Quote

Individuals have rights and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do. How much room do individual rights leave for the state?

Robert Nozick

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Robert Nozick
Age: 63 †
Born: 1938
Born: November 16
Died: 2002
Died: January 23
Philosopher
Political Scientist
University Teacher
Brooklyn
New York
Robert Edwin Nozick
Without
State
Individuals
Much
Individual
Group
Things
Strong
Groups
Violating
States
Room
Officials
Anything
Rooms
Libertarian
May
Leave
Reaching
Persons
Question
Raise
Person
Rights
Raises

More quotes by Robert Nozick

Image
What hadn't been realized in the literature until now is that merely to describe how severely something has been tested in the past itself embodies inductive assumptions, even as a statement about the past.
Robert Nozick
Image
I think philosophers can do things akin to theoretical scientists, in that, having read about empirical data, they too can think of what hypotheses and theories might account for that data. So there's a continuity between philosophy and science in that way.
Robert Nozick
Image
The illegitimate use of a state by economic interests for their own ends is based upon a preexisting illegitimate power of the state to enrich some persons at the expense of others. Eliminate that illegitimate power of giving differential economic benefits and you eliminate or drastically restrict the motive for wanting political influence.
Robert Nozick
Image
I guess my tendency is to think essentially that the new wrinkles won't do the job if the old major idea didn't, and so you have to try something different. Then maybe they can all be combined in some coherent piece.
Robert Nozick
Image
You can't satisfy everybody especially if there are those who will be dissatisfied unless not everybody is satisfied.
Robert Nozick
Image
The scientists often have more unfettered imaginations than current philosophers do. Relativity theory came as a complete surprise to philosophers, and so did quantum mechanics, and so did other things.
Robert Nozick
Image
Utopia is a meta-utopia: the environment in which Utopian experiments may be tried out the environment in which people are free to do their own thing the environment which must, to a great extent, be realized first if more particular Utopian visions are to be realized stably.
Robert Nozick
Image
Some people steal from others, or defraud them, or enslave them, seizing their product and preventing them from living as they choose, or forcibly exclude others from competing in exchanges. None of these are permissible modes of transition from one situation to another.
Robert Nozick
Image
Justice in holdings is historical it depends upon what actually has happened. We shall return to this point later.
Robert Nozick
Image
Our principles fix what our life stands for, our aims create the light our life is bathed in, and our rationality, both individual and coordinate, defines and symbolizes the distance we have come from mere animality. It is by these means that our lives come to more than what they instrumentally yield. And by meaning more, our lives yield more.
Robert Nozick
Image
In a free system any large, popular, revolutionary movement should be able to bring about its ends by such a voluntary process. As more and more people see how it works more and more will wish to participate in or support it. And so it will grow, without being necessary to force everyone or a majority or anyone into the pattern.
Robert Nozick
Image
There is room for words on subjects other than last words.
Robert Nozick
Image
Whatever the practical origins of aesthetic discernment may have been, it has been used to create great works of art. When the very loftiest human creations are seen to derive from humble origins and functions, what needs revision is not our esteem for these creations but our notion of nobility.
Robert Nozick
Image
Marxian exploitation is the exploitation of people's lack of understanding of economics.
Robert Nozick
Image
And although it might be best of all to be Socrates satisfied, having both happiness and depth, we would give up some happiness in order to gain the depth.
Robert Nozick
Image
No one has ever announced that because determinism is true thermostats do not control temperature.
Robert Nozick
Image
The trouble with government regulation of the market is that it prohibits capitalistic acts between consenting adults.
Robert Nozick
Image
Evolutionary cosmology formulates theories in which a universe is capable of giving rise to and generating future universes out of itself, within black holes or whatever.
Robert Nozick
Image
Through the evolutionary process, those who are able to engage in social cooperation of various sorts do better in survival and reproduction.
Robert Nozick
Image
Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor.
Robert Nozick