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October 29, 2004
I defer in this matter to the gentleman from the Philosophy department...
Suppose there is a valuable book, bought and sold back and forth between your ancestors and mine over the course of generations. Suppose we lose track of who actually owns the book, but that we have a box containing all bills of sale for the book over the years. Some of the papers are cryptic and difficult to read, but most are perfectly legible. It is clear that our only hope for determining the actual ownership of the book is to carefully reconstruct the book’s sales history. It may be yours, it may be mine, but we won’t really know until we read through all the papers. But driven by raw greed, one day I simply decide to take the book, ownership be damned. Suppose we later discover that the actual history of the sales is incomplete, and ownership cannot be conclusively determined.Did I steal the book?
I’m not sure. But I am sure that I would, under those circumstances, have shown myself to be a thief.
And I’m sure that you shouldn’t trust me around your books.
Posted by Andrew at October 29, 2004 06:12 PM
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