Robert Nozick's entitlement theory derives the legitimacy of a minimal ("night watchman") state from a hypothetical-history argument: coercive protective force tends toward a natural monopoly within a territory, and non-members ("independents") can be forced to join if a hypothetical compensation could in principle leave them no worse off than under the fear-generating status quo, an application of the Kantian maxim that "ought entails can." The theory is deontological rather than teleological, treating individual rights as side-constraints on action rather than end-states to be maximized, and it rests on a premise of deep value pluralism that forecloses any redistributive expansion of the state's functions beyond protection.
Robert Nozick's entitlement theory derives the legitimacy of a minimal ("night watchman") state from a hypothetical-history argument: coercive protective force tends toward a natural monopoly within …