Property and non-ideal theory

Journal article


Lovett, Adam. (2023). Property and non-ideal theory. Inquiry: an interdisciplinary journal of philosophy. pp. 1-25. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2023.2206846
AuthorsLovett, Adam
Abstract

According to the standard story, there are two defensible theories of property rights: historical and institutional theories. The former says that you own something when you’ve received it via an unbroken chain of just transfers from its original appropriation. The latter says that you own something when you’ve been assigned it by just institutions. This standard story says that the historical theory throws up a barrier to redistributive economic policies while the institutional theory does not. In this paper, I argue that the standard story is wrong in almost every detail. For a start, neither of these theories are defensible. Both generate absurd consequences when combined with our non-ideal circumstances. In actuality, no unbroken chains of just transfers stretch from original appropriations to what we now possess. And our actual institutions are very seriously unjust. So both theories imply that we actually own almost nothing. I revise these theories so that they avoid this absurd consequence. Yet, when we do this, their distributive implications flip. The institutional theory throws up serious barriers to redistribution while the historical theory tears them down. In our non-ideal circumstances, the distributive implications of these theories are the opposite of what is standardly presumed.

KeywordsProperty ; ownership; distributive justice; non-ideal theory
Year01 Jan 2023
JournalInquiry: an interdisciplinary journal of philosophy
Journal citationpp. 1-25
PublisherRoutledge
ISSN0020-174X
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2023.2206846
Web address (URL)https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0020174X.2023.2206846
Page range1-25
Publisher's version
License
File Access Level
Open
Output statusPublished
Publication dates
Online27 Apr 2023
Publication process dates
Accepted21 Apr 2023
Deposited17 Jun 2024
Additional information

© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.

Place of publicationUnited Kingdom
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