Exploitation’s grounding problem

Standard accounts of what makes exploitation wrong ground its wrong in distributive unfairness: when A exploits B he wrongs her by taking a greater share of the benefits from their interaction than he ought. I argue that this standard account does not succeed; distributive unfairness is neither the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEconomics and philosophy Vol. 41; no. 2; pp. 357 - 375
Main Author Ferguson, Benjamin
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.07.2025
Subjects
distributive justice
consent
unfairness
Exploitation
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ISSN0266-2671
1474-0028
1474-0028
DOI10.1017/S0266267124000397

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Summary:Standard accounts of what makes exploitation wrong ground its wrong in distributive unfairness: when A exploits B he wrongs her by taking a greater share of the benefits from their interaction than he ought. I argue that this standard account does not succeed; distributive unfairness is neither the sole, nor the primary wrong of exploitation. I assume that distributive unfairness is pro tanto wrong. However, I argue that in situations where transactors’ consent to a transaction is morally valid, it is also morally transformative and overrides distributive unfairness’s pro tanto wrong. Thus, wrongful exploitation requires morally invalid consent.
ISSN:0266-2671
1474-0028
1474-0028
DOI:10.1017/S0266267124000397