Axel Gosseries

Historical Emissions and free riding.

Should the current members of a community compensate the victims of their ancestor’s emissions of greenhouse gases? I argue that the previous generation of polluters may not have been morally responsible for the harms they caused. I also accept the view that the polluters’ descendants cannot be morally responsible for their ancestor’s harmful emissions. However, I show that, while granting this, a suitably defined notion of moral free-riding may still account for the moral obligation of the polluters’ descendants to compensate the current victims of their ancestors’ actions. A concept of trans- generational free-riding is defined. Objections to the idea of using free-riding as part of a theory of justice are rejected. Two different views of moral free-riding are contrasted, with consequences for the amount of compensation to be exigible from the polluters’ descendants. Some final considerations are devoted to the possible relevance of this free-riding-based view for other issues of historical injustice.

Intellectual property and theories of justice

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? Whats 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.

Cosmopolitan Luck Egalitarianism and the Greenhouse Effect

Evidence provided by the scientific community strongly suggests that limits should be placed on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.2 This means that states, firms, and individuals will have to face potentially serious burdens if they are to implement these limits. Which principles of justice should guide a global regime aimed at reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions originating from human activities, and most notably from C02 emissions? This is both a crucial and difficult question. Admittedly, perhaps this question is too ambitious, given the uncertainties and complexities characterizing the issue of climate change. Yet, rather than listing them all at this stage,J let us address the question in a straightforward manner, introducing some of these complexities as the need arises.

Procreation, Migration and Tradable Quotas

First, we briefly discuss the very idea of tradable quotas, looking at a set of cases in which it has been proposed (but not implemented) outside the realm of pollution control and natural resources management. Next we study a proposal of tradable procreation quotas. We generalize Bouldings 1964 idea and discuss a full scheme able to deal both with under and over procreation. We then look more specifically at three effects of the scheme on income inequalities: differential productivity effect, differential fertility effect and tradability effect. Finally, we consider the migration dimension and discuss two possible schemes: (1) a domestic scheme of tradable emigration quotas among skilled people, serving as a possible alternative to a Baghwati tax (with different properties); (2) a regional or global scheme of tradable immigration quotas of unskilled workers in rich countries, serving as a burden sharing mechanism. Special attention is given to some conjectures regarding the impact on education and average income back in the (poor) countries of origin.

ARE SENIORITY PRIVILEGES UNFAIR

What should maximin egalitarians think about seniority privileges? We contrast a good-specific and an all-things-considered perspective. As to the former, inertia and erasing effects of a seniority-based allocation of benefits fromemploymentareidentified,allowingustospotthecategoriesofworkers and job-seekers made involuntarily worse off by such a practice. What matters however is to find out whether abolishing seniority privileges will bring about a society in which the all-things-considered worst off people are better off than in the seniority rule’s presence. An assessment of the latter’s cost-reduction potential is thus needed, enabling us to bridge a practice taking place within a firm with its impact on who the least well off members of society are likely to be. Three accounts of the profitability of seniority privileges are discussed: the “(firm specific) human capital”, the “deferred compensation” and the “knowledge transfer” ones. The respective relevance of “good-specific” and “all-things-considered” analysis is discussed. It turns out that under certain circumstances, a maximin egalitarian case for seniority privileges could be made. Senior: Do you know that they are planning layoffs? Of course, it is only fair that they lay-off the newcomers first! After all, I have been loyal to the company for many years. Junior: Did I choose to be a newcomer?

What makes age discrimination special? A philosophical look at the ECJ case law.

This paper aims at formulating and critically examining reasons that may explain and justify why age is – and/or should be – treated differently by anti-discrimination law, compared to other suspect grounds such as ‘race’ or gender.2 It is motivated by an observation and an assumption. First, anti-discrimination law, both in the US and in the EU, seems to treat age in a more lenient way than these other suspect grounds. In the US, age is not covered by title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1967 Age Discrimination in Employment Act deals with differential treatment above the age of 40 only. Similarly, in the EU, Directive 2000/78/EC includes specific provisions for age – notably article 6 – that leave more room to Member States than it does for other suspect grounds. Also, there is no equivalent for age of the ‘goods and services’ directives applicable to gender (Directive 2004/113/EC) and ‘race’ (Directive 2000/43/EC). Second, the fact that legal systems still rely heavily on age limits and that anti-discrimination law allows for it to some extent seems to be backed by the moral intuition that age differs from other suspect grounds. This triggers our interest in finding out whether age is really different, in what sense it is so, and whether these differences justify a more lenient treatment than for gender or ‘race.’

Introduction: Representing Future Generations?

This debate is the outcome of a workshop that took place in Munich in May 2013 with the support of the European Science Foundation (‘Rights to a Green Future’ Network), the Zurich University Research Priority Programme for Ethics and the Munich School of Philosophy. It was organised by Lukas Köhler (Munich), Ivo Wallimann-Helmer (Zurich) and myself. We wish to thank all the participants as well as the referees from Jurisprudence for their contribution. In the following lines, I propose a few pathways through the four papers devoted to the topic of representation of future generations. In her paper, Bernice Bovenkerk focuses on the challenges faced by deliberative democrats concerned with the inclusion of future generations. One element that she insists upon is that, regardless of the composition of a deliberating group, the mere fact of a debate taking a deliberative form may as such tend to promote more principled, possibly inter-generationally fairer decisions. She then mainly tackles two challenges. Those familiar with the ‘all-affected-principle’ will recall that one of the difficulties that the principle is facing is that the question of who should be included among the deliberators depends on who will or might be affected by the decisions, which depends on which decisions are expected, which in turn will be strongly influenced by... whom will be included among the deliberators. There is an additional feature in an intergenerational setting: who participates

Equality and Non-discrimination in Hiring – Introduction

In this introduction, the author briefly presents the way in which Clayton, Segall and Lippert-Rasmussen deal with what egalitarianism has to say about non-discrimination in hiring. Parallels and differences between their approaches are stressed.

How (Un)fair is Intellectual Property

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? Whats 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.

Over de ethiek in de fondsenwerving

Het vraagstuk van de ethiek in de fondsenwerving van het verenigingswerk confronteert ons eens te meer met het aloude – en zoals de textielkenners weten vrij onsmakelijke – thema van de stank van geld, een verhaal dat teruggaat tot het beroemde “non olet” van de Romeinse keizer Vespasianus in de eerste eeuw na Christus. Wanneer we ons over de ethiek van de fondsenwerving buigen, moeten we automatisch ook aandacht schenken aan het gebruik van de fondsen, dat immers op diverse manieren verband houdt met de middelen die voor de inzameling worden gebruikt, hun effectiviteit en legitimiteit. In mijn bespreking van deze problematiek wil ik stilstaan bij vier bijzondere vragen die mij zowel belangrijk lijken als emblematisch voor de algemene problematiek. De twee eerste onderzoeken enkele van onze spontane ethische intuities rond de eigenlijke inzameling. De twee laatste houden verband met de institutionele dimensie en hebben op een iets meer indirecte manier betrekking op de inzameling van fondsen.