Rawls vs Nozick (Ronald Dworkin)

Philosophy Overdose
Philosophy Overdose
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Published 2021-06-15
Ronald Dworkin gives a very brief, introductory overview of John Rawls' "A Theory of Justice" and Robert Nozick's "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" in an interview with Bryan Magee from 1977. Although both wrote very influential works of political philosophy, they came to quite different conclusions. Rawls famously put forward a novel argument for his position which made use of a thought experiment involving a hypothetical contract. Unlike other social contract theories though, Rawls added the further twist that the bargainers must be ignorant about certain facts about themselves which could bias them in their own favor (e.g. their race, gender, class, age, talents, etc.). In this way, ignorance is used as a device to guarantee impartiality in deciding how societies should be structured. After all, one cannot rig things to benefit oneself at the expense of others if one doesn't know what one's personal interests are or what one's position in society will be. Rawls argued that behind this so-called "veil of ignorance" people would agree to two principles, the most interesting being the difference principle, which states that economic inequalities can only be justified if they are to the benefit of the worst off in society. However, such a view was rejected by Nozick, who argued from a starting point of absolute rights of property which cannot be violated without one's consent. Despite such a strong principle, Nozick argued that there can still be a kind of minimal state, what he called a "night-watchman state", which protects property and person. One way to think of the difference in views between Rawls and Nozick (albeit this may be overly simplistic and even misleading in certain respects) is that while Nozick privileges liberty and rights over equality and fairness, Rawls instead privileges that of equality and fairness. (My Summary)

This clip is of Ronald Dworkin discussing the political thought of John Rawls and Robert Nozick in a 1977 interview with Bryan Magee. It is an upload from the previous channel.

The full interview can be found here:    • Philosophy & Politics - Ronald Dworki...  

00:00 John Rawls
12:13 Robert Nozick

#Philosophy #Rawls #BryanMagee
All Comments (21)
  • @redetrigan
    I've always wondered if these interviews were partly scripted or rehearsed, or at least heavily edited. The guests always strike me as so well spoken and concise, I almost find it hard to believe that they're all speaking extemporaneously.
  • @adamthemyth
    I'd love for this series to be brought back with Alex O'Connor as the host.
  • @ParkerTJames
    Nozick might’ve been under appreciated by his peers. But LD debaters sure do love him.
  • @allank8497
    Having a relatively neutral third party explain both instead of having an actual debate is a way better way to contrast ideologies
  • @tomrobinson1877
    Great clear discussion, I’d never heard of Ronald Dworkin but clearly a very precise mind
  • @q0mlm
    Does anybody know the brand/model of spectacles that Prof. Dworkin is wearing in this video (or similar if not the exact model)?
  • @TheHunterGracchus
    I suppose the reason one doesn't hear of Nozick in popular discourse is that if you want to come to his conclusions, you can skip all the elaborate intellectual arguments and cite Ayn Rand.
  • @farhanakbar3779
    Please upload more video, i have been searching the video that you upload about professor from University of Warwick if i correct, discussing about Epistemology "How can we know that we don't know" please i really need the rest of the video about interview like this. Thanks!
  • @GregoryWonderwheel
    The erroneous stance of Nozick is that he believes in the divine right of property. His definition of "voluntary" is completely false and erroneous.
  • @TheCommonS3Nse
    He’s blatantly misrepresenting Rawls’ argument to be that people DO choose to structure their societies based on the original position. Rawls’ argument, as I understand it, is that the most just society WOULD be based on the original position, not that our current society is structured that way.
  • @TheCommonS3Nse
    I like the characterization of wealth redistribution as “taking from the middle class to give to the lower classes”, as if the idea of redistributing wealth from the top 1% is just out of the question.