A little more on the principle of rectification.
Jason Kuznicki responds to my Nozick review, arguing that people who think some large-scale rectification of previous injustices is required before we can do anything practical about making government minimal are wrong. I don’t think his first point hits me as a target, since I’m wondering what the entitlement theory would say about specific large-scale historically unjust acquisitions or appropriations, not trying to advocate patterned distribution. But I’ll quote his other two objections:
Second, I think Nozick may err slightly in that he seems to take the advocates of rectification too much at their word. There are certainly better and worse ways of rectifying injustice within an entitlement system. We mustn’t suspend all judgment once someone yells “Rectification!”
It may very well be, as Nozick suggests, that “no considerations of rectification of injustice could apply to justify” a given redistribution. This doesn’t seem a terribly high bar to surmount. Indeed, the world overflows with unjust redistributions, and we have politics in order to fight about them.
Third, justifying a given rectification requires far more than mere ignorance about whether it’s right or wrong.
I admit that “you can’t apply Nozick’s argument to the modern United States!” was a tad hyperbolic. But my problem with rectification isn’t that I think the principle Nozick spells out can justify all our current programs. Rather, it’s that Nozick doesn’t give us a principle of rectification at all:
Idealizing greatly, let us suppose theoretical investigation will produce a principle of rectification. … The principle of rectification presumably will make its best estimate of subjunctive information about what would have occurred (or a probability distribution over what might have occurred, using the expected value) if the injustice had not taken place. (ASU, 152-3)
Presumably, Nozick the activist had some guess as to what the principle of rectification required, and which parts of the modern state could or could not conceivably be justified as an approximation of the principle. But these guesses aren’t given in the book.
For example, I am pretty convinced that any good principle of rectification would require some form of reparations to, say, descendants of slaves (at least from certain corporations and municipalities), but I don’t have the first clue how such reparations would be determined or structured on a large scale. I really don’t. I’ve no idea how to go about making a “best estimate of subjunctive information about what would have occurred … if the injustice had not taken place.” I don’t know how you’d balance the value of the redistributions we’ve already made (especially if one takes the conservative position that welfare has actually hurt the victims of historic injustice more than it has helped them). But justice is too important to brush aside the principle of rectification because we don’t think it would work out for the people to whom the injustice was done. The theory really needs a principle of rectification.
I do have to grant that “There are certainly better and worse ways of rectifying injustice within an entitlement system.” But you’ve already gone further than ASU in suggesting guidelines for rectification. And you’re right that on a the practical political level, if we accept the entitlement theory we do have to work with our best guesses as to what rectification requires. However, without a solid principle to work with, the range of possible best guesses is pretty huge.
For example, I am pretty convinced that any good principle of rectification would require some form of reparations to, say, descendants of slaves (at least from certain corporations and municipalities), but I don’t have the first clue how such reparations would be determined or structured on a large scale. I really don’t.
You are convinced that we should compensate people for torts which occurred five generations ago?Report
Within the context of an entitlement theory and based on the arguments I’ve read and not related here, yes. But my whole point is that the amount of compensation due is effectively indeterminate since we don’t have a principle of rectification.Report
Unless you have had considerable inter-marriage between proximate cousins, you have 16 great-great grandparents. Just out of curiosity, how many do you know by name?Report
I could look up a few names pretty quickly. Off the top of my head, one great-grandparent was a Presbyterian minister in the Shenandoah valley, and another was a doctor in Lexington, VA. Two out of sixteen isn’t so great, I admit.
I want to reiterate that I’m not arguing for reparations in this post. I’m saying that I think Nozick’s entitlement theory, if true, would require us to take historical violations of rights very seriously, since every transaction in the history of any given holding has to be legitimate. But I myself am not convinced that the entitlement theory of justice is right.Report
No, your great-great grandparents, not your great-grandparents (who would number only eight). If your an adult of median age, that likely would be last generation in your family who owned slaves.
A great deal can occur in the life of a family in five generations, in terms of the rise and decline of its fortunes. With regard to people in advantageous positions in 1860, I will wager you regression toward the mean has dissipated it.Report
Sorry, I mistyped “great-grandparents.” The two I described are great-great-grandparents. My grandfather’s grandfathers. Civil war era. (I could tell you a lot more about my great-grandparents.)
You are probably correct about “advantageous position.” Unfortunately, Nozick isn’t concerned with relative position in society. He’s concerned with specific holdings. I don’t know how I can be more clear that I’m trying to talk about what follows from Nozick’s theory of justice, not what follows from what I myself believe about justice.Report
O.K.
But you said, “For example, I am pretty convinced that any good principle of rectification would require some form of reparations to, say, descendants of slave”. To a mind such as mine, untutored in philosophy, that sounds like a statement of your view, not a restatement of Robert Nozick’s view.
If you are making an argument for reparations with reference to rights of ownership over land or merchandise or cash or securities derived from the chain of custody and lawful conveyance of same, the question immediately arises as to what, in the relationship between slaveholder and slave, is analogous to tangible or abstract property.Report
Well, it’s not a statement of my view. The ambiguity in the sentence is my fault. I mean something more along the lines of “any principle of rectification that would be good for Nozick’s theory.” I have tried to emphasize this in all of my further comments.
“the question immediately arises as to what, in the relationship between slaveholder and slave, is analogous to tangible or abstract property.”
A good question. It might be that the owner’s taking of crops harvested by slaves violates the principle of acquisition, but as I’m writing that it seems like a stretch. I have to admit I picked a poor example.
So let’s pick a better historical example. What about the appropriation and selling of Cherokee lands under Andrew Jackson’s questionable diplomatic leadership? There’s tangible property involved in that.
Now here’s what I am trying to say, and this applies to historystudent as well. A whole bunch of holdings in the southeastern USA have a snag in their transfer history, which means that the principle of rectification has to be applied. Does the kind of principle of rectification Nozick’s talking about say, “just forget it and start over”? If so, why? If not, then how could we possibly know the kind of counterfactual information we would need to rectify the injustice? Has the government done enough to rectify it already? How do human choices affect the outcome? For me, these questions are enough to make Nozick’s entitlement theory impractical until he can supply us with a principle of rectification. That’s the point of the post. If neither historical example works for you, surely you can find an example in history of some large-scale violation of property rights. (And for Nozick, property rights are natural rights.)
I am not presenting a positive argument for reparations, and if that’s what you think I am doing, then we are talking past each other and should probably stop.Report
Justice isn’t something that can be served up to one generation in order to rectify matters done to their ancestors. Justice is either meted out properly to the living who are directly concerned, or it is not. If it isn’t, then, those who were wronged die wronged and those who did the wrong die without having made restitution. But one cannot make amends to the dead by throwing money or other forms of recompense at later generations. Each generations is responsible for how it relates to its contemporaries, not for how ancestors related to theirs. One can only treat our own generation with respect and dignity. We can certainly regret certain actions of some who might have been our own forebears. We can even say (and, of course, mean) that we regret it. But no one can truly apologize for another, and no one can give “justice” that isn’t his or hers to give.Report
I can see where you’re coming from, but we’re talking specifically about Nozick’s theory. According to Nozick, a person is entitled to a holding (basically inclusive of all kinds of property) if (1) that holding was properly acquired in the first place and (2) the holding in question was transferred legitimately (i.e. voluntarily) from the original holder through any number of intermediaries to the current holder.
If either of these two principles has been violated, then the person may not be entitled to the holding. This is Nozick’s entitlement theory. It seems pretty necessary that every transfer in the entire history of whatever holding we’re talking about is necessary. If you want to talk about a different theory of justice, be my guest. But that’s not what the post is about.
In the context of an entitlement theory, consider this example.
Someone (perhaps a Bernie Madoff type) steals from or defrauds a whole bunch of people of their legitimate holdings, then marries, has a daughter, and the holdings to her. He dies before he is caught. Is the daughter now entitled to all her riches? I would say no. Now suppose one of the victims also died. Could that victim’s child press a claim against the perpetrator’s daughter, even though they’re both a generation removed from the crime? I think so, and the entitlement theory certainly says yes, since the daughter is not entitled to her holdings by the first two principles. Now, since we don’t know what the rectification principle is, we don’t know whether all the holdings go back to the victim’s descendant, or just some of them. It’s easy to complicate this scenario so that we have no idea who owes what to whom, but I think it’s enough to hint that at least some kinds of rectifications may be pursued after the parties directly involved have died.Report
See #4 below for reply. 🙂Report
I understand how you are approaching things and that you are analyzing Nozick’s theory. I base any and all comment here strictly on your posts, and not on the original Nozick material which I have not read. My previous post was mainly responding to your assertion that “I am pretty convinced that any good principle of rectification would require some form of reparations to, say, descendants of slaves (at least from certain corporations and municipalities).” I disagree with that, regardless of what Nozick says or does not say. I don’t consider a “good principle of rectification” to require those kinds of reparations, whether or not we might be able to some complicated formula to enable some kind of accounting of the matter.
But on a more concrete basis, you are certainly correct that the laws (both U.S. and international) make provision for the recovery of stolen property. As you know, a person who knowingly or unknowingly purchases stolen property is not entitled to it. The property is returned to the rightful owner when such a situation is uncovered. One can cite examples of artwork that was confiscated from Jewish owners before or during World War II. When their proper owners are discovered, those works have been returned.
In your example, of the daughter being sued by the heirs of the defrauded, this would depend on a number of factors you didn’t specify, such as the statute of limitations for torts in the given state (assuming this is a U.S. case) and whether the heirs are actually suing the estate of the man who defrauded them. There are also questions about whether the daughter is entirely ignorant (innocent) in the matter or not. If she was aware, she may be considered complicit, which could change the face of the case. And there are questions about the heirs of the people who were defrauded: what did they know and when, why wasn’t the case adjudicated prior to the death of the original defraudee, etc. These are just normal legal points that would have to be clarified before any decision could be made about whether the daughter could be sued. Nozick’s theories really don’t need to be considered because this situation will be covered under established legal precedents.Report
I don’t want to be rude, but I am pretty sure that you and I are talking about completely different things. I’m content to let the matter rest.Report
Fine. I responded to content in your posts. Perhaps you would consider formulating them differently if you want different responses?Report