Robert Nozick
1938–2002 · Liberalism · Prominent
Nozick was a political philosopher at Harvard who wrote the main libertarian reply to Rawls. If you came by what you have without theft, and whoever handed it to you did the same, it is yours, and no scheme about who ought to end up with what overrides that. He built Anarchy, State, and Utopia on that claim, and left the state nothing to run but courts, police and defense, a night-watchman and no more.
Signature
The position Nozick is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Society
- leans Individualism
- Economy
- Market Capitalism
Positions on the 3 axes the sources answer
- Society
- leans Individualism (87 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Truth
- leans Subjective (25 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Polity
- strongly leans Liberalism (96 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
17 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Nozick refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Government
- Other
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Freedom
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Moral Realism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Knowledge
- Pure Reason
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Social Contract
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Libertarian Free Will
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Economy
- Market Capitalism
What is the ideal organization of economic life? - Authority
- Self-Sovereignty
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Paradox
- Apophatic Pointer
What is the status of paradox? - Law
- Natural Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Human Nature
- Will-to-Power
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Self
What is your primary bond and loyalty?