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Robert Nozick: Examined Life
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Nozick's conception of the origins of the state is reminiscent of the social contract tradition in political thought represented by Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and, in contemporary thought, Rawls. For insofar as the state arises out of a process that begins with the voluntary retention by individuals of the services of an agency that will inevitably take on the features of a state, it can be seen to be the result of a kind of contract. The details of the state-originating process in Nozick's account are very different from those of other social contract accounts...; and, most importantly, for Nozick, unlike other social contract theorists, individual rights do not result from, but exist prior to, any social contract, and put severe constraints on the shape such a contract can take. Furthermore, the parties to the contract in Nozick's conception are to be imagined very much on the model of human beings as we know them in "real life," rather than along the lines of the highly abstractly conceived rational agents deliberating behind a "veil of ignorance" in Rawls's "original position" thought experiment.
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As Louis Pojman notes in his introductory comment, Nozick argues against hedonistic utilitarianism by positing what he calls an "experience machine"—one which produces whatever experiences you want. Would one want to spend one's life "plugged into" such a machine? Nozick thinks not, and, he thinks, this shows there is something wrong with hedonistic ethics.
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Sur la fin de sa vie Nozick a nuancé les positions qu'il avait défendues dans Anarchie, État et Utopie. En particulier dans un de ses ouvrages, The Examined Life, il a qualifié certaines de ses positions passées de "sérieusement inadéquates"
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Examined Life