POLT12200 Study Guide - Quiz Guide: Robert Nozick, Tomato Juice, Political Philosophy
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Alec salisbury | political philosophy | exam #3: present locke"s famous labour mixing argument justifying private property, then discuss. John locke"s famous labour mixing argument is that when a person mixes their own labour with something such as land, it thereby becomes their property. This argument is a justification for things such as agriculture and farming. The problem with this argument is that it requires the following premise: if you own something (x), and mix (x) with (y), you now own (y). Robert nozick thought that this premise was false and provided a counterexample to it. His example was that if he took tomato juice mixed with poison he concocted, and mix it into the sea, he then had property rights to the sea. While under locke"s premise he would indeed own the sea, common sense says nozick obviously doesn"t own the sea. A solution to this problem could be to create a stipulation of added value.
