some
degree of redistribution if some are left at the bottom there will be no genuine equality of opportunity alright. the idea that taxation is theft, Nozick takes that point one step further he agrees that it's theft he's more demanding than Joe, Joe says it is
theft, maybe in an extreme case it's justified maybe a parent is justified in stealing a loaf of bread to feed his or her hungry family so Joe is a what? What would you call yourself
a compassionate quasi libertarian? Nozick says, if you think about it taxation amounts to the taking of earnings in other words it means taking the fruits of my labor but if the state has the right to take my earnings or the fruits of my labor, isn't that morally the same as according to the state the right to claim a portion of my labor? So taxation actually is morally equivalent to forced labor because forced labor involves the taking of my leisure, my time, my efforts just as taxation takes the earnings that I make with my labor. And so for Nozick and for the libertarians taxation for redistribution is theft as Joe says, but not only thing left it is morally equivalent to laying claim to certain hours of a person's life and labor so it's morally equivalent to forced labor if the state has a right to claim the fruits
of my labor that implies that it really has an entitlement to my labor itself and what is forced labor? forced labor Nozick points out it's what? it's slavery because if I don't have the right, the sole right to my own labor then that's really to say that the government
or the political community is a part owner in me and what does it mean for the state to be
a part owner in me? if you think about it it means that I am a slave that I don't own myself so what this line of reasoning brings us to is the fundamental principle that underlies the libertarian case for rights what is that principle? it's the idea that I own myself it's the idea of self-possession if you want to take rights seriously if you don't want to just regard people as
collections of preferences the fundamental moral idea to which you will be lead is the idea that we are the owners or the proprietors
of our own person and that's why utilitarian goes wrong and that's why it's wrong to yank the organs
from that healthy patient you're acting as if that patient belongs to you or to the community but we belong to ourselves and that's the same reason that it's wrong to make laws to protect us from
ourselves or to tell us how to live to tell us what virtues we should be governed by and that's also why it's wrong to tax the rich to help the poor even for good causes
even to help those who are displaced by the hurricane Katrina ask them to give charity but if you tax them it's like forcing them to labor could you tell Michael Jordan he has to skip next week's games and go down to help the people displaced by hurricane Katrina? morally it's the same so the stakes are very high so far we've heard some objections to the libertarian argument but if you want to reject it you have to break into this chain of reasoning
which goes taking my earnings is like taking my labor but taking my labor is making me a slave and if you disagree with that you must believe in the principle of self-possession those who disagree gather your objections and we'll begin with them next time. anyone like to take up that point? yes I feel like when you live in a society you give up that right, I mean technically, if I want to
personally and kill someone because they offend me, that is
self-possession. Because I live in a society I cannot do that Victoria, are you questioning the fundamental premise of self-possession? yes. I think that you don't really have self-possession
if you choose to live in a society because you cannot just discount the people around you. we were talking last time about libertarianism I want to go back to the arguments for and
against the redistribution of income but before we do that just one word about the state Milton Friedman the libertarian economist he points out that many of the functions that we take for granted as properly belonging to government, don’t they are paternalist. one example he gives is social
security he says it's a good idea for people to save for their retirement during their earning years but it's wrong it's a violation of people's liberty for the government to force everyone whether they want to or not to put aside some earnings today for the sake of their retirement. If people
want to take the chance or if people want to live big today and live a poor retirement that should be their choice they should be
free to make those judgments and take those risks so even social security would still be at odds with the minimal state that Milton Friedman argued for it's sometimes thought that collective goods like police protection and
fire protection inevitably create the problem of free riders
unless their publicly provided but there are ways to prevent free riders, there are ways to restrict even seemingly collective goods like
fire protection I read an article a while back about a private fire company
the Salem Fire corporation in Arkansas you can sign up with this Salem Fire Corporation pay a yearly subscription fee, and if your house catches on fire they will come and put out the fire but they won't put out everybody's fire, they will only put it out if it's a fire in the home of subscriber or if it starts to spread and to threaten the home of a subscriber the newspaper article told the story of a
homeowner who had subscribed to this company in the past but failed to renew his subscription his house
caught on fire the Salem Fire Corporation showed up with
its trucks and watched the house burn. Just making sure that it didn't spread the fire chief was asked well he wasn't exactly the fire chief I guess
he was the CEO he was asked how can you stand by with fire equipment and allow a person's home to burn? he replied once we verified there was no
danger to a member's property we had no choice but to back off according to our rules. If we responded to
all fires, he said, there would be no incentive to subscribe the homeowner in this case tried to renew
his subscription at the scene of the fire but the head of the company refused you can't wreck your car, he said, and then
buy insurance for it later so even public goods that we take for granted
as being within the proper province of government can, many of them, in principle be isolated, made exclusive to those who pay. that's all to do with the question of collective goods and the libertarian's injunction against paternalism let's go back now to the arguments about redistribution now, underlying the libertarian's case for the minimal states is a worry about coercion, but what's wrong
with coercion? libertarian offers this answer to coerce someone to use some person for the sake of the general welfare is wrong because it calls into question the fundamental fact that we own ourselves the fundamental moral fact of self-possession or self ownership the libertarian's argument against redistribution begins with this fundamental idea that we
own ourselves Nozick says that if this is society as a whole can go to Bill Gates or go to Michael Jordan and tax away a portion of their wealth, what the society is really asserting is a collective property right in Bill Gates or in Michael Jordan but that violates the fundamental principle that we belong to ourselves now we've already heard a number of
objections to the libertarian argument what I would like to do today it's to give the libertarians among us a chance to answer the objections that have been raised and some have been some have already identified themselves have agreed
to come and make the case for libertarianism to reply to the objections
that have been raised so raise your hand if you are among the libertarians
who's prepared to stand up for the theory and response to the objections you are? Alex Harris. Alex Harris who he's been a star on the web blog, alright Alex come here stand-up we'll create a libertarian corner over
here and who else other libertarians who will join what's you're name? John. John Sheffield, John, and who else wants to join other brave libertarians who are prepared to take on yes what's your name Julia Roto, Julia come join us over there now while the, team libertarian Julia, John, Alex while team libertarian is gathering
over there let me just summarize the main objections that I've heard in class and on the web site objection number one and here I'll come down too, I want to talk
to team libertarian over here so objection number one is that the poor need the money more that's an obvious objection a lot more than than do Bill Gates and Michael Jordan objection number two it's not really slavery to tax because at least in a democratic society there's not a slave holder it's congress it's a democratic, you're smiling Alex, you're
already a confident you can reply to all of these so taxation by consent of the governed is not
coerced third some people have said don't be successful like Gates owe a debt to society for their success that
they repay by paying taxes who wants to respond to the first one the
poor need the money more all right you're John John all right John what's the answer, here I'll hold it. alright the poor need the money more,
that's quite obvious I could use money you know I certainly wouldn't
mind if Bill Gates gave me a million dollars I mean I'd take a thousand but at some point you have to understand that the benefits of
redistribution of wealth don't justify the initial violation of the property right if you look at the argument the poor need
the money more at no point in that argument you contradict
the fact that we extrapolated from agreed upon principles that people own themselves we've extrapolated that people have property
rights and so whether or not it would be a good thing or a nice thing or even a necessary thing for the survival
of some people we don't see that that justifies the violation
of the right that we logically extrapolated and so that also I mean they're still exist this institution of of individual philanthropy, Milton Freidman makes
this argument alright so Bill gates can give to charity if he wants to but it would still be wrong to coerce him exactly to meet the needs of the poor. are the two of you happy with that reply? anything to add? alright Go ahead, Julie? Julia, ya, I think I could also ass I guess I could add that there's a difference between needing something and deserving
something. I mean in an ideal society everyone's needs would be met but here we're arguing what do we deserve as a society and the poor don't deserve the benefits that would flow from taxing Michael
Jordan to help them. Based on what we've come up with here, I don't think you deserve something like that. Alright let me, push you a little bit on that Julia the victims of hurricane Katrina are in desperate need of help would you say that they don't deserve the help that would come from the federal government through taxation. okay that's a, difficult question I think this is a case where they need help not deserve it, but I think again if you hit a certain level of of requirements to reach sustenance, you're going to need
help, like if you don't have food or place to live that's a case of need. So need is one
thing and dessert is another. exactly who would like to reply? Come back to that first point that he made about the property rights of the
individual the property rights are established and enforced by
the government which is a democratic government and we have representatives who enforce those rights, if you live in a society that operates under
those rules then it should be up to the government to decide how those resources that come about through taxation are distributed
because it's through the consent of the governed and if you disagree with it you don't have to live in that society where that operate. Alright, good so, and tell me your name. Raul Raul is pointing out actually Raul is invoking point number two if the taxation is by the consent of the governed it's not coerced it's legitimate Bill Gates and Michael Jordan are citizens of the United
States, they get to vote for congress and they get to vote their policy convictions just like everybody else who would like to take that one on? John? Basically what the libertarians are objecting to in this case is the middle
eighty percent deciding what the top ten percent are doing for the bottom ten percent with
wait wait wait, John, majority, don't you believe in democracy? well right but at some point, don't you believe in the, I mean, you say
eighty percent ten percent, majority, majority rule is what? majority! exactly but, in a democracy aren't you
for democracy? Yes I'm for democracy but, hang on, democracy and mob rule are not the same thing. Mob rule? mob rule.
But in an open society, you have recourse to address that through your representatives and if the majority of the consent of those who are govern doesn't agree with
you then you know, you're choosing to live in the society and you have to operate under what the majority of the society concludes Alright, Alex, on democracy, what about that? The fact I have, you know, one five hundred thousandth
of a vote for one representative in congress is not the same thing as my having the ability to decide for myself how to use my property rights. I'm a drop in the bucket and you know while.. You might lose the vote exactly and they might take? and I will, I mean I don't have the decision right now of whether not to pay taxes
if I don't get locked in jail or they tell me to get out of the country. Now Alex, let me make a small case for democracy and see what you would say. why can't you we live in a democratic society with freedom
of speech why can't you take to the hustings, persuade your fellow citizens that taxation is unjust and try to get a majority? I don't think that people should be, should have
to convince two hundred and eighty million others simply in order to exercise their own rights, in order to not have their self
ownership violated. I think people should be able to do that without having to convince two hundred eighty million people. Does that
mean you're against democracy as a whole? No I just believe in a very limited from
democracy whereby we have a constitution that severely limits the scope of what decisions can be made democratically Alright so you're saying that democracy
is fine except where fundamental rights are involved, and I think you could win if you're going on the
hustings let me add one element to the argument you
might make maybe you could say, put aside the economic
debates taxation suppose the individual right to religious liberty
were at stake then Alex you could say on the hustings, surely you would all agree that we shouldn't put the right to individual
liberty up to a vote yeah that's exactly right and that's why we have constitutional amendments
and why we make it so hard to amend our constitution. so you would say that the right to private property the right of Michael Jordan to keep all the
money he makes at least to protect it from redistribution is that same kind of right with the same kind of weight as the right to freedom of speech the right to religious liberty, rights that
should trump what the majority wants absolutely the reason why we have a right
to free speech is because we have a right to own ourselves, to exercise our voice in any way that we choose. alright, good. alright who would like to respond
to that argument about democracy being, alright there stand up I think comparing religion and economics, it's not
the same thing the reason why Bill Gates was able to make
so much money is because we live in an economically and socially stable society and if the government didn't provide for the
poorest ten percent as you say, through taxation then we would need more money for police to prevent crime and so either way there would be more taxes
taken away to provide what you guys calling and then necessary things that the government provides. What's your name? Anna. Anna let me ask you this why is the fundamental right to religious liberty different the right Alex asserts as a fundamental right to private property and to keep what I earn what's the difference between the two? because you wouldn't have you wouldn't be able to make money, you wouldn't be able to own property there wasn't socially like if society wasn't stable. and that's very different from religion that's
like something personal, something you can practice on your own in your own your own home whereas like me practicing my religion isn't going to affect another
person, whereas if I'm poor and I'm desperate, I might commit a crime to feed my family and that can affect others. Okay thank
you would it be wrong for someone to steal a loaf of bread to feed his starting family is that wrong? I believe that it is. let's take let's take a quick
poll of the three of you, you say yes it is wrong. it violates property rights it's wrong. even to save the starving family? I mean there
there definitely other ways around that and by justifying now hang on hang on before you laugh at me before justifying the act of stealing you have to look at violating the right that we've already agreed
exists, the right of self-possession and the possession of I mean, your own things we agree on property
right. Alright, we agree it's stealing so property rights are not the issue, alright so why
is it wrong to steal even to feed your starving family? sort of the original argument that
I made in the very in the very first question you asked, the benefits of an action don't justify, don’t make the action just well what would you say Julia? Is it right to steal a loaf of bread to feed a starving family or to steal
a drug that your child needs to to survive I think I'm okay with that honestly, even from the libertarian
standpoint, I think that okay saying that you can just take money arbitrarily from people who have a lot
to go to this pool of people who need it but you have an individual who's acting on
their own behalf to kind of save themselves I think you said from the idea of self-possession they are also in charge of protecting
themselves and keeping themselves alive so therefore even from a libertarian standpoint that might
be okay Alright that's good, that's good. Alright what about number three up here isn't it the case that the successful, the wealthy owe a debt, they did do that all by themselves
they had to cooperate with other people that they owe a debt to society and that that's expressed in
taxation. DO you want to take that on Julie? okay this one, I believe that there is not a debt to society in a sense that how did people become
wealthy? they did something that society valued highly I think that society has already been providing for them if anything I think it's everything is cancelled out,
they provided a service to society and society responded by somehow they got
their wealth well be concrete, in the case of Michael
Jordan, some, I mean to illustrate your point there were people who helped him make money,
teammates the coach people taught him how to play, but those you're saying, but they've all
been paid for their services exactly and society derived a lot of benefit and pleasure
from watching Michael Jordan play and I think that that's how he paid his debt
to society good, who would, anyone like to take up that point? I think that there's a problem here that we're assuming that a person has self-possession
when they live in a society I feel like when you live in a society you give up that right. I mean
if I wanted personally to kill someone because they offend me that
is self-possession. Because I live in a society, I cannot do that I think it's kind of an equivalent to say, because I have more money I have resources that
that could save people's lives is it not okay for the government to take that
from me? it's self-possession only to a certain extent
because I'm living in a society where I have to take account of people around me. so are
you questioning, what's your name? Victoria. Victoria, are you questioning the fundamental premise of self-possession? Yes. I think that you don't really have self-possession
if you choose to live in a society because you cannot just discount the people
around you. Alright I want to quickly get a response of the libertarian team to the last point. the last point builds on, well maybe it builds on Victoria's suggestion
that we don't own ourselves because it says that Bill Gates is wealthy that Michael Jordan makes a huge income isn't wholly their own doing it's the product of a lot of luck and so we can't claim that they morally deserve all the money they make. who wants to reply to that, Alex? You certainly could make the case that it is not, that their wealth is not appropriate to the
goodness of their hearts but that's not really the more the morally relevant issue.
the point is that they have received what they have through the
free exchange of people who have given them their holdings usually in exchange for providing
some other service. good enough I want to try to sum up what we've learned
from this discussion but first let's thank John Alex and Julia for a really wonderful job, toward the end of the discussion just now Victoria challenged the premise of this line of reasoning this
libertarian logic maybe, she suggested, we don't own ourselves after all if you reject the libertarian case against redistribution there would seem to be an incentive to break into the libertarian line of reasoning at the earliest, at the most modest level which is why a lot of people disputed that taxation is morally equivalent to forced labor but what about the big claim the premise, the big idea underlying the libertarian argument, is it true that we own ourselves or can we do without that idea and still of avoid what libertarians want to avoid creating a society and an account of Justice where some people can be just used for the sake of other people's welfare or even for the sake of the general good libertarians combat the utilitarian idea of using people as means for the collective happiness by saying the way to put a stop to that utilitarian
logic of using persons is to resort to the intuitively powerful
idea that we are the proprietors of our own person That's Alex and Julia and John, and Robert Nozick what are the consequences for a theory of justice and an account of rights of calling into question the idea of self-possession does it mean that we're back to utilitarianism and using people and aggregating preferences and pushing the fat man off the bridge? Nozick doesn't himself, fully develop the idea of self-possession
he borrows it from an earlier philosopher John Locke John Locke accounted for the rise of private property from the state of nature by a chain of reasoning very similar to the
one that Nozick and the libertarians use John Locke said private property arises because when we mix our labor with things unowned things we come to acquire a property right in those
things the reason? the reason is that we own our own labor and the reason for that we're the proprietors the owners of our own person and so in order to examine the moral force of the libertarian claim
that that we own ourselves we need to turn to the English political philosopher John Locke and examine his account of private property and self ownership and that's what we'll do next time don't miss the chance to interact online with other viewers of Justice join the conversation, take a pop quiz, watch lectures you've missed, and learn a lot more. Visit
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