Hello, everyone, I'm Stephen West. This is philosophize. This thank you to everyone that supports the show and patron think it was well to every one out there that help spread. The word on social media on Twitter, I'm at I am Stephen West Facebook, dot com, slash philosophize. This show today's besides the famous political work of Robert Nosek, titled, anarchy, state and utopia. I hope you love the show today. So obviously there are a lot of different problems. Political philosophers were faced with throughout the twentieth century, and we talk about most of them. Far, but one of the biggest once we haven't talked about yet specifically for Poland. Philosophers and amid too late twentieth century when the biggest questions facing them was this when we are hit with problems, big problems we need to solve collectively as a society, should the state or the government be primary tool that we use to solve those problems? How much worse Possibility is wise to give to the government. Does the government solve the problem one of our society and the best manner possible, or

it is giving the government more responsibilities to deal with create more problem. In its worth? Another important question to consider about all this when it comes to this episode in particular, when you pay grass, we give the government more jobs to do and more outcomes to guarantee for people when you have a big powerful government with a democracy behind it, feeding it task to complete does a bit. Government, plus a democracy always equal. A tyranny of the majority and the citizens but don't necessarily agree with the majority or the people currently holding political office Do those citizens just need to resign themselves to paying into attacks pool that far All the things they don't agree with me in oversized government makes slaves of people whose views known happened to align with the current majority, to me. Some of the most important and fun questions to think about an all of political philosophy: bullets these questions on wanted to time should be. Government. Be the tool

that we use to solve our problems as a society? Now, as you can imagine, when you ask a question like this It's this wide and scope. The answer you're gonna get going to vary widely as well. Last time about John roles and his work theory of justice and wrong. Would be a good example of a later twentieth century thinker, whose more on the side of government being a good solution to our problems. We all this in his work. He lays out what he things is a fair and just distribution and of social goods and then suggested it's the government's job to tax and distribute accordingly to ensure that distribution remains just, and two imbalance in one direction or another, but there are of course, thinkers out there that would disagree with rules. Maybe one of the most extreme examples of someone on the other side, would be some variation of anarchy. The exact opposite of believing that government is the best way to solve all our problems. Human beings began in the state of nature. Why We believe that central in power into a single body, we call the government is gonna, produce

any better results and we could otherwise produce with private enterprise but that conversation for later, when we do or episodes on the anarchists thought of the nineties today's episode- on a philosopher who falls somewhere in between John roles and an anarchist. His name is Robert Noses, and the book we're gonna be talking about today is title anarchy, state and utopia now just to give the following conversation. A little preliminary structure that title Anarchy state in Utopia is rough. Seeing the three major sections of the book is divided into the first section, would be anarchy or knows expensive, suitable portion of time being under standing of the anarchists aversion to government, but ultimately making a case that they go too far. The middle portion of the book state has nosey laying out the type of state that heating his best and the utopia section is where he describes why his version of a state is the best. Utopia is a sort of hung in cheap musing. By knows that key by no means thinks his system is an actual utopia, but he thinks it's far

than other systems that have been tried and he argues for why he thinks that is seated It is not a fan of there being a big state with a lotta responsibilities and he's not affair there being no state at all? So what is he a fan of? How big should the government be and what exactly should do? No success, fan of what he would call the minimal state, the best one, Our understanding what he means by this is probably contrasting with both work of roles and the anarchists of his time get us into this mindset of nosek. Let's. It was some general criticisms of roles, and these bigger government approaches It will then lead us to criticisms of roles. Detail by knows himself. The fur play, someone might take issue with rules is with his use of the maximum principle. That word maximum, as you might remember from last time, is a mixture of the words maximum and men Rawls holds that rational agents will Choosing the structure of society would rely We choose the option that provided the maximum for the minimum or the best case scenario for the law,

Stu advantaged within that society, but some people would reply back to that and say: ok sure that that's sounds great, but when you really look at the studies when you really look at What human beings truly seem to value when it comes to the role of government, they don't want the bed situation for the least advantaged they want, sir, basic services guaranteed with a satisfactory quality of life in short, and beyond that they just want the government leave them alone, and let them live your life. People don't want the government telling them what things they should care about or how they should be living and the larger the government gets the more Government is asked to do just that. We're can be touching on this at multiple points throughout the next couple episodes, but let this be the first instance of saying that one of the main criticisms people have here is that Rawls wants to do away with markets and its. I rely on a predetermined, fixed, distribution of the social goods, which leads some people to think that the MAC

In principle is not obviously what rational agents would choose in the original position as role suggests, but instead maybe- for needs the maximum principle for other parts of his theory to work at all many different options. We, Actually many different options. We might see rational agents choosing, will structuring society in that place. Another common criticism of rules. He talks about the p born the original position. Structuring society through a veil of ignorance, how would people structure society if they couldn't know their age, gender, race, income level, family level of intelligence etc, and there are people out there that would reply back to this and say once again that sounds really nice, but doesn't that take away practically everything about what makes a person a person these aspects of our identity matter, the part of the campaign, that makes us a human being and political petitions need to be structured to deal with the problems of human beings These nameless basis rational agents of roles that don't

actually resemble a human being at all, but maybe the biggest point of departure between knows that can run. It comes down to the way they see. Rights noses opens anarchy state in utopia. With this famous line, he says, quote: individuals have rights- and there are things no person or group made due to them end Quote- knows it- wants to focus heavily on our rights as citizens and the reason he wants hey such close attention to them is because he wants to get away from what he thought was a huge misstep in the work of John Ross rules. Talks a lot in his work about fairness. Justice is fairness to run Rules when you're born into an estate with a billion dollars, you deserve that billion dollars any more than you deserve. The negative consequences of somebody falling in front of your car by chance both out Arms are morally arbitrary, but knows it's gonna say

none of this stuff matters when it comes to the state, because rules is asking the wrong questions. The job of the state is not to determine what people deserve, or what things are fair or not. The job of the state is to determine what people are entitled to and then when forced that lets say your great grandma Beatrice tragically passes away. It's also say that, throughout the last five years of her life, her daughter took care of her and made sure she was safe, grandma, be it in her will tries to leave everything she. Owns toward daughter, but makes sums of error on the legal form and through some random sequence of events. Her possessions get past to her son, who, for the second example has always hated grandma, Beatrice and haven't spoken to her for years, role of the state is not to be an epoch so the judge duty where they sit there and a reprimand Grandma Beatrice son for not being in her life more the role of the state as to tell him that it's not fair or that he doesn't deserve what was left for him. The job of the state is to determine What he is entitled to, and then

make sure that he gets it. The state should be focused on entitlements and rights knows it thinks there are. Certain rights that all human beings would agree upon, whether there state a nature or in the advanced society on the planet. He calls the values, ground these rights, moral side constraints and, in short, they said, the parameters for what can be done to a person without violating their rights when the most important moral side constraints. For knows it is this that no person should be harmed without their consent seems pretty reasonable, but, as will see its this moral side constraint in particular its truly taking the rights of people seriously That will eventually lead noses to unavoidable problems with the work of both the Anarchists and John roles, but start with the problems. It's too, with the work of the anarchy laid out in the anarchy section of the book. So if one thing we can all agree upon is that no human being wants to be harmed against their will. The no success when you

consider the hostile, dangerous environment of the state in nature. Anything about how human beings would behave in that scenario what would naturally emerge are private services that provide people with protection from other people that want to hurt them. At the most basic level. You pay a fee, and then have your own personal security guard whose job it is. Make sure that nobody trusts are hurt you or your family or take any of your stuff but feasibly. Not everybody can have their own private security guard, so these guards would have to take on multiple client. Probably people that are in a similar proximity to each other. But then another problem comes up no success. The whole thing becomes a convoluted mess when you have hundreds or thousands of competing secure ready guard factions all trying to enforce the rules? Are the people who happened to be paying for them? There's no cod five set of rules that all the security guards are enforcing, it's gonna be a nightmare for these guards to have to figure out in real time whose accounts and of theirs versus who isn't? Which set of

rules there enforcing today versus tomorrow, which rules respond with which client what happens when there's a conflict between what two different clients want not to mention those excesses. What's gonna happen, when to settle a dispute. One person sick regard has to fight another person, security guard well one of them, is gonna win and than ever one from the losing security guards detail is going to want to be protected by the other security guard. Now this, seems like a weird hypothetical. For knows, it could be spent, so much time on. But the argument is ultimately making here is that what naturally emerges in the state of nature, is a lie cool monopoly over the protection services of a region and other whip putting? That would be to say that what now actually emerges is a very basic kind of state that allows people to pay a fee in exchange for basic protection and the enforcement of contracts. This is one of the reasons why he thinks the anarchist takes a reversion to government too far, because even without any sort of four Millie organise state

this inevitable monopoly over protection services effectively creates the same thing. This version of an extremely minimal state when the provides basic protection for people and make sure that contracts are enforced. This is the standard from which it Conversations about the role of government need to proceed from. So, if you have any ambitions about fun, our creative services that you think it's the government's job to provide for people you're going. To do some major convincing to nose like if you want to make a case for the government being the appropriate thing too those services out, because not only is not what the government is good at doing, because it has a complete monopoly over the services and thus can be embarrassingly inefficient, with no consequences. But this also isn't what the government should be doing. To knows the more stuff we ask the government to do the more money. They're gonna need from you to inefficiently, execute that plan

Is it the government's job to tell people how to live their lives outside of following the loss knows thinks we need to take answering this question very serious, and be extremely cautious of commissioning the government to solve our problems because giving assent the wise body, like the government, more and more power and more and more stuff to do come very real consequences. This is clearly a point of dust agreement between the different views of noses and Rawls, because nobody thinks, whenever you advocate for a state that supposed to mean redistribute wealth from one group of people to another. You are fundamentally going against that moral side constraint? You were doing harm to someone who has not consented to be harmed. Let me explain what he means No one understands where rules is coming from here I mean he, he gets it, the idea. Is that your part of a group? You have been fitted in some way from that group. So Therefore, you now owe a debt to that group and your obligated to pay it through higher taxes will knows. It gives account, for example, and anarchy state in Utopia bitter paraphrasing

but he would say, imagine your home one day for cleaning your house and it's a nice day outside. So we open up the window and Come down the street. You can hear your neighbor playing instruments practising music with their banned in their garage. Few houses down so you decide to get a glass eliminate sit on the couch, take a break, and listen to the music for a while. Now Imagine the next day that per and from down the street, comes to your door and demands pay. Meant because you listen to their music. Would you say that you this person money, because he listened to their music, of course, not no success. The only way you'd o the money is, if you consented to pay them for the music before they started playing forcing somebody d hey into a system that will then redistribute their income to whatever cause at once, regardless of whether or not the person consents to support that cause to Nosek is a back handed covert way of employees. Forced labour on your citizens, for somebody paint forty percent of their income in taxes. You are asking them to go to work every day

and produce value for the state for forty percent of their time, for almost towards a half hours out of an eight hour shift. They are not working towards proving their life. They are raising funds for the government to spend but ever vision for society they might have today. The fact that this money sometimes goes towards people who are in need really has, nothing to do with. It, too knows, because when you truly take people's rights seriously and dont harm them without their consent, then you realize that doing something wrong is never ok, just because you think it'll led the good results too knows it. You can't just can in ITALY ignore one person's rights because doing so will make things better for other people. This is, of course, and direct contrast to the long tradition of political philosophy being centred around utilitarianism. To illustrate this point. Further knows it gives one of the most famous examples from his work. Just imagine for a second, if you were asleep, the control of a brutal slave master that abuse as you and treat you like dirt. Now we would all

greed- that this is not a way anybody should be treated, and we would certainly not say but the slave is a free person, but the no success Imagine another scenario: imagine you're still a slave, but you're. So master doesn't abuse you you long hours, but you're allowed to A family you're allowed to have your own modest place to live. Would that be an ok way to treat? Someone would be considered that a free person, no, we wouldn't about if you're, still asleep but your slave master doesn't really need your help. All that much you can live on a farm out in the country by yourself. You can raise your kids, you can go to the store and buy stuff, but nonetheless you are still the property of that slave master. We would say clearly this is still wrong. This person is still owned by somebody else. They are not a free human. Being in any real sense of the word. Nosek walks this example or the way back to living a modern life under a government that taxes and redistribute and a culture behind the tells you what sort of job you're gonna have what causes your time.

Six dollars are gonna go towards how much you need to work. How many vacations you go on what you buy knows ex question: is when you're living in a society. Where government, has so many tasks that aim at ensuring specific outcomes for people do we really own ourselves fully as the sun. Eyes of government increases? Does our about. Ready to be truly free decrease in a semi proportion. The question nos at once answered is at what point in his example, does the slave truly experience self ownership? This is the reason nosek as an advocate of the minimal state roles at great intentions with his work, but when its biggest problems. For knows it was it he aimed for what he called a patterned distribution of social good or the idea that the distribution of goods must follow a particular pattern that we decided is good beforehand. Philosophers of this time, typically called for a pattern distribution if there trying to get away from markets you

because they were trying to get away from the inequalities often produced by market systems, but knows it thinks aiming for things like equality across the board or the best for the least. It aged across the board is wrong on many different levels, not the least of witches Let's say that you have a certain pattern: distribution we want to achieve total equality for the sake of the example Let's say one day you achieve that goal of total equality, but what have the second after that goal is achieved Wilson sell something or gives it if to someone or someone, get sick and can't work, in other words, things aren't equal across the board anymore, So what necessarily needs to happen? Is the government has to step in and was store the balance of that pattern. What were signing yourself up, for their noses is an indian, sprit of government coercion or they constantly their fingers. Inside your life constantly trying to produce certain outcomes and a certain type of citizen to nosing the bigger the government

The more utilitarianism starts to creep in the more we ignoring the rights of the few under the function that it's good for the rest of the population, but knows it wants to respect. Those rights on a level most political philosophies, weren't willing to this is. Why knows it thinks it's none of the governments business what people deserve, the question they should be asking is what is legal and what are people entitled to someone Ross talks about the moral arbitrariness of being born into a billion dollars state how you aren't putting that money towards the least advantaged within society, the Mccain we consider you having that money is justice knows it's gonna say that the only question the government should be concerned with is: did you get that money in a legal way. There was age just wait to get that money, and there is a just wait for it to be transferred from its previous owner. As long as it follows these two criteria- Then the ownership of that billion dollars is just we need to respect people's rights and we need to respect our legal system.

When someone finds a way to make a billion dollars, while, following all the legal parameters set up to protect people along the way knows it would ask. How can we say that that outcome is not just when every step taken to get there was just under our legal system? Knows it thinks roles as big mistake? Is that he's thinking about people's property as though when they die it into some sort of purgatory words not owned by anyone, and then it falls into someone else's lab, but these possessed things were already legally acquired and owned by people and then given to someone else through a legal process. The compares the we rouses looking at society to the way people get being stranded on a desert island. How do you Read the limited resources that you have once you realize your stranded on an eyelid while yet taken inventory of what you have you distributed the best you can. And when Tom Hanks fines of we ball. Smears is blood all over it and calls it has good POW Wilson.

There is nobody out there. That is saying well technically, that belongs to the Wilson Volleyball Factory that that that is not your property, Mister, Thomas no, nobody would say that, but here's the thing knows it would say we don't live stranded on a desert island. This is not, a state of emergency people inherit things that already own, for having produced dream value in former societies. Say all you want is an individual about whether that's fair or whether they deserve it. But when it comes to the state, they should only go as far as asking what people, are entitled to and whether they achieved through legal means when the path to get there was just. The outcome is just too knows the beauty of his system lies in the fact that there isn't some Pattern, distribution that the government's guaranteeing through coercion that their art a handful specific outcomes of the government's nurturing more than others, with everyone's tax dollars, the minimal state.

Allows for a level of freedom and self ownership that a big government system can offer when you dont have a busy powerful. Government with a tyranny of the majority directing. It knows it thinks that leaves room for types of lifestyles, there are incompatible with a big government approach, because, while the big government approaches Very specific outcomes are trying to ensure the minimal state allows You D run any experiment. You want as long as you're not harming the people around you. So under the minimal state. If you wanted to buy some land band together with a bunch of friends and start a com this compound, because it's just type of society. We want to live in, you can do it. Think the liberals aroun in the world thinking conservatives around the world start a community where you cut either of them out completely and then see how it goes for you, the bill, of no six minimal state, is that it allows the world to act as a laboratory where we can run any kind of x, element that we want and then learn from the successes and failures of other strategies, knows it,

I say this is far from perfect system, but at the very least, it's a system, a truly respects. People's rights and this leads NOS two reference Leibnitz and jokingly referred with system as the best of all possible worlds from Lebanon, since the odyssey that we talked about on the show the book anarchy state in Utopia offers a unique argument in favor of libertarianism, which at the time was in many ways a different solution to twentieth century political problems that were going on next episode, we're gonna be talking about the philosopher, Frederick Hike. And it's been said- that while Nosek offers a defensive libertarianism from the perspective of rights high, it offers a defence libertarianism from the perspective of markets, but both of them, it should be said take extreme issue with the eye. Here that we should be planning what our society is. Gonna look like beforehand and then using the government as a tool of the code stat into existence. Whether that's a plan distribute can of social goods. Whether that's a play,

and economic system would specific outcomes like socialism, whether that's a play, and idea of what a citizen of a particular society is gonna, be like how much you're gonna work, how much you're gonna make etc Whatever plan you may have beforehand of how society should look when the enforcer of that plan is a centralized monopoly of content. Raided power, like the government, you may creating more problems than your solving. Thank you for listening I'll talk to you next time.