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Resource Rights: Expanding the Scope of Liberal Theories

2019; Wiley; Volume: 50; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/josp.12274

1467-9833

Kim Angell,

Climate Change and Geoengineering

“The Earth, and all that is therein,” wrote liberal philosopher John Locke, “is given to Men for the Support and Comfort of their Being” (1988 paragraph 26). That dictum, from his Second Treatise of Government, seems alive and well, to put it mildly. As representatives of humankind, we are currently exploiting worldly resources at an unprecedented pace.1 Anyone attempting to deny that as a descriptive fact is in for an uphill battle. Of much more controversy is the normative question of which patterns of resource exploitation are distributively just. The vigorous disagreement between “egalitarians” and “sufficientarians” is a good example of this controversy. While the former believe that justice demands distributing natural resources such that people enjoy some kind of equality (Caney 2005; Armstrong 2017), the latter argue that giving people access to a certain absolute share of resources is enough (Miller 2007; Moore 2015). The aim of this article is to contribute to the ongoing normative debate on resource justice, by drawing out some striking theoretical implications that cut across the egalitarian–sufficientarian divide. I shall show that the proponents of these theories must ascribe moral weight to a much wider set of resource claims than thus far acknowledged. Despite their disagreements, egalitarians and sufficientarians widely agree that we all have a claim to a certain minimum share of various generic resources such as water, air, food, and physical space. The claim to this share is general: it can be submitted by anyone, anywhere simply in virtue of being human.2 This class of general claims to generic resources can be given a distinctly liberal foundation.3 The idea is that a person's claim to the minimum resource share may be grounded in respect for her interest in leading a “self-directing” life—in freely developing and pursuing her own conception of the good. If the relevant share of generic resources is necessary to support any human pursuit of the good, we all have a claim to that (minimum) share simply as human beings (Armstrong 2017, 116).4 Recently, several prominent egalitarians and sufficientarians have used this liberal foundation to ground a different class of resource claims. In addition to the share of generic resources that any person may claim simply as a human being, they believe that some people may submit claims to particular resources. The idea is that people may establish weighty claims to control particular objects in the natural world when they make those objects into central valued features of their lives (Miller 2012; Stilz 2013; Moore 2015; Armstrong 2017). As one writer puts it, specific objects may become “hugely significant to particular people's sense of agency, and to their ability to carry out projects to which they are deeply wedded;” or they may simply “matter deeply to people, and their identities, even in the absence of discrete projects to make use of them” (Armstrong 2017, 122–23). When this happens, people may submit a special claim to control those particular resources. A claim is special if it comes into existence by virtue of “some special … transaction or relationship which is, in some sense, peculiar to those who happen to have entered into it” (Waldron 1988, 107). It must be possible to identify a contingent event which sets the claimant apart from people generally, and explains why it is that claimant and not others who may claim the relevant resource.5 Thus far, the typical way of grounding special claims in the liberal foundation has been to demonstrate that a claimant has come to rely upon particular resource tokens in her valued practices. To illustrate, take a sacred site. For Muslim pilgrims, praying at Mount Arafat—where the Prophet Muhammed presumably gave his last sermon—is an important part of the hajj. We cannot shut down this site and ask the pilgrims to go somewhere else, without seriously interfering with their valued projects and pursuits. Although there might exist mountains that are generically similar to Mount Arafat (in having roughly similar shapes, consisting of the same type of granite, etc.), those resources cannot replace the particular site worshipped by the world's Muslims. Such special claims are often referred to as “attachment-based”; by incorporating the use of Mount Arafat into their valued practices, the Muslim pilgrims have become “attached” to that particular resource (Moore 2015; Armstrong 2017). Egalitarians and sufficientarians widely agree that when a resource has become irreplaceable to its claimant in such a way, the liberal foundation gives that claimant a weighty special claim to control it. What is less well understood (or even neglected) in the literature is the exact scope of the special resource claims that the liberal foundation will support. Will it only ground special claims to particular resources—or could people lay special claim to generic ones as well? My present aim is to go into this territory, which (as I elaborate in Section 3) is largely uncharted. I shall show that the liberal foundation will support special claims regardless of whether the resources they target are irreplaceable in the claimant's practices. Proponents of the liberal foundation must thus expand their account of genuinely weighty special claims to resources. Even if my “expansion” thesis is true, it is a further question whether any claim in the expanded set of special claims will be successful on balance. It is widely accepted that, when people become “attached” to particular resources, this results in a pro tanto claim to control those resources (Miller 2012; Armstrong 2017). The same goes for the special claims to generic resources that I shall discuss. A pro tanto claim has genuine, as opposed to merely apparent (or prima facie), moral weight (Kagan 1991, 17). Whether such a claim ultimately goes through depends upon whether there are countervailing considerations that override it. (Unless otherwise noted, when I use the term “valid” resource claim, I refer to a claim that is valid in the pro tanto sense). Egalitarians and sufficientarians will favor different sets of countervailing considerations. For instance, although they all operate with a “Lockean” proviso on resource acquisition, there is much disagreement about its proper stringency.6 Concerns supporting such provisos (and other7 relevant restrictions) might turn out to override some or all of the new special claims validated by my thesis. My analysis is compatible with whatever view one takes on this. The expansion thesis applies to egalitarian and sufficientarian theories alike because it follows from taking seriously the liberal foundation they all use when grounding special claims to particular resources. (Due to this shared foundation, I shall henceforth refer to these theories simply as “liberal”). To say a bit more on the contents of the liberal foundation: it has become commonplace to ground special claims to particular resources in respect for one or both of the following interests. First, there is the interest people have in pursuing their (central) life plans (Miller 2012, 259; Stilz 2013; Moore 2015, 36–46; Armstrong 2017, 113–31). Second, there is the interest people have in adhering to components of their identities (Meisels 2009, 4–6; Miller 2012, 259; Moore 2015, 36–46; Armstrong 2017, 113–31). Although liberals vary in the emphasis they place on these interests,8 such variation need not detain us. I shall demonstrate that, regardless of which interest one believes is in play when claimants submit special claims to particular resources, that interest will validate claims to generic resources as well. (I discuss the “life plan-interest” and the “identity-interest” in Sections 4 and 5, respectively). My present aim is to show what a consistent liberal theory of resource rights looks like. Apart from the consistency it brings, I take no stand on whether the incorporation of my expansion thesis will make liberal theories more plausible overall. Moreover, I remain agnostic throughout about whether the liberal foundation is a convincing ground for resource claims in the first place. For present purposes, I take its plausibility for granted. Those seeking a general defense or rejection of liberal theories of resource rights, then, will find none here. As I present the expansion thesis, it is in this sense a “neutral fix” to what I believe is a significant deficiency—a notable “blind spot,” so to speak—in liberal theories, as they have thus far been developed. After having established the main philosophical thesis of the article, I end by briefly illustrating some of its notable practical implications (Section 6). When liberal theories take on board my expansion thesis, they will for example have an intriguing implication for acquisition of unowned resources located in currently inaccessible parts of the globe, such as the Arctic. As the polar ice caps melt, the relevance of this case for practical politics should be (tragically) evident. Section 7 concludes. Before we get down to business, though, we should go through some brief preliminaries. There is not yet an agreed-upon definition of natural resources in the literature. The arguably most common one—which I shall follow here—is conventional: natural resources are “raw materials available from the natural world, which are (therefore) not produced by humans but which are nevertheless useful to them” (Armstrong 2017, 11).9 Natural resources can be distinguished according to the function they play in people's lives. A main distinction is between fungible and non-fungible resources. (Above I used the terms “generic” and “particular” to capture this distinction.) A resource is fungible with respect to a certain purpose if it can be replaced without impeding that purpose. Resources can be fungible in different ways. In order to quench our thirst, it makes no difference whether we drink this or that bottle of water. As long as the quantity and quality of the water contained in the two bottles are similar, the water amounts will serve our purpose equally well. The two resource items are token-fungible. A resource can also be type-fungible: if we fill water in a container in order to use it as a weight, the water can be replaced without loss by a different type of liquid such as crude oil. For weighing purposes, these two different resources (water and crude) are type-fungible. If our purpose is to quench our thirst, on the other hand, then water and crude oil are not type-fungible resources (whereas water and milk would be, at least to some extent). Resources often support human purposes by functioning (solely) as income-generating means. People in turn exchange that income—a non-natural resource—for whatever they need to sustain their favored practices. In such cases, resources that generate equivalent amounts of income are in principle fungible in both the token- and the type-sense, as well as vis-à-vis the (non-natural) income itself. I shall call such a resource—one that is replaceable without loss, even across natural and non-natural types—fully fungible. When a resource is non-fungible, on the other hand, it cannot be replaced without impeding the purpose of those who use it. I have already mentioned the holy site of Mount Arafat as an example. Here is another. In the aftermath of WW2, the so-called Royal Birch became a national symbol for Norwegians. In a famous photograph, taken on April 28, 1940, King Haakon of Norway stands in front of a particular birch tree outside the city of Molde, while taking refuge from Nazi bombardment. After assuming symbolic significance, such a resource cannot be replaced without loss. It has become non-fungible. Although the non-fungible resource may belong to a type of which there exist various tokens, none of those other tokens would do the job. (The Royal Birch is, I shall say, a token-non-fungible resource, whereas water, for example, is a type-non-fungible resource for the aim of preserving normal bodily functions.) This is not to say that the loss of a non-fungible resource can never be overcome. (The Royal Birch was actually vandalized in the 1980s, and had to be replaced. A storm forced another replacement in 1992. Despite this, the site still functions as a cherished national monument.) The point is that the removal of a non-fungible resource cannot be done without disrupting, at least temporarily, the valued practices that revolve around it. Special claims grounded in the liberal foundation might be submitted by individuals as well as collectives. Some liberal theories primarily aim to justify collective rights to resources (Miller 2012). The idea is that the social forms that people participate in might rely upon a certain use of resources. Insofar as people share a plan to sustain particular social forms, they may submit a collective special claim to control the resources needed to sustain those shared practices (which the practitioners all value severally). Other liberal theories focus mainly upon individual rights to resources. Those rights are grounded in people's individual, non-shared life plans, rather than the shared plans they might have as members of a collective (Stilz 2013). Other theories aim to justify both individual and collective rights (Moore 2015, 36–46). Because the thesis I shall presently defend applies to individual as well as collective special claims, I set this difference between liberal theories aside. As mentioned, liberal theories of resource rights widely endorse pro tanto special claims to token-non-fungible resources (such as the pilgrim's claim to visit Mount Arafat). In what follows, I shall argue that people may submit valid special claims not only to token-non-fungible resources, but also to resources that are fungible in any of the three ways identified in Section 2. Moreover, they may submit them on the exact same moral grounds. To my knowledge, this possibility has thus far been overlooked. There is no mention of it in a range of the most prominent works, including the contributions of David Miller (2007, 2012), Anna Stilz (2013), and Margaret Moore (2015).10 Even Chris Armstrong—who has provided one of the most comprehensive and sophisticated accounts of special resource claims to date—has little to say about this issue. Having a brief look at what Armstrong does say, however, is instructive for our purposes, so let me give some relevant excerpts from his work. Note first that the relevant parts of Armstrong's analysis concern what he calls “attachment-based” claims to resources, by which he means claims grounded in “the significance of life-plans per se” (2017, 115)—that is, in respect for people's interest in “[being] able to act on plans which are central to their lives” (122). This refers, in other words, to what I call the liberal foundation (more specifically, to its life plan-part). So far so good. However, Armstrong explicitly delimits his analysis to what he calls “attachment-based special claims” (2017, cf. 4–5, 53, 113–31). This implies setting aside the discussion I am after. To see why, it is crucial to note that Armstrong uses a narrower definition of “special” claims than the definition I presently use. For Armstrong, “special” claims are claims “that some of us can register over specific natural resource tokens” (2017, 53, emphases in original). This means that the class of claims I intend to discuss—claims that some people may submit to fungible resources—is defined as falling outside the scope of his analysis. (Because Armstrong's definition rules out that there can be any “special” claims to fungible resources, I use Jeremy Waldron's definition of special claims, which is neutral in this regard). An attachment-based justification for special claims over natural resources will emphasize the way in which particular people sometimes form life plans which depend upon their continued access to specific resources. If they are to be weighty, attachment-based claims will be claims which cannot be met, at least without significant loss, merely by providing equivalent shares of other resources.” (2017, 116, emphases in original) This passage seems to inform us of an important validity requirement for “attachment-based special claims.” That is, for such claims to have moral weight, they must revolve around token-non-fungible resources. If we fill in Armstrong's definition of “special” claims in this statement, however, it becomes trivial. It then states that the relevant class of claims (i.e., “attachment-based” claims that are “special” in Armstrong's narrow sense) will have moral weight only if they qualify as claims of that class. Because the statement turns out to be non-informative,11 one might wonder if we should read Armstrong as conveying something stronger here, namely, that the validity requirement also applies to claims that count as special in my broader sense of the term. On this alternative reading, the quoted passage rejects my expansion thesis in favor of what we may call the “restrictive” view, according to which: special claims grounded in the liberal foundation have no pro tanto weight unless they revolve around token-non-fungible resources. I shall not labor this alternative reading of Armstrong any further here. Nothing in my analysis relies upon whether we should read his work as actually affirming the “restrictive” view. For my present purposes, it makes little difference whether at least one prominent liberal theorist (Armstrong) has thus far actually denied the possibility of grounding valid special claims to fungible resources in the liberal foundation, or (like other liberal theorists) merely overlooked it. Either way, there is value in shedding light on the exact scope of the valid special claims supported by that foundation. The “restrictive” view limits the validity of special claims grounded in the liberal foundation to only those revolving around token-non-fungible resources. Because what we want to consider is whether liberal theories should go beyond this limit, the “restrictive” view provides an illuminating benchmark against which we may compare my expansion thesis. As I shall now show—and to deter those who might be tempted to affirm it—the “restrictive” view has no place in a consistent liberal theory of resource rights. To appreciate why, let us have a closer look at the moral foundation liberals use to support special claims to token-non-fungible resources. Will it support special claims to fungible ones too? Any plausible account of justice will consider it important that we are able to see ourselves as at least jointly directing our own lives, making plans for those lives which we in turn have some prospect of achieving. On Rawls's account that will require justified confidence in our ability to develop our talents and to exercise them, so that one's ends fall within the realm of the reasonably attainable. It will require, in addition, the basic liberties necessary for pursuing our various projects. And it will also have material preconditions: at the very least, we will need secure access to the objects of our basic rights. … If we accept that, we have grounds for specifying general claims to various material resources, including natural resources. These will be general in the sense that we all possess such claims simply as human beings, and insofar as we are all capable of generating life-plans that ought to matter. (2017, 116) In brief, to achieve a “self-directing” life, a person must be allowed to choose her path among a variety of feasible life options. However, once she has chosen her preferred option from the available set, a person cannot live a self-directing life unless she is allowed to pursue her plans without interference. This gives us a straightforward explication of the moral significance of special claims to token-non-fungible resources. A person's interest in directing her own life is of fundamental importance. To live a self-directing life, one must be allowed to pursue one's plans and projects. The successful pursuit of such plans typically requires various token-non-fungible resources. People therefore have a valid special claim to whatever such resources they need to pursue their life plans. As Armstrong puts it, people should be “allowed to securely access the resource [they are attached to]” such that they are “able to advance the projects that matter to them distinctively and so exercise their distinctive human agency” (2017, 116). With the life plan interest before us, we are now in a position to appreciate why it is unwarranted to restrict the scope of valid special claims to those that target token-non-fungible resources. On the “restrictive” view, we would only have duties of noninterference with people's special resource claims when they involve token-non-fungible resources. But if the ground for a person's special claim to resources is the importance of her being left alone to pursue her central projects, it is arbitrary to distinguish between such projects according to whether the resources they target are token-non-fungible or not. Imagine that an artist, Diego, plans to make a painting of the same diamond (a token-non-fungible resource) every week for the rest of his career. Another artist, Frida, plans to make a painting of a diamond (a token-fungible resource) every week for the rest of hers. Does the fact that Diego's plan revolves around a token-non-fungible resource make his claim weightier than that of Frida, all else being equal? It is hard to see why. Ascribing more weight to Diego's claim would imply, to borrow a phrase from Armstrong, that we “treat the projects of agent A [Diego] as more important than the projects of outsiders [Frida]” (2017, 127). Still, if we take the “restrictive” view seriously, then Frida's special claim is less weighty than Diego's. After all, to use another of Armstrong's phrases (quoted earlier), her claim could be “met, at least without significant loss, merely by providing equivalent shares of other resources.” Apparently, we would be wronging Diego if we took away the particular diamond he uses, while we could faultlessly bar Frida from any diamond access whatsoever. But unless there is an independent reason to introduce differential treatment, any categorical skepticism toward special claims to token-fungible resources is groundless. It certainly does not follow from, and is indeed in conflict with, the foundational respect for people's interest in leading “self-directing” lives—the consideration that motivated the liberal concern for special claims to (token-non-fungible) resources in the first place. To see this even clearer, imagine that Frida and Diego inhabit a “one-diamond world.” Their artistic plans now rely upon access to the same diamond token. If what matters is being able to pursue one's plans, the two artists have similar pro tanto claims to the diamond. To deny Frida's claim (while recognizing Diego's), simply because she regards the diamond as a token-fungible resource, is to treat her plan as less important (than his). The fact that Frida would have been equally happy with another token under different circumstances is irrelevant to the validity of her claim in the world she lives in.12 If my thesis is correct, both painters have valid special claims. Diego's claim is to a token-non-fungible resource. Frida's is to a token-fungible one.13 To this, a proponent of the “restrictive” view might accept that their claims are valid, yet try to resist my expansion thesis by suggesting that Frida's claim is not special; that because it revolves around a fungible resource, it should somehow be classified as general. But that is nonsensical. Recall that general resource claims can be submitted by anyone simply as a human being. As discussed above, the claim to a certain minimum share of water required for the pursuit of any life plan is an example that would fit this bill. Apart from water, that general claim will include various other token-fungible (yet type-non-fungible) resources, like air and physical space. Diamonds, however, must be left out. They are simply not necessary to support life plans generally. I can pursue my academic career without ever getting hold of diamonds. Barring extraordinary circumstances, it is hard to see why anyone, simply as a human being, would ever need such resources. In Frida's life, however, diamonds have come to play a necessary role. Owing to the specific contents of her artistic life plan, she has a valid special claim to a diamond. Her choice of that specific plan is a relevant contingent event which sets her apart from (most) other people, and helps explain why she (and not they) can lay a special claim to the resources needed to support it. As we may permissibly assume, the only difference between Frida's plan and Diego's is that her plan involves indifference between various resources. For Frida, a diamond is a token-fungible but not type-fungible resource. For the fulfillment of her plan, it can be replaced by other diamonds without loss. I conclude that if we have reason to respect Diego's claim (grounded in the life plan interest), we have the same reason to respect hers. One might now wonder whether it would make a difference if Frida's plan had instead revolved around a resource which is not only token-fungible, but also type-fungible. I believe not. To see why, let us modify the example, such that Frida's plan is now to paint any token of any gemstone type, while Diego retains his plan concerning the token-non-fungible diamond. It is difficult to see why this modification should sway our conclusion regarding the equal validity of their respective claims. As long as the relevant resources play the same pivotal role as necessary supports for the claimant's life plans, it is irrelevant whether they are (merely) token- or (also) type-fungible. If we were to deny that, we would have to insist, implausibly, that the validity of Frida's claim varies according to how we choose to individuate classes of objects. Imagine that we classify “gemstones in general” as one resource type. If so, Frida's modified plan (to paint any gemstone token) revolves around a token-fungible, yet type-non-fungible resource. (Tokens of other natural resource types, say, fruits, cannot replace it.) If we instead individuate “gemstones” into several types (“diamonds,” “sapphires,” etc.), her plan to paint any token of any gemstone revolves around a resource which is both token- and type-fungible. In both classifications, the resource needed to support Frida's plan is the same: any gemstone token. Yet we would have to conclude that her claim to the relevant resource is valid only when we happen to classify gemstones as a single resource-type. The ease by which such mere classification would create or dissolve the validity of Frida's claim should give us pause. That observation, I shall take it, strengthens our belief in the expansion thesis. Whether a (life plan-based) special claim revolves around natural resources that are token-non-fungible, token-fungible but type-non-fungible, or token- and type-fungible, is in itself irrelevant to determine its pro tanto weight. At this stage, one might wonder whether it would make any difference if Frida's life plan had revolved around a fully fungible resource—that is, if the plan could be satisfied with access to natural or nonnatural resources alike. I do not see why it should. Imagine, in a third variation of the example, that Frida's life plan is a bit more peculiar. Her plan is now to paint “whatever gemstone she herself can buy at the local Coyoacán market for 10 pesos.” That is, the plan would be thwarted if she were to receive a gemstone directly; it is part of her artistic plan to first get hold of 10 pesos (somehow), and then to go and purchase a 10-peso gemstone at the market. Frida would be able to fulfill her plan either by receiving the money directly, or, more intricately, by receiving whatever natural or nonnatural resource she could sell to obtain that amount. What Frida needs to pursue her plan is thus a fully fungible resource. Yet that fact seems irrelevant. Her life plan (still) has the same importance as Diego's plan to paint a token-non-fungible diamond. Grounded in the liberal foundation, their plans will continue to generate similarly valid special claims: to a fully fungible resource, and to a token-non-fungible one, respectively. To sum up, this means that the liberal foundation supports four kinds of special claims. In addition to the “traditional” claims to token-non-fungible resources (like Diego's), the foundation supports claims to token-fungible but type-non-fungible resources (as in the first Frida example), and claims to resources that are both token- and type-fungible (as in the second Frida example). It will even support claims to resources that are what I called fully fungible, which means that they are fungible across natural and nonnatural types (as in the third Frida example). This leads me to the following conclusion. If liberal theories are to apply consistently the life plan interest they use to ground special resource claims, they must recognize my expansion thesis. They must accept that, all else equal, people may lay valid special claim to whatever non-fungible or fungible natural (or non-natural) resources they need to pursue their life plans—subject, again, to a “Lockean” proviso, and whatever other restrictions one might wish to impose upon such claims. I have just defended my expansion thesis concerning special resource claims grounded in the life plan interest. I did so with a simple appeal to theoretical consistency: people may choose plans which target token-non-fungible as well as fungible resources; if we respect people's interest in leading self-directing lives, we have (pro tanto) reason f