Principle of Fairness

Is digital piracy – understood as illegally accessing or using copyrighted works, such as through a file-sharing platform – morally wrong? Such piracy typically falls into the intriguing category of self-interested lawbreaking, performed deliberately and in the context of a principled disagreement with the law. Existing treatments of the ethics of piracy fail to consider the full sweep of moral considerations implicated by such lawbreaking, collapsing the question into deceptively narrow enquiries. I argue there are many reasons, some stemming from quite surprising sources, for respecting copyright law, even for those who: think the law is unjust; are skeptical of the law’s democratic legitimacy; and are frustrated at the immoral behavior of large corporate content-providers.

Governments around the world collect huge amounts of personal data from their citizens (as well as foreigners) for counterterrorist purposes. While mining this data has arguably increased the security of populations, the practices through which this data is currently collected in many countries have been criticised for violating individuals' rights to privacy. Yet it is not clear what a permissible data-collection regime (if one is possible) would look like, and thus also how we could reform existing regimes to make them morally acceptable. This paper explores a number of ways in which we might justify a data-collection regime to those affected in spite of the set-backs to their privacy. In contrast to existing justifications, I argue that individuals can be asked to surrender their personal data as a requirement of reciprocity in a cooperative system in which they gain security from others doing likewise. Relying on this justification, though, has significant implications for how we should reform existing data-collection regimes. In particular, more stringent limits will need to be placed on the forms which these regimes can legitimately take.

The principle of fairness is a moral principle which states that individuals are under an obligation to contribute towards beneficial cooperative projects. It has been appealed to in arguing that citizens are obligated to pay for public goods that their government supplies. Yet the principle has faced a number of powerful objections, most notably those of Robert Nozick. In responding to some of these objections, proponents of the principle have placed a number of conditions on its application. However, by doing so, they have reduced the number of public goods that the principle can explain obligations to contribute towards, and consequently limited its relevance to questions of political obligation. I argue here that a more permissive version of the principle, with fewer conditions on its application, will perform equally well in responding to Nozick's objections. This opens up the possibility of a theory of political obligation that relies more heavily on the principle of fairness than has previously been thought possible.

[Abstract in English] This paper develops a normative model for the obligation of continued access to an investigational medicine towards research subjects from the perspective of social or distributive justice inspired in the theory of justice of John Rawls. I call this the democratic reciprocity model. The original idea of the democratic reciprocity model is to claim that the obligation of continued access correlates with the right to health. Thus, within the Rawlsian framework, I argues that the moral reasons giving weight to the obligation of continued access are, indirectly, the principle of fair equality of opportunity and, directly, the duty of justice and/or the principle of fairness that apply to the members of a society understood as a system of social cooperation. #########################[Resumen en español] En este trabajo desarrollo un modelo normativo sobre la obligación de continuidad de tratamiento beneficioso hacia los sujetos de investigación desde la perspectiva de la justicia social o distributiva, inspirado en la teoría de la justicia de John Rawls. Llamo a esto, el modelo de reciprocidad democrática. La idea original del modelo de reciprocidad democrática es defender que la obligación de continuidad de tratamiento beneficioso tiene como derecho correlativo el derecho a la salud. Así, dentro del marco rawlsiano, argumento que las razones morales que dan peso a la obligación de continuidad de tratamiento beneficioso son, indirectamente, el principio de igualdad equitativa de oportunidades y, directamente, el derecho de justicia y/o el principio de equidad que se aplican a los miembros de una sociedad entendida como un sistema de cooperación social.

우리가 정부에 대해서 가지는 정치적 의무를 설명하기 위해 제시된 “합의이론”이 가지는 여러 단점들을 인식하기 시작한 많은 윤리학-정치철학자들은, 그것에 대한 대안으로 “페어플레이의 원칙”에 관심을 가지기 시작하였다. 페어플레이의 원칙에 의하면, 만약 누군가가 어떤 협동체계로부터 생산된 성과나 결실을 향유하게 되었다면, 그 사람은, 그것을 공짜로 즐기는 무임승차자가 되어서는 안되며, 자신에게 부여된 몫을 기여해야 할 의무가 있다. 많은 윤리학-정치철학자들은, 어떤 협동체계가 누군가에게 기여의 의무를 제대로 부여하기 위해서는, 의무의 당사자가 그 협동체계로부터 발생한 결실들을 자발적으로 수용해야 할 것이 요청된다고 주장을 하며, 페어플레이의 원칙이 실제로는 합의이론으로 환원된다고 주장하였다. 그러나 Richard Arneson은 이러한 주장을 거부한다. Arneson에 따르면, 자발적 수용은 페어플레이의 원칙이 누군가에게 의무를 발생시키기 위한 필요조건도 충분조건도 아니다. 더 나아가서, Arneson은 만약 협동체계가 정의롭기만 하다면, 단순히 그것의 결실을 향유했다는 것만으로도 기여의 의무가 발생하며, 이때 협동체계의 다른 참여자들은 비-기여자들에게 그들에게 할당된 몫을 기여하도록 강제할 수가 있다고 주장을 한다. 본 논문의 한 가지 목적은 Arneson의 이와 같은 주장들이 근본적으로 잘못되었다고 밝히는 것이다. Arneson의 주장을 반박하기 위해, 나는 우선 공정성의 원칙에 자체에 대한 정확한 설명을 하기 위해 노력할 것이다. 그 이후에 나는 Arneson은, 자발적 수용의 불필요성을 주장하는 과정에서 실제로는 자발적 수용이 의무발생에 있어서 필수적이라는 것을 역설적으로 전제하고 있다는 것을 밝힐 것이다.