Inheritance of Past Debts: Moral Problems

OLIVEIRA, MARTÍN

Buenos Aires

Workshop; International Workshop Extending Justice in Space and Time; 2019

INEO - CIF / CONICET

In this paper the authors aim to show both the moral principle that grounds our obligation to honor debts incurred by past governments and its limits or exceptions. Dimitriu proceeds first by reconstructing three common arguments asserting our obligation to honor debts incurred by past government and claiming that they all fail. He then tracks the so-called ?desert principle? in the private law institute of inheritance and argues that it can offer some moral ground to our intuition that we should honor debts by past governments. Although the author mainly purports to establish a positive principle, he also states that his account also defines precise limits to the obligation to honor debts by past governments.