Topics Justice

Question What makes me obligated to respect the supposed property of others? It looks to me like society apportion goods utilizing the purely selfish scheme of exchange. Some people have less ability to procure exchange than others but that doesn't make them more or less entitled to stuff than anyone else. If a person were to steal a line of credit in my name to finance a needed surgery what conceivable moral claim could I have against that person?

Accepted:
February 23, 2011

Comments

By "ability to procure exchange" you mean, I assume, money. So you are saying that the fact that some people have less money does not make them less entitled to stuff. Now this is often true, for instance in cases where those who have less have less on account of wrongs or injustices they suffered. But it's not always and certainly not necessarily true. Thus imagine two able-bodied and otherwise similar persons running a farm together. Suppose they agree to share the net proceeds (sales revenue minus expenses) in proportion to the work each puts in. And suppose one of them does 2/3 of the work and the other 1/3. So the latter has less money to spend than the former -- but isn't she also entitled to less?

A similar story could be told about two otherwise similar people who do equal work and have equal income. One has spent little and thus has a lot left. The other has spent a lot and thus has little left. The latter now has less money that the former -- but isn't he also entitled to less? Perhaps you believe that everyone should have an equal claim on all that is produced. But under such a system, claims would greatly outstrip production. There would be little incentive to work because one's claim to stuff would be no better than if one did no work at all.

Under the system just described, everyone would have a miserable life. Under a system that rewards contributions to the social product and keeps track of past consumption (so that someone who acquires part of the social product must pay for it and thereby come to be entitled to less than before), people are much better off. But running such a system requires that sufficiently many people respect the rules and accept, for example, that if they've spent their fair income for the week they are not entitled to get more stuff even while others (who still have money left) are so entitled. If others do respect these rules and we all benefit from the system, then it would be wrong of you to free-ride on others' compliance by breaking the rules and taking more.

Now in the real world, of course, economic systems are unjust to various degrees. In Libya, for instance, ordinary people have a lot less money than the ruling elite, but this does not render them any less entitled to stuff. So there, if an ordinary citizen finds a clever way to steal money from one of Gaddafi's accounts, Gaddafi indeed has no moral claim against him. But, if it's a lot of money, then other ordinary Libyans may well have a moral claim against him. What's in Gaddafi's accounts was embezzled from the sale of Libyan oil, after all.

The needed-surgery case you conclude with could go either way, depending on context. Suppose this happened in a rich country that makes no provisions for health care of the poor. So people die needlessly because they cannot pay for a simple appendectomy. If someone is in danger of suffering this fate under this (I would think) plainly unjust system, and if he knows that you are a wealthy beneficiary of this injustice (by saving a lot in taxes because the state makes no provisions for the vulnerable), then you may indeed have no moral claim against him if he steals the needed money from you.

But now suppose the case involves heart surgery and happens in a poor country which is simply unable to provide such expensive surgery to all who need it at public expense. People can buy insurance that covers heart surgery, but most buy a cheaper policy or rely on public services which cover the basics (including appendectomy but not including heart surgery). Now in this sort of case it would seem that you do have a moral claim against the needy person, especially if you earn no more than she does and she earned enough to be able to afford the better health insurance policy. She chose not to insure and is now trying to obtain the needed operation by stealing money from you. Suppose you know that, if you let her succeed with her theft, you would be unable to continue to buy the better health insurance policy for your family and thus would be putting the health of your family members at risk. Would it then not be morally permissible for you to stop her theft? I would think something even stronger is true: it would be wrong for her to try the theft. A poor society, even if justly organized, may not be able to meet all urgent needs of its members. If so, then it would be wrong for a person with a very expensive need that she had a genuine opportunity to insure against (but chose not to) to fulfill her own urgent need at the expense of causing basic needs of others to go unfulfilled.