Inheritance of wealth: Justice, equality, and the right to bequeath

Abstract

This book presents a philosophical analysis of inherited wealth: it examines both the moral foundations of the right to bequeath wealth and the case for restricting that right with an inheritance tax. The book seeks to approach inheritance as a challenge with much contemporary significance but draws on ideas from the history of political philosophy. The positive proposals that emerge count as a sort of hybrid between luck egalitarian and social egalitarian conceptions of justice, with some sensitivity to utilitarian and libertarian insights. Chapter 1 lays out the main arguments and motivations in brief. Chapters 2 and 3 survey a variety of arguments from the eighteenth to the early twentiet..