I liked Pogge’s take on the natural right of inventors. Classical liberals,in the tradition of Locke, argue that inventors have natural rights over their invention since it is an extension of their labour. Pogo points out that these natural rights only apply to a particular token, but not to all objects of its type. To own natural rights to a whole type of inventions is to create scarcity, Pogge points out, and therefore violates the Lockean proviso by “not leaving enough and as good for others.”
I find it interesting how Pogge focuses more on the prudential and beneficial reasons for reforming patent laws though. Philosophical arguments are lovely but they just don’t have much suasion over the general public. But there’s only so far you can go with the prudential arguments: I’m not sure, in the end, how convinced the well-off countries will be by the putative benefits they receive from this reform. Pogo comes back round to justice towards the end, but I would personally have preferred it if he had spent an extensive section developing that.
Patents seem like a strange case for the Lockean proviso though. Although Pogge points out that patents necessarily create scarcity, wouldn't the lack of patents also create scarcity by not allowing for the innovations that tend to lessen it? Moreover, the scarcity patents create seem to be artificially created, in the sense that there is a scarcity of something people did not have, nor could reasonably expect to have, before the patent. On the other hand, the lack of patents creates a scarcity that seems real in some sense.
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DeleteI think that the point lies in the distinction between an object and its type. A lack of patent on an object certainly warrants your concerns. A patent on type, however, does create a non-artificial scarcity, regardless of whatever did or did not exist before. For example, if Nike receives a patent on all athletic shoes, shoes had to have existed prior and the need for athletic shoes for practice, exercise, etc. is not unwarranted.
xy, the article clearly involves philosophy, but that doesnt make it philosophically valuable. The part you're referring to is Pogge's way around Nozick's property rights. He just shows what is and isnt covered by the lockean provisio. And nobody really takes Nozick seriously anyway.
ReplyDeleteXY, do you find his argument against natural rights accounts persuasive or not? Also, your post seems to have a damned if you do damned if you don't quality: philosophical arguments are of limited effect, but prudential arguments can't carry the load either, so we need more philosophical arguments, even though they are of limited effect?
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