"Enough, and As Good"

So, if you are as much of an old-school political philosophy lover as everyone should be, you know that John Locke had a theory about why property rights are just. Basically, if you own something legitimately and voluntarily give it to someone else, that seems like it's always intuitively okay. So the question is how people can initially turn something from "random piece of nature" into "MY random piece of nature". Locke said it was totally cool to grab whatever you wanted, as long as you a) mixed some of your own labor in with it and b) left "enough, and as good" for everybody else.

This is stupid. (Well, b) is definitely stupid. a) may be stupid as well, but that is another post.)

The biggest problem with Locke's standard, as countless mostly left-wing political philosophers have pointed out, it is literally impossible to take anything for yourself and leave "as good" for everybody else. Any time anyone appropriates anything, everybody else is left with marginally worst options--particularly future people, who will have no chance to fight for any frontiers currently being claimed. And while there may always be theoretical frontiers to grab pieces of (thank you, Star Trek), the moon is substantially less desirable and substantially more difficult to acquire than, say, the Americas. If the "enough and as good" standard is true, then no acquisition of property has ever been legitimate. Long live the People's Revolution!

Why did Locke think he needed this provision? Probably because of some edge cases where we have strong moral intuitions. For instance, if you claim the one water source on a desert island after you and your friends are shipwrecked there and start charging them rent, you are clearly an asshole. Therefore, Locke says, you cheated: you didn't leave enough water for everyone else.

However, in situations like this, our moral intuition about the legitimacy of property ownership is being clouded by our stronger moral intuition about not being a douchebag. Imagine another desert island with two water sources: a pair of mysterious wells. You and a friend are shipwrecked there; you each take ownership of one. Seems perfectly fair so far, right?

A day later, in a drunken fit of despair fueled by the cache of pirate rum you've discovered on the island, your friend throws a dead fish into his well. The water becomes contaminated and undrinkable. Your friend will die of thirst unless you're willing to share the water from your well.

Would we think it was morally acceptable to refuse water to your friend, or to force him to perform a variety of degrading sexual acts each time he wanted to drink? Well, when you claimed the water, you met Locke's standard: you left enough and as good for your friend. So clearly you own your water legitimately, and can do whatever you want with it. But you'd still be a complete dick if you didn't share it with him at some reasonable price.

The reason we intuitively object to one person taking sole ownership of an essential resource and refusing to share it is that they're an asshole, not that they don't legitimately own their property. Legitimate property ownership is irrelevant. Locke doesn't need the "enough and as good" standard to explain our anger.

Not convinced? Let's look at another situation. Instead of an island with one ample water source, let's set our poor shipwrecked people on an island with no water sources at all. The only source of water is one barrel from the ship, which has washed up somewhere on the island; it has exactly enough water for one person to survive until rescue, but cannot possibly be shared.

According to Locke's theory, the first person to find the barrel couldn't appropriate it. In fact, nobody could claim any of the water; the instant they claimed any, they'd be depriving someone else of enough water to survive! Surely our intuition runs the other way. Not only should one person claim the water, he would be completely justified in enforcing property rights over it should someone attempt to steal it.

How does this differ from the first, objectionable scenario? In each case, someone is claiming arbitrary ownership over a lifesaving resource needed by others. However, in the first case, the water monopolist could trivially benefit everyone else by not being an enormous dickmonger. In the second, he couldn't. Our intuition is responding entirely to the dickmongery of the first situation, not an objection to property rights acquired in this manner.

The moral? Go for it. Claim lots of stuff that other people might want or need. Just don't be a dick about it.