First published in 1997, this book discusses the interplaying factors environmental issues have on justice and property and other social problems. Endeavouring create a discourse on what sustainability means in implementation, each of the contributors to this book approaches this via different theoretical viewpoints.

This article explores the conceptual relations Hobbes perceived between justice, law, and property rights. I argue that Hobbes developed three distinct arguments for the State-dependency of property over time: the Security, Precision and Creation Argument. On the last and most radical argument, the sovereign creates all property rights ex nihilo through distributive civil laws. Hobbes did not achieve this radically conventionalist position easily: it was not defended consistently until the redefinition of distributive justice as a (...) virtue of arbitrators in Leviathan. The argument is partly advanced as a critique of C.B. Macpherson’s possessive individualist reading of Hobbes. (shrink)

David Hume and Simone de Beauvoir agree that human beings have a great deal of control over their moral and political lives, which is well captured in Hume's assertion that "mankind is an inventive species". But Hume argues that the most important thing needed to settle our social lives and determine justice is the agreement on rules of property, while Beauvoir thinks that the rules of property will never be enough to establish the best life, but rather (...) that we should be focusing on freedom. In this article we reconstruct Hume's argument for property, then develop a Beauvoirian critique of Hume that brings out the weakness of any theory of property that does not prevent inequalities of property from interfering with freedom. And then we give the last word to a Humean response to Beauvoir that would insist that there can be no freedom but only violence without rules of property, which she ignores. Both thinkers appeal to humanity as an overriding goal, and perhaps that is the way to reconcile the two: we need both property and freedom to achieve our humanity. (shrink)

There is a great deal that might be said about justice in property claims. The strategy that I shall employ focuses attention upon the initial acquisition of property -- the most sensitive and most interesting area of property theory. Every theory that discusses property claims favorably assumes that there is some justification for transforming previously unowned resources into property. It is often this assumption which has seemed, to one extent or another, to be vulnerable (...) to attack by critics of particular justifications of property. Nevertheless, this assumption is frequently left undefended by property theorists, and where it is defended, the defense is often remarkably weak. That some initial claim to property be defensible is required by any theory which holds that certain present distributions may be justified, that certain transfers of property are justified, or that restitution ought to be made for previous injustice in transfer or acquisition. The initial acquisition of property, and its justification, is crucial to the remainder of property theory. (shrink)

This book gives an account of a full spectrum of property rights and their relationship to individual liberty. It shows that a purely deontological approach to justice can deal with the most complex questions regarding the property system. Moreover, the author considers the economic, ecological, and technological complexities of our real-world property systems. The result is a more conceptually sound account of natural rights and the property system they demand. If we think that liberty should (...) be at the centre of justice, what does that mean for the property system? Economists and lawyers widely agree that a property system must be composed of many different types of property: the kind of private ownership one has over one's person and immediate possessions, as well as the kinds of common ownership we each have in our local streets, as well as many more. However, theories of property and justice have not given anything approaching an adequate account of the relationship between liberty and any other form of property other than private ownership. It is often thought that a basic commitment to liberty cannot really tell us how to arrange the major complexities of the property system, which diverge from simple private ownership. Property and Justice demonstrates how philosophical rigour coupled with interdisciplinary engagement enables us to think clearly about how to deal with real-world problems. It will be of interest to political philosophers, political theorists, and legal theorists working on property rights and justice. (shrink)

The institutional theory of property is that view that property rights are entirely and essentially conventional and are the creatures of states and coercively backed legal systems. In this paper, I argue that, although states and legal systems have a valuable role in defining property rights, the institutional story is not the whole story. Rather, the property rights hat we have reason to recognize as part of justice are partly conventional in character and partly rooted (...) in universal human interests and dispositions. (shrink)

Our days are a vast, intricate, evolving dance of mutual understandings. We stop at a traffic light, offer a plastic card as payment for a meal, leave our weapons at home, or enter a voting booth. We live and work in close proximity, at high speed, with few collisions: on our roads and in our neighborhoods, places of worship, and places of business. Somehow, having all those people around is more liberating than stifling. The secret is that we know roughly (...) what to expect from each other. Knowing what to expect enables us to adapt to each other. Not being obliged to conform to expectations—being free to test the previously untested— is likewise a great benefit. The two benefits seem mutually exclusive, yet property rights, combined with freedom of contract, enable us to reap both at once. We can rely on being able to go to market and find someone selling cauliflower at an affordable price. We can also rely on being able to go to market and find someone rendering obsolete what a few years ago had been cutting-edge technology. We make progress by testing what has not previously been tested. We experiment. One problem with experiments is: many of them don’t work.1 Or, the ideas being tested turn out to be bad ideas. Thus a successful society encourages people not only to experiment, but also to shut down experiments whose inspiration proves unsound. What kind of framework encourages experimentation without at the same time perpetuating bad ideas? Here is one hypothesis: in societies that sustain progress over long periods, people are free to experiment at their own expense and free from having to pay for other people’s bad ideas. This is the true test of a system of property. It is natural to assume instead that the true test of a system of property is a question of whether the system is just. That is, philosophers should theorize about justice first, and only then begin to theorize about what can legitimately become a person’s property. I have become skeptical about this. (shrink)

John Rawls is arguably the most important political philosopher of the past century. His theory of justice has set the agenda for debate in mainstream political philosophy for the past forty years, and has had an important influence in economics, law, sociology, and other disciplines. However, despite the importance and popularity of Rawls's work, there is no clear picture of what a society that met Rawls's principles of justice would actually look like. This article sets out to explore (...) that question. (shrink)

In Justice as Fairness, Rawls presents a case for property-owning democracy (POD) which heavily depends on a favourable comparison with welfare state capitalism (WSC). He argues that WSC, but not POD, fails to realise ‘all the main political values expressed by the two principles of justice’. This article argues that Rawls’s case for POD is incomplete. He does not show that POD is superior to other conceivable forms of WSC. In order to present a serious contender, I (...) sketch what I call a realistically utopian welfare state (RUWS) that (a) guarantees the fair equality of political liberties and opportunity and that (b) maximises the situation of the worst.-off via a kind of participation income. The main aim of the article is to give credibility to the claim that RUWS is not obviously worse than POD by Rawlsian standards and therefore deserves a fair hearing in further research. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the intersection of climate justice and international cooperation, focussing on the compulsory licensing of climate-related technologies. I aim to contribute to a critical analysis of the role of intellectual property rights (IPRs) and global development in the twenty-first century, particularly within the context of a climate crisis, by: (i) explaining the evolution of the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR&RC) in the international governance on climate change, and (ii) analysing (...) discussions around compulsory licensing of climate-related technologies within the international system of IPRs’ protection. For this, I use qualitative research methods, including critical discourse analysis and a preliminary literature review, to understand the interactions between delegations and the narratives constructed for international cooperation to address climate change. I then argue that a ‘climate justice’ framework would improve discussions of the development and transfer of climate-related technologies and bring transformative possibilities for the understanding of global development. (shrink)

When philosophers put forward claims for or against 'property', it is often unclear whether they are talking about the same thing that lawyers mean by 'property'. Likewise, when lawyers appeal to 'justice' in interpreting or criticizing legal rules we do not know if they have in mind something that philosophers would recognize as 'justice'. J. W. Harris here examines the legal and philosophical underpinnings of the concept of property and offers a new analytical framework for (...) understanding property and justice. (shrink)

When we’re trying to articulate principles of justice that we have reason to take seriously in a world like ours, one way to start is with an understanding of what our world is like, and of which institutional frameworks promote our thriving in communities and which do not. If we start this way, we can sort out alleged principles of justice by asking which ones license mutual expectations that promote our thriving and which ones do otherwise. This is (...) an essay in the how and why of nonideal theory: in particular, how and why principles of property come first and principles of justice second. Ownership conventions, and property law as it develops under the pressures of case by case dispute resolution, tend to become touchstones for conflict mediation down through generations. They may be imperfect, retaining vestiges of adaptations to ancient problems that no longer exist, yet still they work, coordinating expectations so as to make it easier for people to live well together. A priori reasons for endorsing principles of justice generally are not good enough. A good enough reason would be something like this: to endorse this way of applying this principle in this kind of circumstance is to support institutional frameworks that position us to play positive sum games. (shrink)

Margaret Kohn argues for a reappraisal of early twentieth-century left-republican French political theory, known as ‘solidarism’. Solidarism recognises private property as legitimate, but at the same time argues that the collective nature of economic production gives rise to a claim to social property. It is social property that should underlie the case for social justice and social rights, not the standard liberal claims to individual autonomy. This paper provides an appraisal of Kohn’s recovery of solidarism, taking (...) as its main theme the relation between property and social justice. The paper first offers a typology of four theories of justice (right- and left-libertarianism, luck and relational egalitarianism) and discusses the relation of each of these to the concept of property. Then it argues that solidarism is akin to left-libertarianism in the way it formulates justice as a claim to social property. Finally, it argues that solidarists cannot escape grounding their theory in a non-property based fundamental principle, which makes the theory much less distinctive from egalitarian theories of justice than may appear at first sight. (shrink)

In this volume, fourteen philosophers, economists and legal scholars and one computer scientist address various facets of the same question: under which conditions (if any) can intellectual property rights be fair? This general question unfolds in a variety of others: What are the parallels and differences between intellectual and real property? Are libertarian theories especially sympathetic to IP rights? Should Rawlsian support copyright? How can a concern for incentives be taken into account by each of the main theories (...) of justice? What's exactly wrong with free-riding, when dealing with non-rival goods? This requires a close examination of a variety of specific issues such as peer-to-peer file sharing, access to vital medicines, the interaction between copyright and freedom of expression, patents on genes, etc. It also involves bringing together state-of-the-art knowledge on legal, economic and technical issues with the most advanced state of our normative theories. (shrink)

ULRICH DUCHROW AND FRANZ HINKELAMMERT'S PROPOSALS AGAINST private property contain a structural weakness analogous to that of which they accuse John Locke: an inability to attribute agency to their opponents. Analysis of antineoliberal and neoliberal narratives of economic history shows that they are mirror images of each other in what they consider fixed or changeable in life. The likelihood that each narrative contains partial truths means that faithful Christian economic ethics are best grounded in a theology according agency to (...) all, acknowledging the universality of sin, and proclaiming transcendent hope. (shrink)

According to robert nozick's theory of distributive justice, We are forced to choose between a commitment to the kantian principle that no one may be used as a means to the purposes of others and the socialist view that the benefits of land and natural resources should be distributed on the basis of an end-State standard of equity. However, We face no such dilemma. A careful look at nozick's argument reveals that the kantian imperative does not clearly entail the (...) right of individuals to own land and natural resources. Indeed a very plausible application of the imperative is compatible with the doctrine that land and resources are communal property. Therefore, Nozick's theory fails to justify economic distributions produced by a system in which natural resources are privately owned. (shrink)

Suppose the prevailing distribution of property rights is unjust as determined by the relevant conception of distributive justice. You have far more than you should have under that theory and I have far less. Then I defraud you and in doing so reallocate resources so that our holdings ex post more closely approximate what distributive justice requires. Do I have a duty to return the property to you? There are many good reasons for requiring me to (...) return to you what I have taken. One is that while you may have no right in justice to all that you own, it does not follow that I do, or that I have a right to take it. Thus, requiring me to return the property to you is a way of recognizing that I had no right to take it from you in the first place. (shrink)

In this paper I reconsider the relation between property and unjust enrichment and respond to a recent argument that actions in unjust enrichment cannot be actions in corrective justice. I suggest that any analysis that regards actions in unjust enrichment as embodying principles of corrective justice requires supplementation by considerations that are, at bottom, proprietary in nature. I argue that there is no incompatibility in viewing actions in unjust enrichment as actions whose grounds are broadly proprietary in (...) nature; that understanding unjust enrichment in this manner does not threaten its theoretical coherence; and that understanding unjust enrichment in this manner allows us to view actions in unjust enrichment as actions in corrective justice. (shrink)

While it is often taken for granted that the concepts of property and of distributive justice are capable of working together to generate norms which can enhance positive social and political relations, in particular the value of community, this Article argues otherwise. Relying on critical tools deriving from Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and Marx’s notion of fetishism, the author claims that the Rawlsian conception of distributive justice fetishizes the institution of property, and claims to "distribute" participation (...) in society amongst its members as if this amounted to a distribution of so many objects. Taken in this way, the concept of distributive justice has no respectable content. What social justice requires is a means to ensure that people are not "socially excluded," which requires each individual’s participation in the social and cultural enterprise. This sort of participation can no more be "distributed" than can life itself, and the realization of this point undermines the cogency of most discussions of distributive justice. (shrink)

La quête de ce qui est appelé de manière si erronée la justice sociale est à notre époque la principale menace à l’égard de la propriété privée. Hayek se trompait quand il concluait que l’expression “justice sociale” est “entièrement creuse et dénuée de signification”. Car ceux qu’on devrait désormais appeler les sociauxdémocrates de tous les partis, et non plus les socialistes, se trompent en maintenant qu’est “socialement” juste l’injustice manifeste consistant à s’approprier des proportions toujours croissantes de richesses (...) et de revenus acquis de manière juste par quelques individus, afin de les transférer à d’autres individus qui ne peuvent prétendre en aucune façon à leur possession.The pursuit of what is so misleadingly called social justice is in our time the main threat to private property. Hayek was mistaken in concluding that the expression “social justice” is “entirely empty and meaningless”. For what is wrong with those who should now perhaps be called not the socialists but the social democrats of all parties is that they insist on misdescribing as “socially” just the manifest injustice of seizing ever increasing amounts of the justly acquired wealth and income of some people in order to transfer it to others who have no such just claims to its possession. (shrink)

This paper argues that intellectual property rights are incompatible with Rawls’s principles of justice. This conclusion is based upon an analysis of the social stratification that emerges as a result of the patent mechanism which defines a marginalized group and ensure that its members remain alienated from the rights, benefits, and freedoms afforded by the patent product. This stratification is further complicated, so I argue, by the copyright mechanism that restricts and redistributes those rights already distributed by means (...) of the patent mechanism. I argue that the positions of privilege established through both the patent and the copyright mechanisms are positions that do not “allow the most extensive liberty compatible with a like liberty for all.” They do not “benefit the least advantaged.” Nor are they “open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.” In making this argument I critically assess the utilitarian defense of intellectual property rights and find it insufficient to respond to the injustices manifest in our current arrangement for the protection of intellectual property rights. (shrink)

The current situation of climate change at a global level clearly requires policy changes at local levels. Global efforts to reach a consensus regarding the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions have so far been focused on developing Climate-Friendly Technologies (CFTs). The problem is that in order for these efforts to have an actual impact at a global level we need to be concerned with more than just promotion and info-dissemination on the already existing CFTs, but also with costs, implementation and (...) the international intellectual property and trade system necessary for this strategy to work. Currently, almost 80% of all patent applications belong to OECD countries like Japan, US, Germany, South Korea, Great Britain and France. The obligations climate change imposes on developing countries represent a technological shift that depends on Technology Transfer (TT) and implementation of IP laws. The current IP framework, especially patent law, copyright and trade secrets produces another kind of obligations. The main question is if the conjunction of these two sets of obligations (rules) is fair from a global justice point of view. Also, it is questionable whether this conjunction helps developing countries to produce their own CFTs. When discussing the demands of global justice one cannot skip the very important distinction Pogge makes between negative and positive obligations. In the context of global warming and the measures that the world’s states ought to take to prevent it, there seems to lie another conjunction between the positive obligation of preserving the natural environment that we all share and a negative obligation of allowing the less developed countries to help us all do so. Because one cannot impose regulations that cannot be put into practice, it is more and more obvious that a new framework of action and development needs to be drawn in the field of TT of CFTs. (shrink)

Usually a relational approach, such as one appealing to care or love, is contrasted with an account of justice. In this chapter, however, I argue that distributive justice is well conceived as itself a matter of honouring people in virtue of their capacity to love and to be loved. After spelling out a familiar conception of love, I explain how treating people with respect in light of this capacity provides a plausible basis for human rights, one that rivals (...) influential individualist foundations such as Kantian respect for autonomy and Catholic honor of human life. I also articulate an egalitarian conception of how to allocate wealth that I argue is also a function of treating people's ability to love as special and that can compete against views salient in Anglo-American political philosophy such as cost-benefit analysis and John Rawls’ difference principle. (shrink)

Abstract: This paper restates the thesis of 'The Requirements of Justice and Liberal Socialism" where it was argued that liberal socialism best meets Rawlsian requirements of justice. The recent responses to this paper by Jan Narveson, Jeppe von Platz, and Alan Thomas merit examination and comment. This paper shows that if Rawlsian justice is to be met, then non-personal property must be subject to public control. If just outcomes merit the public control of non-personal property (...) and this control is not utilized, then justice has been subordinated to the objectively less important institution of private property. (shrink)

So-called climate-ready GM crops can be of great help in adapting to a changing climate. Climate change, caused in great part by anthropogenic greenhouse gases released in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution by the developed world, is felt much stronger in the developing world, causing unexpected droughts and floods that will cause large harvest loss, leading to more hunger and malnutrition, rising death tolls and disease vulnerability. The current intellectual property regime (IPR) strikes an unfair balance between profit (...) oriented seed industry giants and low-acreage farmers. The biotechnology industry, mainly headquartered in the developed world, has started to patent new seed varieties, taking biomaterials from developing countries, with the claim, that they will be more tolerant to flood, drought, heat, and cold. Special sales contracts prohibit saving seeds from the harvest for the next season, thus forcing the farmers to buy them every season anew, which goes against traditional farming. Using a widely accepted concept of global justice, that tackles the fact that around 10% of the world's population profits from 90% of the earth's resources, and by taking into account the feasibility of a fair IPR, we will discuss three issues. First, an ethically acceptable IPR should prevent unjust and unfair assignments of property rights (e.g. patents) that completely ignore small-scale farmers inventiveness and efforts to save agrobiodiversity. As a second task, this regime should encourage globally a just distribution of the objects of innovation that are covered by patents. Third, such a regime should encourage innovations at a rate that is effective to cope with climate change. (shrink)

This chapter argues that the taking of land should be theorized differently from other issues of corrective justice, not only because land is not moveable, and so cannot easily be distributed and redistributed and restored to the original occupant, but because morally significant relationships between people and place are likely to develop over time, and these affect the appropriate corrective justice remedy. Through analyzing these relationships, different types of wrongs involved in the taking of land can be identified, (...) some of which apply to individuals and some to groups. The argument is pursued through three different kinds of place-related wrongs: violating rights of residency, violating right of occupancy, and violating rights to territory. The different wrongs suggest different potential remedies and not all expulsions involve all three of them. (shrink)

The aftermath of war is always messy and complicated. When should objects or resources that were unjustly taken in wartime be returned to the victims of misappropriation, or their heirs? This article advances two arguments that are intended to buttress claims for the restitution of property in general, and particularly claims advanced by the heirs of the original victims of misappropriation.

The book Property and Justice: A Trend Towards Marxist Political Philosophy by a Chinese political philosophy scholar, Prof. ZHANG Wenxi, provides a refreshing and thought-provoking analysis of Mar...

In this thesis we have examined the complex interaction between intellectual property rights, life sciences and global justice. Science and the innovations developed in its wake have an enormous effect on our daily lives, providing countless opportunities but also raising numerous problems of justice. The complexity of a problem however does not liberate society as a whole from moral responsibilities. Our intellectual property regimes clash at various points with human rights law and commonly held notions of (...) justice. (shrink)

This volume examines the property transformations in post-communist Central Eastern Europe (CEE) and focuses on the role of restitution and privatisation in such transformations. It argues that the theorisation of 'restitution' in post-communist CEE is incomplete in the transitional justice scholarship and in the literature on correction of historical wrongs. The book also argues that, for a more complete theorisation of (post-communist) restitution, the transformations of property in post-communist societies ought to be studied in a more holistic (...) way. The main legal vehicles used for such transformations, privatisation and restitution, should not be studied separately and in abstract, but in their reciprocal relationship, and in connection to the dimension of justice which each could achieve. Finally, the book integrates 'privatisation' in a theory of post-communist transformation of property. (shrink)