So, for someone already convinced of self-ownership, this would be a powerful argument. It is out of this basic commitment to self-ownership that Nozick’s notion of justice in acquisition arises, and it is true that Nozick relies on the reader’s own intuitions about Lockean property rights when defending this notion. They viewed each person as having a right tot decide what would become of himself… The central core of the notion of a property right in X, relative to which other parts of the notion are to be explained, is the right to determine what shall be done with X the right to choose which of the constrained set of options concerning X shall be realized or attempted… in our theory, by the Lockean rights people possess… notion of property helps us to understand why earlier theorists spoke of people as having property in themselves and their labor. Nozick defends his own theory of justice from a Lockean position of self-ownership (Nozick 1974, 171): It is commonplace to frame Nozick’s objection to Rawls as a general objection from an axiomatic commitment to individual liberty. Finally, it will end by highlighting a puzzle at the heart of the dispute between Nozick and Rawls that has yet to be solved. Further, this paper will then argue that the objection is only a necessary step in a fully sufficient set of reasons for rejecting Rawls’ complete Theory of Justice. If Nozick is correct, then Rawls insistence on the priority of liberty is flawed because his Difference Principle is incommensurable with his Liberty Principle.

Any favoured pattern would be transformed into one unflavored by the principle, by people choosing to act in various ways…” (Nozick 1974, 163) This essay will argue that Nozick’s objection is successful against Rawls, only to the extent that it is understood in the context of Rawls’ understanding of his own theory. Responding to John Rawls egalitarianism, Robert Nozick responds that “ ….in a socialist society… no end-state principle or distributional patterned principle of justice can be continuously realized without continuous interference with peoples’ lives.

Rawls 1999 a theory of justice