Are the absolutely affluent morally obligated to help the absolutely poor? Consider how Rachels and Nozick might respond to Singers argument.

        Nozick has a rather different point of view on entitlement than Singer does. Nozick’s “Entitlement Theory of Justice” has three basic principles to help decide if a distribution is just or not. The principle of justice in acquisition determines the legitimate ways to acquire things, such as investing one’s labor into it, or finding previously un-owned property and claiming it for one’s own. The principle of justice in transfer describes the legitimate means of transferring wealth to others, such as by giving gifts, or voluntary exchange. The principle of rectification determines the conditions in which wealth can and should be re-distributed, such as replacing someone else’s property. If none of these principles are violated, the distribution is a just one. Nozick’s theory is a historical one, focusing on how events took place in the past, rather than how things have progressed into the future. Nozick disagrees with utilitarians in the idea of restricting voluntary exchange to get rid of unjust distribution, as in his example with Will Chamberlain. He believes that if one acquires means in a legitimate and just fashion, one have a right to dispose of it however one may see fit, even if it means some people being insanely rich or poor. Nozick disagrees with Singer’s theory because he believes that ideas like Singer’s, the rich helping the poor, even through taxation, are equivalent to forced labor and slavery.

        Rachels has a similar take on the situation of how distribution should occur as Nozick does, but Rachels adds another spin to it by adding the question of desert. Rachels believes that it is possible for someone to deserve something they do not have a right to. This idea may be easy to see in the idea of choosing one person to employ over another. Perhaps the son of the CEO may have a “right” to it in a sense, even though he is a lazy, worthless, and unintelligent guy, as opposed to the man who has always gone above and beyond what was asked of him and is obviously more suited for the job. The hard working man obviously deserves the position but that doesn’t mean that the son doesn’t necessarily have a right to the job, which has always been traditionally maintained within his family. Rachels ideas are similar to Nozick’s, but tend to focus more on this idea of desert than on the idea of what rights people may or may not have. Rachels uses something of a Kantian justification in the idea that industriousness or the willingness to work is obviously not the same as actually working. In regards to Singer’s ideas, Rachels position is a bit hard to decipher. It would seem that Rachels would agree with Nozick in that people deserve to do what they please with what they have acquired, if they deserved it and if those who it is being distributed to deserve it as well. However, Rachels also says that people may have received something based on right, when in reality, the most important factor is desert, and in that respect they should not have said object.

        Nozick and Rachels seem to have similar points of view in disagreeing with Singer’s idea that those who have the means, should help those without. Each of these people brings up ethically relevant points about the nature of justice in distribution, despite their disagreement. There is certainly something to be learned from each of these articles in the unanswerable question of who deserves what, what constitutes that desert, and why they deserve it over another person.