Monday, November 21, 2011

Entitlement

So, today in class we brought up the violence at the UC-Davis protest. I stumbled into an article that states that John Pike, the police lieutenant shown pepper spraying students, makes over 100,000 dollars a year (http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/what-uc-davis-pays-for-top-talent/41422).

According to Nozick's first principle of entitlement, "A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in acquisition is entitled to that holding." As we established in class today, the police's actions were unjust. What does this mean of Pike's wages? Is he still entitled to them? One would hope a person being payed such an astronomical sum of money to do their job would be more cognizant of the history of police violence at college protests. I am of course, referring to the Kent State shootings during the Vietnam War. While the Kent State protests were closer to a riot by the time shots had been fired, the general public only remembers that students were shot by the National Guardsmen called in to quell the protest. Thankfully, the violence wasn't as severe at UC-Davis as it was at Kent State, but then again, the protest at UC-Davis seems to have been much more calm than that at Kent State. I have gotten away from my point slightly, but I just do not see how anyone could justify such a large amount of tax money going to a man who obviously failed his duties in such a public and abhorrent way. What would Nozick's solution to this be?

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.