The Normative Implications of Benefiting from Injustice

Abstract

In this article we investigate whether non-culpably benefiting from wrongdoing or injustice generates a moral requirement to disgorge these benefits in order to compensate the victims. We argue that a strong requirement to disgorge such benefits is generated only if other conditions or factors are present. We identify three such factors and claim that their presence would explain why the normative features of certain types of cases of benefiting from wrongdoing differ from cases of benefiting from simple misfortune or bad luck. © Society for Applied Philosophy, 2014.