The following is an excerpt from Stephen Kinsella's Against Intellectual Property. Obviously, it talks primarily about the utilitarian support for IP, but this argument can be used against any use of utilitarianism. (Emphasis is mine.)
Advocates of IP often justify it on utilitarian grounds. Utilitarians hold that the “end” of encouraging more innovation and creativity justifies the seemingly immoral “means” of restricting the freedom of individuals to use their physical property as they see fit. But there are three fundamental problems with justifying any right or law on strictly utilitarian grounds.
First, let us suppose that wealth or utility could be maximized by adopting certain legal rules; the “size of the pie” is increased. Even then, this does not show that these rules are justified. For example, one could argue that net utility is enhanced by redistributing half of the wealth of society’s richest one percent to its poorest ten percent. But even if stealing some of A’s property and giving it to B increases B’s welfare “more” than it diminishes A’s (if such a comparison could, somehow, be made), this does not establish that the theft of A’s property is justified. Wealth maximization is not the goal of law; rather, the goal is justice — giving each man his due.
Even if overall wealth is increased due to IP laws, it does not follow that this allegedly desirable result justifies the unethical violation of some individuals’ rights to use their own property as they see fit.Note that this is not the explanation why one may not own information he produced. For that, read Kinsella's monograph or my previous post (after the videos). I may write more about intellectual property and scarcity from Jewish point of view later.
