Harming Without Wronging

In Dark Ghettos, Shelby states that if a state has “not secured basic liberties and has not maintained an equitable distribution of benefits and burdens…when the oppressed violate the law, they do not take advantage of the compliance of others” (244). Thus, the acts of the oppressed cannot be condemned on the grounds of lacking civil reciprocity. Jeffrey Reiman similarly argues that individuals who have been denied their fair share of the benefits of social cooperation have a reduced obligation to obey the law (235). 


Additionally, oppressed individuals who rob or defraud those who are unjustly advantaged may be justified in doing so. By acting against the law, they express a refusal to submit to an unjust legal order. This is similar to the idea of harming without wronging. Redistribution of resources may harm unjustly advantaged individuals by depriving them of wealth, but such harm is not morally wrong. In fact, if redistribution were not undertaken, it would constitute a wrong against unjustly impoverished and oppressed individuals. Shelby states that “the legitimacy of a political order is to be judged by how well it maintains a fair system of social cooperation” (231). Individuals are obligated to submit to a state only insofar as it protects their basic liberties and ensures an equitable distribution of benefits and burdens (231). This framework helps explain why, in North Korea, it may be morally permissible for individuals to break the law. Many individuals engage in practices such as smuggling goods or consuming South Korean media not out of a desire to be morally deviant, but as a means of survival. The state fails to provide them with the resources necessary to remain alive. Similarly, many impoverished individuals in the United States are not supported with sufficient means to live, which leads some to turn to drug dealing or shoplifting as strategies of survival. 


Finally, drawing on Victor Tadros, I would like to emphasize the fact that a state has as much of a duty to prevent crime as it does to punish criminals. Because the state is aware that unjust disadvantage predictably leads to harmful and violent outcomes, it bears responsibility for preventing such conditions from persisting. Doing so protects not only the most disadvantaged individuals, but society as a whole.

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