Robert Nozick

[andrew]

Has anyone read anything by Robert Nozick or have any knowledge of his works? If so, would you suggest any of it? Are his ideas at all consistent with Objectivism?

The reason I ask is that he was suggested to me by my Law and Philosophy professor, though sometimes I question her suggestions' credibility.

All I've managed to gather so far, in my rather ignorant research attempt, is that his main work was Anarchy, State, and Utopia in respone to Rawl's A Theory Of Justice (another suggestion made by my professor), and according to Amazon.com wrote on the "flawed arguments of Ayn Rand" in his second to last book Socratic Puzzles. I've yet to find out what these two books are actually about.

Any information would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

[hunterrose]

I've read a portion of ASU and one Objectivism-criticism essay of his. I'd recommend both.

ASU sought to develop a case why anarchism enevitably leads to and justifies minarchism. And then (if I remember correctly) why government exceeding minarchic standards is wrong. Like I said, not watertight, and not based off of Objectivist underpinnings, but neither removes its value.

The essay I read ("Nozick on the Randian Argument") is definitely not Objectivist. It's not worthwhile for those who are offended at any attempt to disprove Objectivist ethics, but as with ASU, it has its merits. Its rebuttal by Den Uyl and Rasmussen is (I believe) "Den Uyl and Rasmussen on Nozick on the Randian Argument." Whether either is definitive is a personal matter, I suppose. I do know that both of these have been published in at least a book besides Socratic Puzzles (I've never found a copy of that,) though I don't remember the name of the book I read them in.

ASU attempts to lead to the same minarchist solution as Objectivism (though on different grounds,) so I'd say it's somewhat consistent. "Nozick on the Randian Argument" is not at all consistent with Objectivism. Nozick's arguments are debatable and they aren't bulletproof, but I found them interesting.

[DavidOdden]

Are his ideas at all consistent with Objectivism?

He is a moral intrinsicist, which puts him rather squarely at odds with Objectivism. I don't really understand his epistemology's response to Gettier problems, but on the face of it it does seem plausibly close to the Objectivist "product of grasping the relation between proposition and reality" perspective. The question of "at all" compatibility is not meaningful, since it's impossible to find a philosophy which entirely denies all tenets of Objectivism in toto. His intrinsicist morality is enough to undermine his entire ethics and politics, even if he has the correct particular view of the state.

[andrew]

The question of "at all" compatibility is not meaningful, since it's impossible to find a philosophy which entirely denies all tenets of Objectivism in toto. His intrinsicist morality is enough to undermine his entire ethics and politics, even if he has the correct particular view of the state.

I agree that the question of "at all" is not meaningful, it was a poor choice of words. What I was asking for, which you have provided, was what are the similarities between him and Objectivism.

Thanks to you and hunterrose I have a better grasp of Nozick and am going to study some of his works.

[nimble]

He also wrote on rationality, that I think is his best book. I think its called the nature of rationality. I'm going to bed now so please forgive me for not capitalizing his book title.

[TheEgoist]

So I was reading Nozick's account of free will the past couple of days. It takes up a rather significant chunk of "Philosophical Explanations". His account isn't Objectivist in that he doesn't merely claim it is axiomatic, list how and move on (though it doesn't reject such a proposition). I think it's still very interesting, though, and not rife with the problems of many indeterminists (Appeals to QM, for example)

[Vik]

He is a moral intrinsicist, which puts him rather squarely at odds with Objectivism. I don't really understand his epistemology's response to Gettier problems, but on the face of it it does seem plausibly close to the Objectivist "product of grasping the relation between proposition and reality" perspective. The question of "at all" compatibility is not meaningful, since it's impossible to find a philosophy which entirely denies all tenets of Objectivism in toto. His intrinsicist morality is enough to undermine his entire ethics and politics, even if he has the correct particular view of the state.

There are problems with his epistemology too:

1) his reliance on the concept of invariance

2) his notion of "objective facts"

3) his view on truth, especially his discussion of "contingency" and "the Least Arbitrary Theory"

I will address only the first two as the third is merely a variation of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy. For those who don't know, the analytic-synthetic dichotomy was addressed by Leonard Peikoff in the Introduction to Objectivst Epistemology.

But onto Nozick's epistemology...

(1) his reliance on the concept of invariance

"A property or relationship is objective when it is invariant under appropriate transformations"

~Robert Nozick, Invariance, pg. 79

The language makes me think of "invariance under Lorentz transformations". Nozick even brings up the Lorentz transformations. However, Nozick's invariance has nothing do with trying to formulate a law that applies across certain measurable dimensions.

Furthermore, it is very difficult to identify all the factors that an equation will "survive". Who is to say that we haven't overlooked something? Consider the history of the gas laws. Effectively, he ends up demanding omniscience.

But let's suppose he's merely drawing a very loose analogy and didn't tell us.

Fine. I'll just move onto his characteristization of "objective facts" .

(2) his notion of "objective facts"

"An objective fact is accessible from different angles, there is or can be intersubjective agreement about it, and it holds independently of our beliefs, desires, and observations. It is because an objective fact is invariant under specified transformation that it has these three traits."

~pg. 90

Let's look at the first characteristic:

"An objective fact is accessible from different angles. Access to it can be repeated by the same sense (sight, touch, etc) at different times; it can be repeated by different senses of the same observer"

~pg. 75

Repeatability is nice--if samples are available. Some sciences deal with things that CANNOT be repeated. Consider chemical tests that destroy original samples.

As for "different senses", what on earth justifies the idea that facts MUST be accessible by multiple senses?? Do I have to HEAR color as well as see it? Surely not. But then what does he mean? Maybe he believes that data from multiple senses makes the belief more objective.

But let's look at the second one:

"Intersubjective agreement can be taken as evidence for objectiveness. Different people agree because there is an objective fact that they have access to, and they agree n the results of that access. But there can be intersubjective agreement without an objective fact--everyone else in Salem thinks she is a witch--and there can be objective facts without intersubjective agreement."

~pg. 90-91

"We need to find an objectiveness property such that we can see (at least sketchily) HOW that property produces (or tends to produce) intersubjective agreement"

~pg. 91

If he were just saying that invariance explains agreement, I would be fine with it. But he speaks of "evidence for objectiveness" and invokes the practice of hypothesizing causation.

His third characteristic of "objective facts":

"it holds independently of our beliefs, desires, and observations.

His third characteristic sounds like the Objectivist recognition of the supremacy of reality.

But then elsewhere in the book he says:

"An objective view of things is valuable, but it is not always what is needed or what will serve us best"

So much for Nozick's alleged respect for reality!

[Black Wolf]

As a libertarian, he said he was sympathetic to Ayn Rand's views on capitalism. Ayn Rand actually was one of his influences.

But that's about it.

[Chris Cathcart]

Has anyone read anything by Robert Nozick or have any knowledge of his works? If so, would you suggest any of it? Are his ideas at all consistent with Objectivism?

The reason I ask is that he was suggested to me by my Law and Philosophy professor, though sometimes I question her suggestions' credibility.

All I've managed to gather so far, in my rather ignorant research attempt, is that his main work was Anarchy, State, and Utopia in respone to Rawl's A Theory Of Justice (another suggestion made by my professor), and according to Amazon.com wrote on the "flawed arguments of Ayn Rand" in his second to last book Socratic Puzzles. I've yet to find out what these two books are actually about.

Any information would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

Nozick had a brilliant and fertile mind; from what I've read by him and other professional philosophers, he was perhaps the smartest of that bunch in the last half-century. One thing he was willing to do with unyielding effectiveness was challenge any and all ideas that he encountered, including raising challenges to his own theories and formulations. For its flaws, I think ASU is one of the very best works to come out of that environment in who knows how long. He really does a nice job laying the smack-down on a good number of leftist and socialist thinkers, who simply infested academia at the time. His one main connection to Rand is his article "On the Randian argument," which - and this is not surprising - misunderstands the essential case Rand made for egoism. I read it and Rasmussen and Den Uyl's response many years back and remember that the Dougs basically set him straight and there's never been a refutation of their response that I know of (because, well, they were essentially right).

[Chris Cathcart]

I think if you were to compare the quality of Rawls and Nozick as philosophers, I would say that Nozick was simply a better thinker and less susceptible to the typical failings of "analytic" academic philosophy. As far as I'm concerned, to make a long story short, Rawls had these "intuitions" about justice-as-fairness and then, in analytic-academic style, went about finding a theory to ground these "intuitions" in a rationalistic, mid-stream, concept-stealing fashion. That's right, concept-stealing. Rawls never grounded his theory of justice upon proper (eudaemonistic) grounds, but upon a Hobbes/Locke/Kant-hybrid "social contract" model. Social-contract models as typically offered are all about mid-streaming and not about grounding. The rationality of the preferences that the contracting agents bring to the "original situation" is not questioned. Rawls then hedges with all this by introducing the concept of a "reflective equilibrium" by which we as justice-theorists compare our "intuitions" with what falls out of the social-contract model. That way he can cover his ass and say that the conclusions of his argument must line up with his "intuitions." It's a tortuous, long-winded route to basically shore up his pre-theoretical "intuitions," and his intuitions - like those of many academics - were vaguely socialistic. His method is just way far removed from that of Rand or Aristotle, but the academy laps it up because they don't know any better.

On a related point, Nozick wrote a biting article some years after ASU offering an explanation for the anti-capitalistic tendency amongst academics: http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/cpr-20n1-1.html

I think Nozick's explanation is only part of the story. Another part of the story is how rationalistic academics are and how socialism fits in with a rationalistic approach to ideas. Their theories told them that socialism was a good idea, even though the empirical reality was showing otherwise. The rationalist solution to this tension is to retrench.

Reading Rawls and his disciple Nagel is like reading works from another planet, disconnected from how actual human beings and societies operate. Nagel has his own bizarre theoretical explanation for how we can be rationally altruistic (in "The Possibility of Altruism"), which - Rawls-like - requires this whole theoretical construction of ourselves as not-ourselves so that we are impartial. And this floating, ungrounded, out-of-context crap gets bandied around in academia like it's profound, when much simpler and better explanations for other-responsive motivation are found in the eudaemonist tradition. There's a reason Rand considered the "philosophy" practiced in academia to be so anathema - because of all the out-of-context, non-Aristotelian wankery going on to impress fellow academics. It's really sad when you think about it, all the intellectual potential being wasted on non-issues. This pathology is arguably at its worst in frequent Rand-basher Brian Leiter (though he brings an extra dose of elitist narcissism to the table that few other academics bring). A "brilliant" mind who is stubbornly, awesomely clueless about Rand. I mean, I am truly in awe at how someone so bright could be so out of it.

Edited July 1, 2010 by Chris Cathcart