Robert Nozick quotes - page 2

Robert Nozick was an American philosopher renowned for his influential work in political philosophy, especially his book "Anarchy, State, and Utopia." His arguments presented a strong case for libertarianism and minimal state interference. He contributed significantly to contemporary debates on justice, individual rights, and the role of government. Here are 50 of his quotes:

What persons may and may not do to one another limits what they may do through the apparatus of a state, or do to establish such an apparatus.

Robert Nozick

Utopia is a framework for utopias, a place where people are at liberty to join together voluntarily to pursue and attempt to realize their own vision of the good life in the ideal community but where no one can impose his own utopian vision upon others.

Robert Nozick

Through the evolutionary process, those who are able to engage in social cooperation of various sorts do better in survival and reproduction.

Robert Nozick

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

When I was 15 years old, or 16, I carried around on the streets of Brooklyn a paperback copy of Plato's Republic, front cover facing outward. I had read only some of it and understood less, but I was excited by it and knew it was something wonderful.

Robert Nozick

Lacking much historical information and assuming (1) that victims of injustice generally do worse than they otherwise would and (2) that those from the least well-off group in the society have the highest probabilities of being the (descendants of) victims of the most serious injustice who are owed compensation by those who benefited from the injustices, ... then a rough rule of thumb for rectifying injustices might seem to be the following: organize society so as to maximize the position of whatever group ends up least well-off in the society.

Robert Nozick

There is no justifiable prediction about how the hypothesis will hold up in the future; its degree of corroboration simply is a historical statement describing how severely the hypothesis has been tested in the past.

Robert Nozick

Our starting point then, though nonpolitical, is by intention far from nonmoral.

Robert Nozick

No one is entitled to a holding except by (repeated) applications of 1 and 2.

Robert Nozick

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.

Robert Nozick

Is not the minimal state, the framework for utopia, an inspiring vision?

Robert Nozick

The major public goals in my life are intellectual goals. There are various philosophical things that I want to work on and work out.

Robert Nozick

The history of philosophy is actually full of people who argue for rather wild and incredible views, and their reputations are based on the skill of arguing for them.

Robert Nozick

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

Examples one finds in the philosophical literature are somebody who's seen the trial of a child of theirs, where they're being proved guilty of some crime that would drive the parent into a depression, maybe a suicidal depression.

Robert Nozick

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

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

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

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

Some communities will be abandoned, others will struggle along, others will split, others will flourish, gain members, and be duplicated elsewhere. Each community must win and hold the voluntary adherence of its members. No pattern is imposed on everyone, and the result will be one pattern if and only if everyone voluntarily chooses to live in accordance with that pattern of community.

Robert Nozick

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

Instead of trying to prove your opponent wrong, try to see in what sense he might be right.

Robert Nozick