Conatus: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

example, things are a bit more complex. Is it, for instance, a case of natural justice to say that we are entitled to things that we have found? Or how about things that we have made? And how about our relationship to land? Does someone have a right to take any of this from us by force? Does the state have a right to do so? The question slides into one about distribution.

We might claim that there is a natural distribution. Such things as our own bodies, our good health, intelligence, good looks and charm are things that we would surely claim to own outright — as ‘natural assets’, it might be said. There may be a lack of equality in the distribution of these ‘goods’, so there’s a natural inequality here. But there is a cut-off point, if you will, where natural assets cross over into acquired assets. What about fitness for work, education, learning a craft or an art? These seem to be in a hinterland between being free gifts of nature and skills acquired through learning, practice and hard work. They start to become personal possessions, and not amenable to exchange. Meanwhile, the things that we considered above — things found, manufactured, or land that we have worked on — might be the most obvious candidates for distribution.

We would normally say that we want fairness in matters concerning human societies and the distribution of goods. There isn’t a basis for any kind of distribution or re-distribution, apart from this notion of fairness, which we take to be a value — indeed a constitutional value. So it is necessary to turn to morality to try to find a starting point.

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