Comments Elsewhere

Alex,

You’re right that some of the factors I listed in settling abandonment conditions for a given species of property sound a lot like conditions derived from pragmatic concerns. That’s because they are partly derived from pragmatic concerns.

My point of disagreement with the utilitarian position I’m criticizing is not that I think pragmatic concerns never play any role in deliberation about justice (as concerns property rights). Rather, it’s over the role they can properly play. For one, I don’t think that all of the factors to be taken into account in making judgments about abandonment are pragmatic concerns; I would argue that some have to do with agent intent, others are purely conventional, and still others have to do with the content of other virtues, e.g. courage or fairness. More importantly, my view is that the virtue of justice imposes some duties that have vague boundaries; you can justly lay claim to abandoned property, but doesn’t fully specify the exact conditions under which a particular piece of property counts as being abandoned. Precisifying that boundary in order to make judgments in particular cases can take things like calculations of aggregate pleasure, etc. into account. But the fact that conventional and utilitarian considerations play a role in fixing the boundaries of justice does not entail they determine the whole content of justice, or provide the sole reason for being just.