Many moral and political theorists have recently argued that the fact that an agent has innocently benefited from wrongdoing or injustice can ground special moral duties to help out the victims or simply give up the benefits. This idea is often referred to as the ‘Beneficiary Pays Principle’. This article critically assesses three recent attempts at providing a rationale for the BPP and argues that there are profound problems with each of them. It argues that even if we accept plausible (...) versions of the different normative ideas these accounts appeal to, we have no reason to accept the BPP. (shrink)

Some normative theorists believe that there is a principled moral reason not to retain benefits realized by injustice or wrongdoing. However, critics have argued that this idea is implausible. One purported problem is that the idea lacks an obvious rationale and that attempts to provide one have been unconvincing. This paper articulates and defends the idea that the principled reason in question has an expressive quality: it gets its reason-giving force from the symbolic aptness of such an act as an (...) expressive response to wrongdoing. The paper thus argues that at least in a certain subset of cases, renouncing benefits realized by injustice amounts to a powerful and uniquely apt expression of protest against the disrespect for the victim that is implied by the wrongdoer’s actions. The paper shows how this idea can inform the question of reparations for slavery and its aftermath in the United States. Lastly it develops an important objection to the argument presented and gives an account of how this objection can be met. (shrink)

This paper proposes that the “beneficiary pays principle” may be grounded in a brand of respect for autonomy. I first argue that on one understanding, such respect implies that as far as we are not morally required to make some sacrifice in service of some purpose, we each have legitimate authority to ourselves decide the purposes for which we should make sacrifices. I then argue that the problem with retaining benefits realized by imposed sacrifices, which the victim was not required (...) to make in order to realize the benefits in question, is that doing so is disrespectful of the victim’s autonomy. (shrink)

Johann Frick has claimed that morality requires that we (in many cases) should give in to the demands of rational agents who attempt to extort us by threatening to harm themselves (self-threatening extortionists). He has further argued that since contractualism implies that there is no such moral requirement, such cases represent a problem for this brand of moral theory. In this paper, we argue that things are quite the other way around: Morality does not require that we give in to (...) the demands of self-threatening extortionists. Such cases, therefore, represent a problem for (act) utilitarianism, rather than contractualism. Our argument appeals to a particular understanding of the idea that rational agents have a special responsibility to take care of their own interests or welfare. (shrink)