Monday, November 16, 2009

Nozick Revisted

In our recent discussions about torture and truth commissions, I've been thinking a lot about Nozick's entitlement theory, which states (in my words) that the justness of a system is determined by its agreeableness to the entitlement of everyone involved in the system. Basically, as long as everyone agrees that a certain system is justly changed, the system becomes just.

But what are we to do with something so thorny as the institution of torture? To me, there is a humongous difference between parties agreeing to certain entitlements and people "consenting" to be tortured. Wasn't it Locke who said that no one can consign away their basic rights?

But if this is the case, why does torture persist? I don't think Nozick can answer this question. Or at least I think he would perpetually waffle with it. It's hard, in my mind, to think that someone can sign away the basic entitlement to their own humanity (keep in mind that I write this under the basic assumption that we discussed in class, namely, that torture is necessarily the act of dehumanizing someone).

But then what gets me even more is the sense that, under Nozick's theory of justice, the fact that this torture inclusive system is around today proves its justness. That, to me, sounds utterly ridiculous. Living in a world where consent is mandated by physical coercion sounds like justice itself is being tortured...

2 comments:

  1. I find it very interesting that you're discussing torture in relation to Nozick. I agree that he would be baffled by the claim that torture is just, especially since the torturer really is not "entitled" to torture. I think in trying to justify torture, there will always result in a trade-off situation where nobody really knows why exactly torture is taking place.

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  2. This opens the interesting question of that has somewhat been discussed about if one can consent to be tortured. Is it just? It seems that the issue is that if you consent to be dehumanized, then you are consenting to have the ability to decide taken away from you. in a sense you are using your human stance to take that same stance away from yourself. From a logical perspective it doesn't work.

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