Analiza i Egzystencja


ISSN: 1734-9923     eISSN: 2300-7621    OAI    DOI: 10.18276/aie.2024.65-06
CC BY-SA   Open Access   DOAJ  ERIH PLUS  DOAJ

Issue archive / 65 (2024)
A Duty to Rescue and Its Costs

Authors: Stanisław Wójtowicz ORCID
Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń

Łukasz Dominiak ORCID
Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń

Igor Wysocki ORCID
Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń
Keywords: duty to rescue conflict of rights remedy principle economic incentives self-ownership Peter Singer
Whole issue publication date:2024
Page range:34 (91-124)
Cited-by (Crossref) ?:

Abstract

The purpose of the present paper is to analyse the problem of cost generated by the performance of a duty to rescue. The authors consider three distinct views of this problem by confronting a scenario in which one party decides to rescue another, where providing such assistance seems to involve an infringement upon the property rights of the third party. For example, A rescues drowning B but in the process of doing so A apparently trespasses upon C’s land. The question that the authors pose is: Assuming that there is a duty to rescue, who should be charged with the cost of what seems to be an infringement upon the third party’s property rights? The paper analyses the following possibilities: the cost should be borne by (a) the victim of the emer- gency, (b) the rescuer, (c) the third party whose rights seem to have been encroached upon. Even though the authors begin with a pronouncedly libertarian assumption about the third party’s absolute property rights, in the course of the discussion they come to the conclusion that it is exactly this assumption that should be further probed and ultimately relaxed in order to reach the most plausible solution to the present dilemma.
Download file

Article file

Bibliography

1.Bacon, F. (1630). The elements of the common lawes of England. John More.
2.Barnett, R., Hagel, J. (Eds.). (1977). Assessing the criminal: Restitution, retribution, and the legal process. Ballinger Publishing Co.
3.Bentham, J. (1945). The limits of jurisprudence defined. Columbia University Press.
4.Block, W. (2016). Forestalling, positive obligations and the Lockean and Block- ian provisos: Rejoinder to Stephan Kinsella. Ekonomia–Wroclaw Economic Review, 22 (3), 27–41.
5.Block, W. (2004). Libertarianism, positive obligations and property abandonment: Children’s rights. International Journal of Social Economics, 31 (3), 275–286.
6.Block, W. (2009). Libertarian punishment theory: Working for, and donating to, the State. Libertarian Papers, 17 (1), 1–31.
7.Block, W. (2019). Libertarian punishment theory and unjust enrichment. Jour- nal of Business Ethics, 154 (1), 103–108.
8.Block, W. (2021). Rejoinder to Dominiak on the necessity of easements. Ekonomia – Wrocław Economic Review, 27 (1), 9–25.
9.Block, W. (2010). Van Dun on freedom and property: A critique. Libertarian Papers, 2 (Art. 4), 1–11.
10.Brink, D. (1989). Moral realism and the foundations of ethics. Cambridge Univer- sity Press.
11.Calabresi, G. (1961). Some thoughts on risk distribution and the law of torts. Yale Law Journal, 70, 499–553. https://doi.org/10.2307/794261.
12.Cohen, G. A. (1995). Self-ownership, freedom, and equality. Cambridge University Press.
13.Dancy, J. (1985). An introduction to contemporary epistemology. Blackwell. Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland v. Lynch [1975] AC 653. 1 All ER 913.
14.Dominiak, Ł. (2017). The Blockian proviso and the rationality of property rights. Libertarian Papers, 9 (1), 114–128.
15.Dominiak, Ł. (2023). Is the Rothbardian theory of punishment retributive? Roczniki Filozoficzne, 71 (3), 7–25.
16.Dominiak, Ł. (2021). Libertarian easements revisited. Ekonomia – Wroclaw Eco- nomic Review, 27 (1), 27–35.
17.Dominiak, Ł. (2019). Must right-Libertarians embrace easements by necessity? Diametros: An Online Journal of Philosophy, 16 (60), 34–51.
18.Dominiak, Ł., Wysocki, I. (2023). Libertarianism, defense of property, and absolute rights. Analiza i Egzystencja, 61 (1), 5–26.
19.Dominiak, Ł., Wysocki, I., Wójtowicz, S. (2023). Dialogical estoppel, erga omnes rights, and Libertarian theory of punishment and self-defense. Journal of Lib- ertarian Studies, 27, 1–24.
20.Epstein, R. (1995). Cases and materials on torts. Little, Brown and Company.
21.Epstein, R. (1973). A theory of strict liability. Journal of Legal Studies, 2, 151–204.
22.Feinberg, J. (1978). Voluntary euthanasia and the inalienable right to life. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 7 (2), 93–123.
23.Frowe, H. (2011). The ethics of war and peace: An introduction. Routledge.
24.Foot, P. (1967). The problem of abortion and the doctrine of the double effect. Oxford Review, 5, 5–15.
25.Grotius, H. (2005). The rights of war and peace (Anonymous, Trans., Richard Tuck, Ed.). Liberty Fund.
26.Goldman, A. (1999). Knowledge in a social world. Oxford University Press.
27.Hale, M. (1736). Historia placitorum coronae: The history of the pleas of the Crown. Nutt and Gosling.
28.Harmans, G. (1965). The inference to the best explanation. The Philosophical Review, 74 (1), 88–95.
29.Hart, H. (1968). Punishment and responsibility. Oxford University Press.
30.Hohfeld, W. (1913). Some fundamental legal conceptions as applied in judicial reasoning. Yale Law Review, 23 (1), 16–59. https://doi.org/10.2307/785533.
31.Huemer, M. (2013). Problem of political authority. An examination of the right to coerce and the duty to obey. Palgrave Macmillan.
32.Kadish, S. H., Schulhofer, S. J., Steiker, C. S. (2007). Criminal law and its pro- cesses. Wolters Kluwer.
33.Kinsella, S. (1996a). New rationalist directions in Libertarian rights theory. Jour- nal of Libertarian Studies, 12 (2), 313–326.
34.Kinsella, S. (1996b). Punishment and proportionality: The estoppel approach. Jour- nal of Libertarian Studies, 12 (1), 51–73.
35.Kramer, M. (2002). Rights without trimmings. In: M. H. Kramer, N. E. Simmonds, H. Steiner, A debate over rights: Philosophical enquiries (pp. 7–111). Oxford University Press.
36.Kramer, M. (2005). Moral rights and the limits of the ought-implies-can principle: Why impeccable precautions are no excuse. Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, 48, 307–355.
37.Kramer, M. (2009). Consistency is hardly ever enough. In: S. D. Wijze, M. Kramer, I. Carter, (Eds.), Hillel Steiner and the anatomy of justice (pp. 201–213). Routledge.
38.Kramer, M. (2014). Torture and moral integrity. Oxford University Press. Locke, J. (1988). Two treatises of the government (P. Laslett. Ed.). Cambridge University Press.
39.Macaulay, Th. B. (1880). Macaulay’s miscellaneous writings, vol.4. Longmans, Green & Co.
40.MacCormick, N. (1982). Legal rights and social democracy. Clarendon Press.
41.Moore, M. S. (1992). Moral reality revisited. Michigan Law Review, 90 (8), 2424–2533.
42.Moore, M. S. (2007). Four reflections on law and morality. William and Mary Law Review, 48 (5), 1523–1569.
43.Moore, M. S. (2009). Causation and responsibility: An essay in law, morals, and metaphysics. Oxford University Press.
44.Moore, M. S. (2010). Placing blame: A theory of the criminal law. Oxford Uni- versity Press.
45.Moore, M. S. (2020). Mechanical choices. Oxford University Press. https://doi. org/10.1093/oso/9780190863999.001.0001.
46.Nozick, R. (1974). Anarchy, state and utopia. Basic Books.
47.Nozick, R. (1981). Philosophical explanations. Harvard University Press.
48.Oberdiek, J. (2004). Lost in moral space: On the infringing/violating distinction and its place in the theory of rights. Law and philosophy, 23 (4), 325–346.
49.Oberdiek, J. (2004). What’s wrong with infringements (insofar as infringements are not wrong): A reply. Law and Philosophy, 27 (3), 293–307.
50.Peirce, Ch. (1994). Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, 1931–1958 (C. Hartshorne, P. Weiss, A. Burks, Eds.). Harvard University Press.
51.Plato. (2000). The Republic, Book I, 331C (G. R. F. Ferrari, Ed., T. Griffith, Trans.). Cambridge University Press.
52.Ploof v. Putnam 81 Vt. 471, 71 A. 188 (1908).
53.Pufendorf S., Barbeyrac J., John Adams Library (Boston Public Library). (1729). Of the law of nature and nations : eight books (The fourth edition carefully corrected). Printed for J. Walthoe, R. Wilkin, J. and J. Bonwicke, S. Birt, T. Ward, and T. Osborne.
54.Rawls, J. (1999). A theory of justice: revised edition. Harvard University Press.
55.Raz, J. (1986). The morality of freedom. Clarendon Press.
56.Regina v. Dudley and Stephens 14 Q.B.D. 273 (1884).
57.Rothbard, M. (1974). Justice and property rights. In: S. L. Blumenfeld (Ed.), Property in a humane economy (pp. 101–122). LaSalle.
58.Rothbard, M. (1998). The ethics of liberty. New York University Press.
59.Rothbard, M. (2011). Economic controversies. Ludwig von Mises Institute.
60.Salter, J. (2005). Grotius and Pufendorf on the right of necessity. History of Political Thought, 26 (2), 284–302.
61.Sinnott-Armstrong, W. (1988). Moral dilemmas. Basil Blackwell.
62.Singer, P. (1972). Famine, affluence, and morality. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1 (3), 229–243.
63.Steiner, H. (1977). The structure of a set of compossible rights. The Journal of Phi- losophy, 74 (12), 767–775.
64.St. Bonaventure (ca. 1269). A defense of the mendicants. In: O. O’Donovan, J. O’Donovan, (Eds.), From Irenaeus to Grotius: A sourcebook in Christian political thought, 100–1625 (pp. 307–317). William Eerdmans, 1999.
65.St. Thomas Aquinas. (1947). Summa Theologica (Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Trans.). Benziger Brothers.
66.Thomson, J. J. (1976). Killing, letting die, and the trolley problem. The Monist, 59 (2), 204–217. https://doi.org/10.5840/monist197659224.
67.Thomson, J. J. (1980). Rights and compensation. Noûs, 14 (1), 3–15.
68.Thomson, J. J. (1990). The realm of rights. Cambridge University Press.
69.Vincent v Lake Erie Transp. Co., 109 Minn. 456, 124 NW 221 (1910).
70.Williams, B. (1973). Ethical consistency. In: Problems of the self: Philosophical papers 1956–1972 (pp. 166–186). Cambridge University Press.
71.Wójtowicz, S. (2021). Libertariańska teoria kary i samoobrony. Dialogi Polityczne, 30 (1), 165–186.