 Sometimes
people criticize Robert Nozick for not supplying any
"foundations" for his entitlement theory of side constraints
(or, as we say, rights). I don't think that's accurate.
Nozick allowed that he did not offer a "completely accurate statement" of his moral theory. But that doesn't mean that he offered nothing.
First of all, he offered serious criticisms of the leading alternative views. He criticized both utilitarianism and Rawls' theory at length.
Secondly, he showed that if we deny his view, we end up with unacceptable logical or moral consequences. If we insist on maintaining a pattern of distribution, for example, we will end up having to interfere constantly with what people do and
how much they are paid to do it. That's morally unacceptable to most Americans.
Third, he offered some strong direct support for his views. He
suggested an interesting argument in which he asks us to imagine a set of people
who are initially separate and then come together. I'm going to say
more about this later.
Now let me mention another philosopher who wrote at length on human
rights. Alan Gewirth (who was not a libertarian) developed what we
might call a deontological theory of rights. It was deontological in
that it did not argue on the basis of consequences. Gewirth believed
that "it is possible and indeed logically necessary to infer,
from the fact that certain objects are the proximate and necessary
conditions of human action, that all rational agents logically must
hold or claim, at least implicitly, that they have rights to such
objects." He regarded "freedom and well-being" as the
necessary conditions of action. Each individual must asset a right to
these conditions, and acknowledge the right of others to the same. You
might read his essay called "The Basis and Content of Human
Rights."
I'm not sure that Gewirth's argument works. I'm undecided. That's
why I learn toward Lomasky's argument based on prudence. but Gewirth
may be on to something. One of his students, Roger Pilon, tried to
develop a specifically libertarian theory of rights based partly on
Gewirth's ideas.
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