Abstract

Two competing theories of justice are currently dominating discussion within contemporary Anglo-American moral, social, political, and legal philosophy. The Welfare-State Liberal theory of John Rawls, developed most fully in his book A Theory of Justice, contains a sustained defense of the partial redistribution of wealth within society in order to improve the position of the most unfortunate members of society. The Libertarian theory of Robert Nozick, presented in his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia, is based on the claims that justice is the respecting of people's rights, that people's rights are respected when they are allowed to keep and control that to which they are entitled, and that people are entitled to any holding which they have legitimately acquired—that is, without using force, theft, or fraud (activities which would violate the rights of others). Since the kind of redistribution called for by Rawls' theory of justice would necessarily involve taking from some people (primarily through taxation) holdings to which they have a right, Nozick argues that an application of Rawls' theory will have unjust consequences: it will fail to show the proper respect for people's rights upon which any correct theory of justice must be based.

The present Article is an exploration of the concept of a right—a concept which is, as Nozick claims, central to the concept of justice. The Article is based on the assumption that one  way to develop an understanding of this important moral concept is to examine cases—called "borderline" here—where the ascription of rights seems doubtful or problematic. If we can understand what goes wrong in the doubtful cases, then perhaps we can develop a more satisfactory account of the clear cases. Although not written with such a purpose in mind, the Article may also be viewed as a tentative start toward showing that a generally Rawlsian theory of justice or rights can make an important place for those moral claims which Nozick calls entitlements.

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