A Theory of Wrongful Exploitation

Valdman, Mikhail

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A Theory of Wrongful Exploitation

Mikhail Valdman

July 2009, Volume 9, No. 6, pp. 1-14

Permalink: http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.3521354.0009.006

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Abstract

My primary aims in this paper are to explain what exploitation is, when it's wrong, and what makes it wrong. I argue that exploitation is not always wrong, but that it can be, and that its wrongness cannot be fully explained with familiar moral constraints such as those against harming people, coercing them, or using them as a means, or with familiar moral obligations such as an obligation to rescue those in distress or not to take advantage of people's vulnerabilities. Its deepest wrongness, I argue, lies in our moral obligation not to extract excessive benefits from people who cannot, or cannot reasonably, refuse our offers.

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A Theory of Wrongful ExploitationWhat does it mean to exploit something? I will argue that, in the broadest sense, to exploit X is simply to secure or extract benefits, either for oneself or for others, from one’s use of X. Call this the beneficial use view. On this view, anything that is used and from which a benefit is either secured or extracted is exploited. This view has three important and plausible implications. First, use without benefit does not qualify as exploitation. If a boxer tries but fails to take advantage of his opponent’s poor reach, then, on this view, he hasn’t exploited it. Similarly, if a capitalist fails to secure or extract benefits from his workers, he may misuse them but he does not exploit them. Second, one can exploit unknowingly and unintentionally. This too seems plausible since we could say, for instance, that migrating birds exploit the position of the stars. This aspect of exploitation, I will argue, makes it possible to exploit wrongly but blamelessly. Finally, since securing or extracting benefits needn’t be wrong, exploitation on the beneficial use view needn’t be wrong either, even if one exploits a person or his attributes. This too seems plausible, for surely it needn’t be wrong for one to have one’s muscular friend move one’s piano, even though one would then be exploiting his strength.