The ethics of risk in Robert Nozick’s “Anarchy, the State, and Utopia”

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the ethical concept of risk presented in the central work of R. Nozick “Anarchy, the State and Utopia” (1974) (chapter “Prohibition, compensation and risk” and prerequisites), one of the most influential representatives of modern Western political philosophy. Despite the fact that, along with the “A Theory of Justice” by J. Rawls, this work is the most important for the modern Western discourse on the moral foundations of politics, the concept of risk included in it as a necessary element has almost never been the subject of detailed consideration in the domestic research tradition. Referring to modern academic discussion, built around the idea of “risk society” by U. Beck and other risk theories, the authors correlate the key issues of equity in the production and consumption of risks, their distribution, conflict interaction of the parties to risk relations with the R. Nozick’s provisions. The article traces the path traversed by R. Nozick from posing the question of the necessity of the state as such to the moral foundations of prohibition, risk and compensation in a “state of nature”. It examines the possible reactions outlined by the philosopher to risky actions and the collisions of their moral justification. As a result of the analysis, the authors conclude that R. Nozick’s ethical concept of risk allows us to identify some key features, without answering to which it will be impossible to establish morally justified regulators of risk relations: 1) is a fair system of risk distribution possible in principle and compensation; 2) whether it is necessary to include risk reflection in the exchange package, that is, the fear experienced by potential victims of a risky action.