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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

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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
Others
Benefits
Restrict
Political
Based
Enrich
Ends
Influence
Eliminate
Power
Economic
Expense
States
State
Expenses
Persons
Interest
Motive
Differential
Giving
Upon
Wanting
Drastically
Use
Interests
Illegitimate

More quotes by Robert Nozick

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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
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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
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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
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You can't satisfy everybody especially if there are those who will be dissatisfied unless not everybody is satisfied.
Robert Nozick
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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
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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
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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
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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
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There is room for words on subjects other than last words.
Robert Nozick
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Is there really someone who, searching for a group of wise and sensitive persons to regulate him for his own good, would choose that group of people that constitute the membership of both houses of Congress?
Robert Nozick
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Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor.
Robert Nozick
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No state more extensive than the minimal state can be justified.
Robert Nozick
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Only the refusal to listen guarantees one against being ensnared by the truth.
Robert Nozick
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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
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Instead of trying to prove your opponent wrong, try to see in what sense he might be right.
Robert Nozick
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Justice in holdings is historical it depends upon what actually has happened. We shall return to this point later.
Robert Nozick
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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
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Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor. Seizing the results of someone's labor is equivalent to seizing hours from him and directing him to carry on various activities.
Robert Nozick
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Whatever arises from a just situation by just steps is itself just.
Robert Nozick
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It is, from another angle, an attack on requiring proof in philosophy. And it's also the case, I guess, that my temperament is to like interesting, new, bold ideas, and to try and generate them.
Robert Nozick