PHIL 270 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Coase Theorem, Lewis Carroll, Reflective Equilibrium
4 May 2018
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PHIL 270: Business Ethics
1.13 Lecture Notes – Gaus The Idea ad Ideal of Capitalis
· Central question of private property
· Both a moral and economic question
· Ideal of capitalism – maximally extensible feasible set of property rights – pure form of capitalism
· Extent of ownership and range of ownership (how much, how long, and what can we own)
· Etet of oership iludes…
· Right to exclude people from using said property (consent is required)
o Realistically, a lot of it is implicit consent
· Right to compensation
· Right to destroy, waste, or modify
o Locke – e a’t destro lad, ourseles, et. – God allows us to temporarily manage it
· What aout itelletual propert? should’t e sujeted to full oership rights, should e teporall liited
o Social reasons
o Either people would be expected to manage it poorly so limits should be put in place
· Rage of oership…
o What can be owned? The atmosphere? Sex and drugs?
o Maybe only under certain conditions when people understand what is being exchanged
· Three justifications of private property, why is capitalism justified?
o Self-ownership
▪ Self-ownership (like Nozick) – although e o the orld’s resoures i oo, ou o our
body (sphere of liberty)
▪ You also own your labor, which is a function of your body
▪ By extension, we should own products of our labor
▪ Locke was probably a theist, whereas modern Lockeans are mostly atheists
▪ Locke: ownership over your body does not give you the right to destroy it because God gave us
our bodies to not mismanage it
• Caot use other people’s odies i as that God ould disapproe of
• Does’t ipl the etesie liertaria rights assoiated ith Loke
▪ Modern Lockeans – you can sell your organs, do extreme sports, potentially drugs
▪ A deeply moral assumption – a type of aio that is’t deried fro a set of preises
▪ Side: What the tortoise said to Achilles? By Lewis Carrol
▪ Reflective equilibrium – start with initial assumptions and see what conclusions we get, and
then if we get contradictory and crazy stuff, then go back and revise/abandon the initial
premises
o Agency justification
▪ Private property rights (legally recognized) give us a sphere in which we can experiment with
different ways of living
▪ We need private property to do that
• Unless you have property over yourself, you cannot develop your full personality
• Immunity from predation – right to have exit and entry options
• Part of the identity is realized through the products of our labor – even if that identity is
not the most socially efficient point
• Someone owns a German deli, and their ownership over that business venture is
essential to his identity
• Intellectual property – often justified by social reasons, but also allows the rights over
propert that ight e etral to soeoe’s idetit
o Efficiency
▪ Promotes welfare
▪ Having the right to own private property – knowing that your time and labor will generate a
product that you own – allows for specialization and an incentive for profit/money
▪ Instrumentally important
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