Abstract

There is a dispute between welfare liberals and libertarians about whether redistribution of wealth is a rights violation. Welfare liberals believe that a state should redistribute income and wealth. In contrast, libertarians think redistribution is an intervention and a rights violation to the people who earn money in a free market by their inheritance or gifts. In the debate between Rawls and Nozick, there are two main disagreements about the liberty of whom and to what extent natural talents should be considered a shared asset by a state. MacIntyre thinks that Rawls and Nozick’s moral debate is meaningless since there is conceptual incommensurability of the rival arguments in it. His resolution offers a virtue ethics perspective to be a reconciliation, which fails to provide a universal moral principle in a multicultural world. However, a new way to understand the concept of labor seems to give a justificatory argument for redistribution and welfare state.

Highlights

  • There is a dispute between welfare liberals and libertarians about whether redistribution of wealth is a rights violation

  • Welfare liberals think that a state should redistribute income and wealth

  • I think Nozick’s wrong interpretation of labor and possession leads to his misunderstanding about which liberty all individuals are allowed to have. Another understanding of labor and entitlement can make the opinion that the right to liberty leads to the right to equality clearer

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Summary

Introduction

There is a dispute between welfare liberals and libertarians about whether redistribution of wealth is a rights violation. Libertarians think redistribution is an intervention and a rights violation to the people who earn money in a free market by their inheritance or gifts. Both sides put forward their ideas for how to construct a fair society to guarantee citizens’ rights. Nozick and Rawls both want to design a just society in which individuals participating in social exchanges would be treated fairly Their disagreement, is whether the state should redistribute the talents of individuals as resources and services to others. My strategy to support welfare liberals is to examine whether Nozick’s critique of Rawls is successful and point out his theory’s flaw, try to resolve the dispute of libertarians and welfare liberals and defend the proposition that individuals deserve their natural qualifications under a specific moral constraint

Nozick’s Criticism of Rawls and the Flaw
The Dispute of the Right to Liberty and the Right to Equality
Whose Liberty?
Is the Natural Asset a Common Asset?
MacIntyre’s Resolution to the Dispute and the Flaw
The Moral Framework of Conciliation of Conflicting Liberties
Conclusion
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