T. H. Green On Property And Moral Responsibility
Abstract
In his lectures in the 1870s, T. H. Green argued for an important connection between ethics and politics - namely, that the state has the moral function of promoting and protecting all citizens’ opportunities of developing their moral character. How this works out in a concrete case is best seen by considering Green’s view of how this perspective dictates to society’s design of its property institution. This paper analyzes Green’s theory of property so as to bring out and explore his general thesis about the state’s moral role; and deals with the critics’ claim that a property institution constructed along the lines Green advocated would actually deny property to some and thereby defeat the moral purpose of having a property institution in the first place