We have the pleasure to invite you to another research seminar in the ‘BIOUNCERTAINTY’ research project. This week Giulio Fornaroli a new post-doctoral researcher at INCET will give a talk: "Making the Beneficiary Pay: Distributive, Not Corrective". The seminar will take place on Thursday 9th of March at 5:30 p.m. in the room 25 on Grodzka Street and via MS Teams.

Abstrakt

The beneficiary pays principle (BPP) requires from innocent beneficiaries of an injustice that they contribute to redressing the damage suffered by the victim. In this paper, I take issue with the common view according to which the BPP is a matter of corrective justice. I demonstrate that the BPP cannot be a principle of corrective justice because (i) the obligations it generates are not directed from wrongdoer to victim and (ii) it does not align with the most plausible aim of corrective duties, which is that of restoring the full moral status of the victim in the moral community. I then argue that the credentials of the principle increase significantly if we consider it, instead, as a principle of distributive justice. More specifically, I argue that, even though the BPP could never serve as a global principle of distributive justice, it could sometimes enjoy local priority. I conclude with some observations about what this implies for the widely shared view according to which privilege in itself creates obligations.

Link to the MS Teams meeting