Introduction

In his writings, Robert Nozick uses the example of a basketball player who becomes

considerably richer than the rest of the population to demonstrate that liberty is incompatible

with any patterned theory of distributive justice. In fairness to Nozick’s theory, liberty must be

favoured over the second redistributive principle since he argues that a patterned theory is

incompatible with liberty.

Discussion and analysis

Wilt Chamberlain’s argument isn’t mind boggling because it assumes self-ownership and

not a case that patterned theory denies. He attempts to derive self-ownership from absolute

property rights. Secondly, the incompatibility of liberty and a patterned theory have a lot in

common with the interpretation of liberty as self ownership.

Nozick groups theories of distributive justice into two classes. The first one is whether a

theory is historical, in this case meaning it takes into account past actions, events and

circumstances or ahistorical, meaning it does not take those factors into account.The distinction

between varying theories of distributive justice, between patterned and unpatterned theories is

the more important one that Nozick makes.A patterned theory of justice is one in which

distributive shares are determined or correlated with some variable. An unpatterned theory does

not determine who is to get what by reference to some variable in the world. The best

interpretation of an unpatterned theory of justice is not who is to get what but by what means

who can get what.

 In an ideal situation, we may take an assumption of a patterned theory of justice. Let’s

assume an egalitarian theory although it doesn’t matter which patterned theory we choose.

Initially (from here on D1) we assume that the social goods in society have been distributed

equally. In D1 Wilt Chamberlain, a famous basketball player ,strikes an agreement with his club

that for every ticket sold he will receive 25 cents (Nozick 1997:208).As a result of this Wilt

Chamberlain becomes very wealthy and so upsets the patterned theory because society becomes

more unequal(from here on D2).We therefore see that :

1. Each person is justly entitled to their share of goods. No person in D1 has a claim of

injustice against any other person (Nozick 1997:209).

2. Everyone can do whatever they like to their goods since they are entitled.

3. Under egalitarian principle there is no liberty for people to do as they wish with their

goods because it upsets the patterned theory of equality.

4. An egalitarian principle of distributive words is incompatible with liberty.

5. Since there is no good reason to think that any other patterned theory of justice cannot be

upset by liberty then any patterned theory of justice is incompatible with liberty.
 Refuting the anarchist

It might be thought that given Nozick’s premises,no state at all,minimal or otherwise,could

be justified as it is what really follows from it.Even a small sovereign country would need to be

funded by taxation which may amount to forced labor and partial slavery.Nozick’s philosophy

contradicts this one.

An unjust situation arises when people transfer their money to Wilt when each customer

‘had no claim of justice on any holding of the others before the transfer’? (Nozick 1997:209).An

initial objection may be that in society will always trade without any boundaries according to

that distributive principle. This objection hasn’t hit the point because Nozick tries to show that a

patterned theory of justice is in principle incompatible with liberty. It’s not necessary for a

patterned theory of justice to bring a respect for liberty.

The patterned theorist faces a problem. What he denies is that each individual has a lion’s

share of property rights over the goods that have been distributed to him. Wilt cannot complain

that his liberty has been violated if he has no absolute rights over goods. His liberty to do what

he wishes with his goods is only his right and if he has no absolute rights over his goods. This is

what the patterned theory denies. This therefore explains that his liberty has not been violated

under any circumstance in which it is taken like not violated when in accordance with the

patterned theory.Nozick must give independent support for absolute property rights so as to

establish the misunderstanding of liberty and any patterned theory.

For a case where self-ownership entails the absolute property rights then the patterned

theorist must deny self-ownership as they necessarily deny absolute property rights. It would be

clever not to beg the question about an opponent by asserting a condition that denies your

opponent’s point as all of the philosophy would be question-begging.Nozick has rather provided
a new argument and it is for the patterned theorist to deny this in order to deny the Wilt

Chamberlain argument. Each owner’s title to his holding includes its’ relationship to the Lockean

proviso. It does not take into account the transfer into a situation of others worse than their

baseline situation.

Nozick needs to give independent support to the idea of absolute rights if he is to demonstrate

that liberty is incompatible with any patterned theory. If people are forgiven from exercising

their right to property (e.g. their right to keep their property despite it being incompatible with a

pattern) then we may say their liberty has been violated just as we say that a person whose right

to speech has been violated also had their liberty violated. We are at liberty to do something so

long as we have a right to do that thing and no one prevents as from exercising that right.

Our liberties are dependent on our rights. If a right is violated, liberty is also violated and

if people have an enormous right to property then taking it from them when they are unwilling

violates their right to that property and so their liberty too. When we say that property rights are

absolute we do not mean that people have the right to use their property literally however they

want for that would give people a right to throw their spears at somebody without provocation.

We therefore mean that people may use their property according to their wishes as long as they

don’t interfere with others using their property as they wish and may use their property even

when it doesn’t maintain a patterned distribution.

When self-ownership is denied then either other people have a claim on our bodies or

nobody has a claim on our bodies or their own bodies. This helps us to know whether Nozick can

give independent support for absolute property rights (and not merely postulate them).He then

postulates that persons have the right to decide how they use their bodies as long as they don’t

interfere with anybody else using their body (Kymlicka 2002:107).If people don’t have the right
to decide what they should do with their bodies then it’s no better than slavery. Self-ownership

seems to have enormous explanatory power for our moral intuitions as it explains why slavery,

murder, rape, kidnapping and almost any other use of force is seen as wrong.

A patterned theory violates rights and thus liberty but Nozick targets all patterned theories

and not just some.Nozick attacks the case of property that is not identical to your own body.

Violation of these private property rights (and thus liberty) is important to denying self –

ownership. If people have the right to decide how they use their bodies so long as they don’t

interfere with anyone else, then anyone can gain an absolute property right to any part of the

world as long as they don’t worsen the condition of others. This implies that we may do anything

that we like as long as we don’t interfere with others doing what they wish. If we must use our

bodies to acquire a property then it doesn’t matter how we acquire it. This stops the acquisition

of property that denies another of that right to it.

We do not have a positive right to use our body as we wish and thus nobody has an

obligation to help us or assist us in some way of using our bodies as we wish. This means that we

have the negative right to acquire property and so everybody has a duty to restrain from stopping

me acquiring property unless in doing so Iam violating the negative right of someone else to

acquire or maintain property.

Conclusion

It seems that the Wilt Chamberlain argument does provide a good argument to show why

patterned theories of justice are incompatible with liberty. The violation of a right to do

something is best described as the violation of a liberty to do something. We argued that in order

for Nozick to avoid his doubts on the patterned theories he must give independent support to the
idea of absolute property rights which give somebody the right to use their property despite the

fact that it upsets a distributive pattern. Nozick argues for absolute property right using on self-

ownership which is the idea that each person is to have the right to use their body as they wish.

This may include using it to acquire property rights as long as they don’t interfere with others in

that process.

Interference is defined as only the negative right to acquire property and we are not

violating somebody else’s right to that piece of property since they only had the negative right of

the opportunity to acquire it and not the positive right to somebody else not taking it for

themselves. Self-ownership guarantees that people may acquire and use property according to

their wishes as long as they don’t violate the negative right of others to their property.Therefore,

the taking of Wilt’s money is a violation of his liberty and absolute property rights.

Bibliography

Nozick, R. Anarchy, State and Utopia, 1999.

Wolf, J. Robert Nozick: Property, Justice and the Minimal State, 1991.

Cohen, G.A. Self-ownership, freedom and equality, 1995.

Narveson, J. The libertarian idea, 1987.

Kymlicka, W. Contemporary political philosophy, 1990.