Friday, October 19, 2012

the last pregunta for Nozick

The last question raised in our symposium was difficult for us Nozicks to answer. The question that Dr. J asked pertained to the inequality in pay of men and women in our society today.  Toward the end, it became more difficult to understand and interpret where Nozick would fall on this idea. Of course on face value, he would say everyone is getting what they are entitled to (side note:said with gritted teeth).  However, then Dr. J brought up the question on whether or not it was a just exchange/transfer made by the jobs and these women or if there needed to be some type of rectification by some type of redistribution made.  We struggled with this because we were not sure if this would be an example of his third point in his Entitlement Theory or not.  It would seem that he might just think that the free market merely needs to continue without interruption and eventually the wage thing would work itself out or just remain the same with no consequential changes.  However, if he did see this transfer as unjust because the women have no choice to accept these wages, although it is much lower than the salary of their equal or lesser male counterparts it would appear that he would say this transaction violated claim two and therefore needs to be rectified.  If this was the case, how do you think he could accomplish this with a "one-time" redistribution? Or could he even do so, or would he need a clausal third point about how to redistribute this inequality? Or would he actually even see it as an issue? What do you think?

1 comment:

  1. I'm quite confused by Nozick on this! I was wondering, if Nozick were placed in our society today and asked to arrange things to suit his ideas of justice, would he say that pay inequality, as well as things like the increased struggle of Black Americans that resulted from a history of racial persecution, are things that the present generations are not obliged to rectify? Or would he view the inequalities as so great that a one-time redistribution would be necessary? He seems, to me, to be against the idea of social programs, as they would require constant redistribution, which means continuous intervention. Even if he leaned toward a massive one-time redistribution, it seems impractical to try to measure the cost of years of persecution or unequal treatment. What a mess.

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