Natural Rights and Political Legitimacy

Summary

INTRODUCTION

“Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do. How much room do individual rights leave for the state?” As is well-known, Robert Nozick's reply to this question, in Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), is that any state more extensive than a minimal one will fail to be justified except under special circumstances (for instance, the rectification of serious wrongs). Some think that even minimal states will fail to be justified given the rights that we have. It may be that the constraints of justice leave no room for the state's exercise of its functions or even for its existence. If we possess (virtually) indefeasible natural rights to life, liberty, and possessions, then it is doubtful that the state may do very much, if anything, without violating our rights. This is Nozick's challenge.

The challenge would have passed unnoticed in the 1970s were it not for the quality of Nozick's argument. In much of the West–certainly in the political cultures influenced by the American and French revolutions–it was widely thought then, and perhaps now, that states are in large part justified to the extent to which they protect our fundamental rights. This might be thought to be the very purpose of the state.