Property Rights, Human Needs, and Environmental Protection: A Response to Brock

Ethics and the Environment, 4(1 ):107-113 ISSN: 1085-6633 © Elsevier Science Inc. All rights of reproduction In any form reserved. Clark Wolf Property Rights, Human Needs, and Environmental Protection: A Response to Brock It is a pleasure to have been offered an opportunity to respond to a careful and articulate critic, and especially pleasant when the critic is one with whom I have much in common. In her recent paper, "Future Generations, Natural Resources , and Property Rights," Gillian Brock (1998) offers a thoughtful reconstruction of the Lockean theory of property rights that I defended in an earlier paper. She offers two trenchant but friendly objections—friendly since they are both clearly in the spirit of my argument that current property rights must be understood as limited rights, subject to regulation of certain kinds and "permanently sensitive to others' needs"(p. 124). In this brief paper I will first give a brief account of a Lockean theory of property that I have developed elsewhere (Wolf, 1995; 1997). It is worthwhile to do this since Brock's reconstruction of my position was importantly incomplete: she focused on my examples without describing the argument these examples were intended to clarify. Then I will describe and respond to Brock's objections. A LOCKEAN THEORY OF LIMITED PROPERTY RIGHTS In "Contemporary Property Rights" (Wolf, 1995), I developed a Lockean account of the limitations of rights in private property. This account started with Locke's famous proviso that appropriation by labor mixing is justified "at least when there is enough, and as good, left in common for others." As I interpret this proviso , it expresses Locke's prohibition against harming others and his sensitivity to the fact that appropriation of resources from a "common" will be unjustifiable when it Direct all correspondence to: Clark Wolf, Department of Philosophy, University of Georgia, Athens GA 30602-1627; E-mail: cwolf@arches.uga.edu 107 108 ETHICS AND THE ENVIRONMENT Vol. 4, No. 1,1999 harms those who can no longer freely use what has been appropriated. Since "X at least when Y" implies that Y is a sufficient condition for Y, I argued that Locke's proviso expresses a sufficient condition for appropriation, not a necessary condition as it is almost universally interpreted. The more general necessary condition for Lockean appropriation is that appropriation must not cause harm to others—that is, it must not unjustifiably set back the interests of others, violating their rights. Whose interests need to be taken into account, and when is it unjustifiable to set back others' interests? I argued that the Lockean prohibition against "harm to others" applies equally to present and future generations. So current property claims will be defensible only if they do not harm present or future persons. Setting back others' interests constitutes a harm (in the relevant sense) when: 1) it is neither justified nor excused , and 2) violates others' rights. I argued that we should understand "rights" as undefeated prima facie claims. So I have a property right in something just in case: 1) I have a claim to it, and 2) no one else has a competing claim that defeats mine. One claim may defeat another either by rebutting or undercutting it. Since a claim constitutes a property right only if it is not defeated by the competing claims of others, it follows that if we wish to analyze property rights we must consider the weight and priority of different claims. We must also determine when claims are rebutted by competing claims. But there are many different sources of claims, and it is not obvious that there is any uncontroversial way to determine in advance which claims or kinds of claims will be stronger. So this account of property rights only sets the agenda for discussions of property claims, and cannot solve the problem of competing claims a priori. But perhaps some kinds of conflict of claims can be settled in advance if we consider cases of initial appropriation, where the variety and sources of claims are limited. In my original discussion, I focused attention on property rights in land and natural resources. Locke argues that the fundamental basis for the right to appropriate...