Nozick's Wilt Chamberlain example is intended to show that:

Maintaining any patterned distribution requires continual interference with free choices

Resources should be distributed by auction

Inequalities are justified only if they benefit the least advantaged

Natural talents are morally arbitrary

Maintaining any patterned distribution requires continual interference with free choices

Dworkin's "envy test" is satisfied when:

No one prefers anyone else's bundle of resources to his own

All holdings arose from voluntary transfers

No one prefers anyone else's bundle of resources to his own

The least advantaged are as well off as possible

Which of the following is NOT one of the four forms of alienation in Marx's 1844 Manuscripts?

Alienation from the product of labour

Alienation from other human beings

In The Idea of Justice, Sen criticises "transcendental institutionalism" because it:

Seeks perfectly just institutions instead of comparing real alternatives to reduce manifest injustice

Denies that justice has anything to do with institutions

Measures justice by utility alone

Treats justice as a matter of historical entitlement

Assertion (A): Rawls's first principle of justice has priority over the difference principle. Reason (R): Rawls's parties in the original position know their own talents and social class. Choose the correct option.

Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

Assertion (A): Sen argues that primary goods are an inadequate measure of equality. Reason (R): Nozick argues that taxation of earnings from labour is on a par with forced labour. Choose the correct option.

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

Which of the following are among Rawls's primary goods? Select all that apply.

The social bases of self-respect

Which of the following are Engels's three laws of the dialectic? Select all that apply.

Transformation of quantity into quality

Western Social and Political Philosophy II: Liberal Theories of Justice (Rawls, Nozick, Dworkin, Sen) and Marxism

This chapter takes the two items of Unit 8 that concern the distribution of goods and power: liberalism, as the syllabus lists it, Rawls on distributive justice, Nozick on justice as entitlement, Dworkin on justice as equality, and Amartya Sen on global justice, freedom and capability; and Marxism, with dialectical materialism, alienation, the critique of capitalism, class struggle and the classless society. The liberal theories are best learnt as rival answers to one question, what makes a distribution of goods just, and the chapter sets them side by side. NET Political Science and NET Law's jurisprudence chapter also meet Rawls, Nozick and Sen; here the focus is on their arguments and thought experiments.

1. Rawls: justice as fairness

John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971) revives the social contract to choose principles for the basic structure of society. Parties in the original position choose behind a veil of ignorance: they do not know their class, talents, sex, race or conception of the good, so no one can tailor principles to his own advantage. Rawls argues that rational parties in this position, choosing under uncertainty with so much at stake, would follow a maximin strategy, securing the best worst outcome, and would agree on two principles, arranged in lexical order.

Rawls's two principles of justice
Principle	Content	Priority
First: equal liberty	Each person has an equal right to the most extensive scheme of equal basic liberties compatible with a like scheme for all	Lexically prior: liberty cannot be traded for economic gain
Second (a): fair equality of opportunity	Offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity	Prior to the difference principle
Second (b): the difference principle	Social and economic inequalities are just only if they are to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged	Last in order

Primary goods, the things every rational person wants whatever else he wants (rights and liberties, opportunities, income and wealth, and the social bases of self-respect), are what the principles distribute. Natural talents are "morally arbitrary", so no one deserves the advantages they bring, though society may reward them where this helps the worst off.
Reflective equilibrium is Rawls's method: principles and considered judgements about particular cases are adjusted to each other until they cohere. Political Liberalism (1993) later recasts justice as fairness as a "political" conception that citizens holding different comprehensive doctrines can accept through an overlapping consensus.

2. Nozick: justice as entitlement; Dworkin: justice as equality

Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) replies to Rawls with the entitlement theory. A distribution is just if everyone is entitled to what he holds, and holdings are just if they arose through three principles: justice in acquisition (appropriating unowned things, subject to a Lockean proviso that others are not made worse off), justice in transfer (voluntary exchange and gift), and the rectification of past injustice. The theory is historical, judging a distribution by how it came about, not by its pattern or end-state (such as equality or distribution according to need).

The Wilt Chamberlain argument: begin from any distribution you think just (D1). A million fans each freely pay twenty-five cents to watch the basketball player Wilt Chamberlain, who ends up much richer (D2). If D1 was just and each transfer was voluntary, how can D2 be unjust? "Liberty upsets patterns": maintaining any pattern would require continual interference with free choices.
The minimal state: only a night-watchman state, limited to protection against force, theft and fraud and the enforcement of contracts, is justified; redistribution violates rights, and "taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor". Individuals are ends, not means, so they may not be used for others' benefit without consent.

Ronald Dworkin's egalitarian liberalism rests on the principle that government must treat each citizen with "equal concern and respect". In "What is Equality?" (1981; collected in Sovereign Virtue, 2000) he rejects equality of welfare and defends equality of resources. Imagine shipwreck survivors on a desert island who divide its resources by auction, each starting with the same number of clamshells as currency: the result passes the "envy test" when no one prefers anyone else's bundle. Distribution should be "ambition-sensitive", letting people bear the costs of their choices, but "endowment-insensitive", not letting brute luck in talents and handicaps decide their lot, and a hypothetical insurance market against handicap and low talent grounds redistributive taxation.

3. Amartya Sen: capability, freedom and global justice

Capability: in the Tanner Lecture "Equality of What?" (1979) Sen argued that neither utility nor Rawls's primary goods is the right measure of equality. Resources matter only for what they enable people to do and be; a disabled person needs more resources than others to achieve the same. The focus should be on functionings (valuable beings and doings, such as being nourished, literate, mobile, taking part in community life) and capabilities (the real freedom to achieve alternative combinations of functionings).
Freedom: Development as Freedom (1999) treats development as the expansion of the real freedoms people enjoy; freedom is both the primary end and a principal means of development. Sen stresses five instrumental freedoms: political freedoms, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees and protective security, and notes that no famine has occurred in a functioning democracy with a free press.
Global justice: The Idea of Justice (2009) criticises "transcendental institutionalism", the search for perfectly just institutions within a sovereign state (Rawls's approach), in favour of a comparative approach that asks how to reduce manifest injustices. Using the Sanskrit distinction between nīti (institutions and rules) and nyāya (realised justice, the lives people actually lead), and Adam Smith's impartial spectator, Sen argues for "open impartiality" that includes the views of people beyond one's borders, against the "closed impartiality" of a contract confined to one society, which makes justice a global rather than a merely national question.

What each theory equalises or protects
Thinker	Key idea	Currency of justice
Rawls	Original position, veil of ignorance, difference principle	Primary goods
Nozick	Entitlement, historical principles, the minimal state	Just holdings (rights)
Dworkin	Equal concern and respect, auction, envy test, insurance	Resources
Sen	Capabilities and functionings, comparative justice, open impartiality	Capabilities (real freedoms)

4. Marxism: dialectical materialism, alienation, capitalism, class struggle and the classless society

Dialectical materialism: Marx took Hegel's dialectic, which he said was "standing on its head", and set it on its feet: the motor of development is not Spirit but material reality, and "it is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness" (Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, 1859). Engels formulated three laws of the dialectic: the transformation of quantity into quality, the interpenetration of opposites and the negation of the negation. Applied to history (historical materialism), the economic base, the forces and relations of production, conditions the legal, political and ideological superstructure.
Alienation: in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, the worker under capitalism is alienated from the product of his labour, which confronts him as an alien power; from the activity of labour, which becomes forced; from his species-being, his distinctively human capacity for free, conscious, creative activity; and from other human beings.
Critique of capitalism (Capital, volume 1, 1867): labour power is a commodity whose use creates more value than its own cost; the difference, surplus value, is appropriated by the capitalist, which is exploitation even when wages are "fair". Commodity fetishism makes social relations between people appear as relations between things. Competition drives accumulation, concentration of capital and recurrent crises.
Class struggle and the classless society: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles" (The Communist Manifesto, 1848). Capitalism produces its own gravedigger, the proletariat; after a revolutionary transition, the dictatorship of the proletariat, classes are abolished and the state, an instrument of class rule, "withers away" (Engels). In the higher phase of communist society the principle will be "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" (Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1875).

⚠️ Who coined "dialectical materialism"?

Marx himself never used the phrase "dialectical materialism"; it was systematised by Engels (Anti-Dühring, Dialectics of Nature) and named by Joseph Dietzgen and Georgi Plekhanov. For the exam, the doctrine is Marxist and the three laws are Engels's; "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is from the Critique of the Gotha Programme, not the Manifesto.

Key takeaways

Rawls (1971): original position and veil of ignorance; maximin; equal liberty (lexically prior), fair equality of opportunity, and the difference principle; primary goods; reflective equilibrium; overlapping consensus (1993).
Nozick (1974): justice in acquisition, transfer and rectification; historical against patterned principles; Wilt Chamberlain ("liberty upsets patterns"); the minimal state; taxation as forced labour.
Dworkin: equal concern and respect; equality of resources; the desert-island auction with clamshells and the envy test; ambition-sensitive, endowment-insensitive; hypothetical insurance.
Sen: "Equality of What?" (1979), functionings and capabilities; Development as Freedom (1999); The Idea of Justice (2009): comparative justice, nīti and nyāya, open impartiality and global justice.
Marxism: Hegel set on his feet; Engels's three laws; base and superstructure; four forms of alienation (1844); surplus value and commodity fetishism (Capital, 1867); class struggle (Manifesto, 1848); the classless society and "to each according to his needs" (1875).

Practice questions (10)

Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.

The "veil of ignorance" is a device used by:
1. Robert Nozick
2. Amartya Sen
3. John Rawls
4. Ronald Dworkin
Show answer
Answer: C — John Rawls
Rawls's parties in the original position choose principles behind a veil of ignorance about their own positions and talents. Dworkin's device is the desert-island auction, Nozick's the Wilt Chamberlain case, and Sen appeals to the impartial spectator.
Nozick's Wilt Chamberlain example is intended to show that:
1. Resources should be distributed by auction
2. Inequalities are justified only if they benefit the least advantaged
3. Natural talents are morally arbitrary
4. Maintaining any patterned distribution requires continual interference with free choices
Show answer
Answer: D — Maintaining any patterned distribution requires continual interference with free choices
"Liberty upsets patterns": voluntary transfers from a just starting point produce inequality that could be prevented only by interfering with liberty. The moral arbitrariness of talents and the difference principle are Rawls's, and the auction is Dworkin's.
Dworkin's "envy test" is satisfied when:
1. All holdings arose from voluntary transfers
2. Everyone has equal welfare
3. No one prefers anyone else's bundle of resources to his own
4. The least advantaged are as well off as possible
Show answer
Answer: C — No one prefers anyone else's bundle of resources to his own
The envy test checks an equal division of resources: after the auction no one would trade his bundle for another's. Equality of welfare is what Dworkin rejects, maximising the worst off is Rawls's, and voluntary transfer is Nozick's.
Which of the following is NOT one of the four forms of alienation in Marx's 1844 Manuscripts?
1. Alienation from species-being
2. Alienation from the state
3. Alienation from the product of labour
4. Alienation from other human beings
Show answer
Answer: B — Alienation from the state
The four are from the product, from the activity of labour, from species-being and from other people. Alienation from the state is not one of them.
In The Idea of Justice, Sen criticises "transcendental institutionalism" because it:
1. Seeks perfectly just institutions instead of comparing real alternatives to reduce manifest injustice
2. Denies that justice has anything to do with institutions
3. Measures justice by utility alone
4. Treats justice as a matter of historical entitlement
Show answer
Answer: A — Seeks perfectly just institutions instead of comparing real alternatives to reduce manifest injustice
Sen argues that identifying a perfectly just society is neither necessary nor sufficient for judging which of two real arrangements is more just; his comparative approach focuses on realised lives (nyāya). The other options misdescribe his target, which includes Rawls.
Assertion (A): Rawls's first principle of justice has priority over the difference principle. Reason (R): Rawls's parties in the original position know their own talents and social class. Choose the correct option.
1. Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
2. Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
3. A is true, but R is false
4. A is false, but R is true
Show answer
Answer: C — A is true, but R is false
A is true: the principles are in lexical order, so equal basic liberties cannot be traded for economic gains. R is false: the veil of ignorance hides precisely the parties' talents and class.
Assertion (A): Sen argues that primary goods are an inadequate measure of equality. Reason (R): Nozick argues that taxation of earnings from labour is on a par with forced labour. Choose the correct option.
1. Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
2. Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
3. A is true, but R is false
4. A is false, but R is true
Show answer
Answer: B — Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
Both are true, but R does not explain A. Sen's reason is that people differ in their ability to convert resources into functionings, as a disabled person needs more to achieve the same. Nozick's claim about taxation is a separate libertarian argument against redistribution.
Which of the following are among Rawls's primary goods? Select all that apply.
1. Functionings
2. The social bases of self-respect
3. Rights and liberties
4. Income and wealth
Show answer
Answer: B — The social bases of self-respect; C — Rights and liberties; D — Income and wealth
Rawls lists rights and liberties, opportunities, income and wealth, and the social bases of self-respect. Functionings are Sen's concept, introduced precisely as an alternative to primary goods.
Which of the following are Engels's three laws of the dialectic? Select all that apply.
1. Interpenetration of opposites
2. Negation of the negation
3. Surplus value
4. Transformation of quantity into quality
Show answer
Answer: A — Interpenetration of opposites; B — Negation of the negation; D — Transformation of quantity into quality
Engels's three laws are the transformation of quantity into quality, the interpenetration of opposites and the negation of the negation. Surplus value is a concept of Marx's economic analysis in Capital.
In which year was John Rawls's A Theory of Justice published? Type the year.
Numerical answer — type the value.
Show answer
Answer: 1971
1971, by Harvard University Press. Nozick's reply, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, followed in 1974.