城市規劃是現代社會不可缺少的一環﹐政府制定法例管理公共空間﹐讓大多數市民能夠分享使用公共空間。可是這些規則漠視露宿者使用公共空間的權利。限制公共空間不準非指定用途﹐對於一般市民影響不大﹐因為他們對去公園是散步玩樂﹐街道是從一點走到另一點的通道﹐他們在家中有私人空間作私人活動﹐如睡覺吃飯或大小二便。但對於露宿者來說﹐街道公圍天橋底便是他們的家﹐不許他們在公共空間活動﹐便等於對他們趕盡殺絕。Jeremy Waldron在Homeless and the Issue of Freedom一文中﹐嘗試指出限制公共空間的用途﹐等同剝削露宿者的個人自由﹐否定他們身為人類的尊嚴。我這篇論文主要檢視他的論點﹐並挑出其中數點漏洞作出反證。在原文設定的特定條件下﹐把露宿者驅逐出城市﹐並不會構成侵犯自由的問題。

Homeless and still free

In “Homeless and the Issue of Freedom” [1], Jeremy Waldron argues that imposing restrictions to forbid unwanted activities on common properties will limit the freedom of homeless people and violate their human dignity. In this essay, I am going to first examine and illustrate Waldron’s claim. Then I will provide a counter argument to demonstrate the freedom of homeless people is violated even with all the restrictions imposed on common properties.

Waldron lay out the foundation of his argument by stating distinctions between different types of properties; they are the private property, collective property and common property. Private property is owned by private citizen. The owner of the property has the power to determine who is allowed to access and what is allowed performed in his property. If someone violates his property rights, say by sneaking into his property, the owner can persecute the trespasser with the aid of the government by simply asking the police to remove unwelcome trespassers. In contrary to private property, collective property is not owned by any private citizen, it is owned by the government. Some collective properties, such as government office and military base, are not open to the public, but a subset of the collective property is fairly accessible to everyone. The collective property marked for public use is common property that includes parks, streets, sidewalks, subways, wilderness area, etc. No private person has the power to determine the usage of common property. The usage is usually determined by the government, acts in the name of the society.

By definition, homeless people are those who have no access to private property, whether the property is owned or rented. Property owners may invite homeless people to their home, but the homeless people are on the mercy of the property owners. Homeless people do not have a place called home that they have the exclusive rights to do whatever they want whenever they like. People with private property perform fundamental human activities like urinating, washing, sleeping or cooking in their own private place. However, since homeless people are excluded by all private property, they have no where to perform those primal human tasks except on common properties. If the government restricts what kind of activities is allowed in common prosperities, it would be disastrous to the homeless people who have no where to go. They will have no place to sleep and no place to urinating without breaking the law.

In the traditional notation of freedom, it usually applies to actions rather than locations. A person is free to perform a certain action or not free to perform another action. This notation neglects the fact that man is a three dimensional being that occupies space. If a person is free do something, he ought to do that thing at some place. If a person is not allowed to be in a place, he is not free to be there and not free to do anything there. If a person is not free to be in any place, he is not free to do anything, hence he is comprehensively without any freedom [1:435]. The freedom of homeless people depends on their use of the common properties since they have no where else to perform their actions freely.

Waldron criticize our society is willing to tolerate an economy system in which a large numbers of people are homeless and at the same time not willing to allow those who are in this predicament to act as free agent, looking after their own needs, in public places [1:436]. He further argues that the freedom to perform those basic human needs is a very important freedom in our society. Unlike traffic laws or commercial regulation that limits the freedom of certain actions, the freedom of sleeping and urinating is the pre-condition of living, which is a freedom on par with the freedom of speech or freedom of religion. In order to preserve the freedom of homeless people, Waldron suggests the government should either provides public facilities, such as public washroom or shelter to the homeless people to attend their basic needs or allow them to perform those actions in common properties by taking care of themselves. The problem of homeless is not just a welfare problem; it is also a problem require us seeing homeless people as agents with freedom and dignity.

Waldron has considered many objections in his article. He examined the objections from positive freedom, general prohibitions, intention and responsibility and refuted all of them successfully. I am not going to repeat the same arguments in the essay. However, Waldron failed to consider one of the strongest objections. He argues that if an action X is prohibited (to everyone) in public places and if a person A has no access to a private place wherein to perform it, then action X is effectively prohibited to A everywhere, and so A is comprehensively unfree to do X. [1:441]. Indeed if X is prohibited to do every where, the unintended cumulative effect restraint A from doing X universally. How about A has access to one and only one public place to perform action X. In this case, A is no longer comprehensively unfree to do X. If we deliberately leave an exit, set aside a place that everyone can do X, then A is still free to do X, although he is not free to do X anywhere he likes.

Let us revisit the two questions posed by Waldron in [1:436]. He claims that most people with a home and a job are willing to tolerate an economic system with a large number of homeless people. I am afraid he is making a false assumption in answering this question. It is possible for us to answer NO to both questions. What if it is not that we are willing to tolerate the homeless people in our society; it is rather we are not willing to spend extra tax money to serve the homeless people? Operating and maintaining a public washroom or homeless shelter is expensive. If the homeless people who use those facilities could not pay for their cost, then who is going to foot the bill? What if we actually do not tolerate any homeless people at all? Giving the above loop hole in Waldron’s argument, forbidding homeless people to look after their own needs in public places, could very well means we simply want to drive them away, so we don’t have to tolerate them anymore.

I do agree with Waldron that posing restriction on what activities are allowed in common property will limit the freedom of homeless people given that the same restriction is imposed on all common properties. I also agree with Waldron that as long as there exists some common property allow the homeless to perform their basic human necessity, it will not violate their freedom. If we set limitation on common property by eliminating all the possibilities that contradict to the two requirements one by one, we will soon realize there exists a case fits neatly in the middle. In this special scenario, we do not have to tolerate the homeless people hanging out in public places; we do not have to spend our tax dollars building new public facilities for the homeless; and most important, their freedom is not violated at all. The solution is surprisingly straight forward. The government can impose restrictions on all common properties except a patch of designated area on the outskirt of the city or maybe even in the wilderness. The homeless people are free to perform whatever activities they like in the middle of nowhere without interfering with the rest of us in the society.

The obvious objection to my argument is by doing so we forcing them to move out of the city which seriously violates their freedom. Let us take a closer look at this objection and examine this scenario using the criteria of freedom proposed by Waldron himself. When Waldron talks about the homeless are excluded from all of the places governed by private property, he is not puzzled by the fact that most people are excluded from all but one of those places [1:434]. From this statement, we can deduce that if we are excluded from all but one place together does not violate our freedom even we are subjected to the restrictions on common property. If homeless people are allowed to sleep or urinate in a given place, they should be as free as the rest of us who are also allowed to sleep or urinate in one place, our home. Assign a piece of land to homeless people is essentially the same giving homeless people a home. Although their home is far away from the city, a home is still a home. Once a homeless person is not homeless anymore, he is subjected to the same rule as the rest of us. If restricting private activities on common property does not violate our freedom, it does not violate any homeless (now homed) person’s freedom.

Another line of objection is sometimes taken is this: if the society restricts the homeless from all of the private and common property in the city; we are confining them into a ghetto and deprive their freedom of living in the city. We have to be very careful about the conception of freedom used in this objection. In Waldron’s paper, he is arguing the along the line of traditional liberal idea of negative freedom [1:436] instead of the controversial, question-begging conception of positive freedom. The homeless people are not banned from entering the city. They are free to enter the city as long as they follow the same rules that apply to everyone. The homeless people are free to own or rent a place in the city if they can afford it. After a person secure the property rights of a place, he has the exclusive use of that place and it is his negative freedom to do whatever he likes in his place. Trespassers into private properties violate the negative freedom of the owner because they obstruct the owner from doing something in his place, such as excluding unwelcome trespassers.

It would be absurd if we allow trespasses on the ground of negative freedom as it directly contradicts with the negative freedom of the property owners. It makes more sense if owning a property is a positive freedom because it requires money to purchase or rent a place and not everyone is able to afford the price to live anywhere he wants. Even within the same city, the property price varies in different districts. For example, not everyone can afford to live in West Vancouver; they have to live in a less expensive area like Coquitlam. For those who cannot even afford a place in Coquitlam, they may have to settle in more remote areas like Abbotsford or Langley. At last for those who cannot afford any place in the city, namely the homeless, they have no choice but accept a free home in the ghetto. We would not grant the negative freedom for those who live Coquitlam to trespass the home of those living in West Vancovuer; why would we grant the same negative freedom to the homeless living in the ghetto?

Unlike the freedom of religion or freedom of speech, the freedom of sleeping and urinating is not a pure negative freedom. A society can grant freedom of speech and freedom of religion to everyone without anyone’s freedom being violated. However, space is a scare resource. If someone is using a space for one thing, it implicitly limits the freedom of another person using the same space for another thing. If some one is sleeping in the park, it violates the freedom of other people using the park for recreational purpose. Even if the park has open access to homeless people, there are only a fix number of benches in a park. When one homeless person occupies a bench to sleep overnight, he displaces other homeless people from using the same bench to sleep. Urinating in public places create hygiene problem, if the government allows people to urinate in a park, it won’t be long before the park become unusable to all. According to Waldron, there are three types of rules governing the usage of common property. The second rules maintains that if public places are to be available for everyone’s use, then we must make sure that their use by some people does not preclude or obstruct their use by others [1:439]. When homeless people using common property for activities other than the designed purpose of the places, they violated the second rules and interfere with another people who want to enjoy the common property.

At last, Waldron may try to object the idea of sending the homeless to live in ghetto on other moral reasons such as injustice, being cruel to them or violate their basic human rights. If he argues along this line of thoughts, he will fall prey on his own accusation of the “moralization” of freedom [1:438]. It will not only transform our concept of freedom into a moralized definition of positive liberty, but also excludes the concept of freedom altogether from the debate about the homeless. The insistence that the enforcement of the ghetto rules is anything but a restriction of freedom is a serious strategic mistake, since freedom is the core of Waldron’s argument. In the end, Waldron is trapped in a self-created dilemma. On one hand, he cannot give up the freedom argument or his efforts in the paper would be lost in vain; on the other hand, he cannot dispute driving the homeless people to a ghetto would not violate their freedom according to his earlier arguments in the paper. Either way he loses.

References:
[1] Jeremy Waldron, “Homelessness and the Issue of Freedom,” in Contemporary Political Philosophy, R.E. Goodin and P. Pettit, Ed., MA: Blackwell, 2006, pp. 432-448

根據自然法的理論﹐法律賦與人民的權利﹐是基於每個人屬有的道德權利。但是每個人的道德權利並非與生俱來﹐而是建立在人的自然權利基礎之上。自然權利源於人擁有選擇的能力﹐每個人與生俱來﹐有不受別人強迫作出選擇的自由。任何人行使他的道德權利﹐其實等同於限制別人自由選擇的自然權利。只有每個人有權利某程度上限制其他人的自由﹐才能保障每個人擁有相同的自由。每一個人的道德權利﹐必定有一個相對的道德責任。不過這個不是雙向關係﹐享受別人道德責任的好處﹐並不等同擁有道德權利。

道德權利可以分為兩大類別。一般權利是自然權利的申延﹐每個人有能力自主選擇的人﹐有不受別人干預的自由的權利。特別權利是建立在自願性的特別關係之上﹐例如一個人對另一個人作出承諾﹐那前者就有履行承諾的責任﹐而後者享有以承諾限制前者自由的權利。人民參與社會契約﹐自願放棄一些自由﹐換取享受社會提供的福利﹐人民也是通過特別權利﹐去限制參與者自由﹐要他們遵守社會秩序的權利。最重要的一點﹐每個人的自然權利優先於道德權利﹐除非有合理充分的理由﹐否則以道德權力為名﹐限制他人的自然權力並不合乎道德。

道德權利優先於法律權利﹐當政府立法違反人民的道德權利時﹐人民便有反抗法律的權利。這個公民抗命的權利有兩個層面。薄權利是指人民有權違法﹐但政府仍然在道德上有權以法律懲罰違反法律的人。厚權利力則是指若果人民的道德權利受法例侵蝕﹐政府在道德上沒有懲罰違法人民的權力。注意的是訴諸良知並不等同道德權利﹐所以憑良知行為違反法律的人只有薄權利﹐政府仍然在道德上有權懲罰他們。只有在法例違反人民的道德權利時﹐如禁止言論自由或人身自由時﹐人民才有公民抗命的厚權利﹐沒有遵守不公義法律的道德責任。在厚權利下的公民抗命﹐並不會削弱法律的威嚴﹐因為削弱法律威嚴的是不乎合道德權利的惡法。

Reference:
Are There Any Natural Rights? – H.L.A. Hart
Taking Rights Seriously – Ronald Dwokin

歷史中曾經發生不公義的事件﹐如殖民地時代白人移民侵佔土著的土地﹐或者當年八國聯軍搶奪中國文物。當我們說一件歷史事件不公義﹐這其實是一個道德判斷。道德判斷對我們的行為有指引性﹐我們應該防止似類不公義的事件再次發生。對當年不公義事件的受害者作像徵性賠償﹐政府站出來為過去的不公義道歉﹐讓世人不要忘記歷史的教訓。可是有些人認為像徵性的賠償並不足夠﹐應該把歷史撥亂反正﹐要對受害者作出完全足額賠償﹐如白人把土地還給土著﹐侵略國把文物歸還﹐公義才能得到彰顯。可是完全性的賠償有三大問題﹐若不能解決這些問題﹐大規模的重新分配只會帶來更多的不公義。

第一個問題是歷史的應然性。物件和土地的擁有權基於歷史性﹐但是現實中沒有時光機﹐不能把回到過去重新開始。若果不公義事件在昨天去年發生﹐我們可以還可以勉強預測歷史原來發展的方向。可是不公義事件在百幾二百年前發生﹐我們根本不可能知道若果沒有發生不公義事件﹐今天歷史的發展方向會是什麼模樣。或許白人不搶奪土著的土地﹐土著也會自願把土地賣給白人﹐又或者土著在賭桌上把土地輸清光。若果中國文物沒有給運到外國﹐清庭可能自己把文物變賣﹐國民黨可能把文物搬到台灣﹐文化大革命也可能把文物破壞了。再者在不公義事件中﹐除了直接的受害者和侵佔者外﹐間接也會影響市場價格﹐那其他相關買賣也會變得不公義。因為歷史有太多偶然性﹐當中涉及太多未知的變數﹐我們根本不知道什麼才是乎合公義的現狀﹐想重新分配也無從入手。大規模的重新分配會致社會混亂﹐在現實在根本不可行。若果可以克服社會混亂的問題﹐為什麼要拘泥歷史的假設﹐不索性採用更好更平等的分配呢。

第二個問題是擁有權的時效性。根據一般法律和道德的觀念﹐擁有權並非永遠擁有﹐刑事和民事訟訴有追朔期限﹐產權也有逆權侵佔的限制。若果不公義事件發生的年代久遠﹐物件幾經轉手原主人已難以追尋﹐物件的擁有權便屬於持有人。擁有權是建立在擁有人與物件的互動關係之上﹐而非一個恆久不變的外在關係件。一個人對物件最初的擁有權﹐是建立在個人對物件的使用﹐將物件變為個人生命計劃的一部份。當個人失去物件後﹐物件在個人生命中的地位﹐會隨著時間減弱。而同一時間該物件在新擁有人生命中的地位漸漸增加。經過一段很長的時間後﹐原主人會完全失去物件的擁有權﹐擁有權便轉移到新的持有人手上。

第三個問題是擁有權會因為環境轉變而失效。一個人對物件有最初擁有權﹐是基於沒有其他人擁有這件物件﹐而把物件私有化並不會影響他人。可是隨著環境的轉變﹐不再乎合最初擁有權的條件﹐那擁有權隨之亦會失效。例如在某村落中有很多井﹐個人可以擁有某口井的權利﹐禁止其他人在他的井中取水。但當環境轉變﹐村落的井受到污染不能飲用﹐只餘下一口可以使用的井。這時候該井的擁有人﹐並沒有權利禁止他人取水﹐或以天價賣水謀取暴利﹐換一句話說他喪失那口井的擁有權。在土著土地的例子﹐在幾百年前有大量荒野土地﹐在不影響他人的條件下﹐所以土著擁有那片土地。可以現代人口膨脹﹐土地供不應求﹐土著喪失土地的擁有權﹐要把土地拿出來和移民分享。先到先得決定擁有權帶有隨機性﹐亦無視其他人的需要﹐所以不付合公義的原則。

Reference:
Superseding Historic Injustice – Jeremy Waldron

John Rawls在他的公義論中﹐提出公義的原則是公平。理性的人在無知之幕下﹐會選擇公平的財富分配方法﹐在保障個人自由的大前題下﹐財富應該要盡量平均分配。Robert Zoick則提出一個截然不同公義理論﹐他認為公義應該要有歷史性﹐不應該以財富的分佈作衡量是否公義的標準。以財富分佈去決定是否公義的說法有盲點﹐因為財富並不是從天上掉下來﹐不屬於任何人擁有等著政府去分配。財富從創造出來的那一刻﹐便己經屬於創造者所擁有﹐政府不能隨意重新分配財富。他的公義理論是擁有權理論﹐主要有三大原則﹕

1. 每個人可以擁有他從合法和公義途徑得來的財富。
2. 每個人也有權從合法和公義的途徑自由轉讓財富。
3. 從不公義途徑得來的財富並不屬於掛有人﹐歷史上的不公義必須要修正。

根據擁有權理論的公義原則﹐若果從一個公義的財富分佈﹐經過自由轉讓產生新的財富分佈﹐必定同樣乎合公義。如果要把財富分佈維持某個特定的分佈﹐政府必須對財富進行重新分配﹐這就侵犯了個人對財富的擁有權﹐亦侵犯了個人選擇的自由。Zoick不反對政府徵稅用來負擔公共開支﹐但他反對徵稅用作劫富濟貧的財富轉移。向一個人的勞動成果抽稅﹐與強迫一個勞動沒有分別。若果政府不能強迫人民義務勞動﹐把勞動成果轉移給有需要的人﹐那政府同樣不應抽稅強奪勞動成果﹐用來轉移給有需要的人。每個人有選擇額外工作或休閒的自由﹐若果政府只對工作的人抽稅﹐但沒有抽取休閒的人的時間﹐那便是不尊重人民的自由。若政府可以強迫人民勞動或強奪人民勞動的成果﹐便違背自由主義每個人擁對身體主權的原則﹐讓人異化達到其他目的工具﹐正正犯了自由主義批評功用主義的毛病。

Rawls認為每個人與生俱來的天賦材能和承繼的財富有異﹐而這些因素帶有隨機性﹐好運氣的人不應獲得更多的財富﹐所以財富要盡可能地均分才是公平。Zoick用擁有論的公義原則回應﹐指出父母有權自由轉讓財富給子女﹐因此子女承繼的財富合乎公義原則。其次是天賦材能與財富分佈沒有直接因果關係.財富份佈與利他服務有必然關係﹐只是天賦材能恰好與利他服務有相互關係。事實上任何財富分佈也有隨機性﹐包括均分的財富分佈﹐所以均分財富不能解決隨機性的問題。當然Rawls可以說均分財富是公義﹐所以不容許人憑天賦獲得額多的財富﹐要均分財富才公平﹐不過這一來就犯了乞求論點的謬誤了。最重要是跟據擁有權理論的公義原則﹐若某人擁有一樣東西﹐而他取得這東西的途徑沒有侵犯別人的擁有樣﹐他就可以公義的擁有這東西﹐他那可以擁有從這東西生產出來的財富。竟然人擁有的天賦材能沒有侵犯其他的擁有權﹐順理成章地人應該擁有從他材能生產出的財富。

雖然Zoick原則上反對以財產的分佈決定是否公義﹐但他指出歷史遺留很多不公義的包伏﹐足以作為在現在制度上重新分配財產的理據。所有重新分配也是過渡性質﹐當修正歷史上的不公義後﹐盲目追求均分並不合乎公義原則。

Reference:
Distributive Justince – Robert Nozick

西方現代民主制度強調個人自主﹐反對家長式統治﹐政府必需要尊重民眾的選擇。政府應該是價值中立﹐選民透過民主程序﹐決定政府的施政方向。民主選舉是一個討價還價的過程﹐選民憑著手上的選票﹐去選出乎合自己意願和照顧自己利益的政府。可是這樣的民主制度並不完善﹐尊重選民的意願並不等於照顧他們的利益。

首先很多情況下選民的意願﹐很大程度受政府政策影響。若果政策影響人民意願﹐人民意願又全過來決定政策﹐那人民何來自主的權利呢。其次人民的意願並不是一成不變﹐滿足了人民今天的意願﹐不等於能夠滿充他們明天的意願。民眾甚至可以不滿意昨天作出的選擇﹐儘管現狀是昨天選擇的必然的結果。有時候人民所作出的選擇並不真正的意願﹐特別是在資訊不足的情況下所作的決定。人民的意願會也受到環境的影響﹐如酸葡萄心態或困難時降低要求。民主制度守護的是人民自主﹐所以在某些情況下﹐政府有需要凌駕人民的意願﹐以保障人民的福利和自主性。

政府在三個情況下﹐政策應該凌駕人民的個人意願。第一個情況是集體意願的決定﹐人民的高階意願不乎合人民的低階意願。高階意願是指對自己意願的意願﹐例如人民的意願是要社會更加環保﹐但不願意獨自承擔環保的額外開支﹐這時候就需要政府介入﹐以立法手段去改變人民的低階意願。第二個情況是人民在不公義的背景下作出的選擇﹐有時候他們會選擇接默默受了不公義的現狀﹐認為那是自身或際遇的問題。第三個情況是人民的選擇﹐將會嚴重影響自身福利﹐以及鎖死自己在未來的選擇。這包括所有會上癮的行為如食煙吸毒賭錢﹐因此政府為人民福利著想﹐應該防止人民對作出對自己有害的選擇。

在現行民主制度中﹐選民以不記名投票的方式去作出選擇﹐政府根據選民表達的意願﹐去制定政策和決定﹐可是不記名投票的選舉制度本身也有問題。選民表達的意願很多時候不能反影他們真正的意願﹐他們防止最壞選擇出現會進行策略性投﹐把選票投給不是最好但可以接受的選擇。民主選舉是假設人民能夠透過選票去整合社會中不同的利益﹐但當每個選民以自己利益作出選擇時﹐他們基於自私的選擇卻不一定對社會有益處。除了以不記名投票的方式外﹐民主還能以公開討論的實行。人民透過理性討論達成共識﹐正如古代希臘城邦的民主一樣。公開討論的好處﹐是人民不單要考慮自己的利益﹐還要考慮社會整體的利益﹐才能說服別人支持自己的決定。公開討論以理性和大眾福利為基礎﹐藉此可以培養人民的理性和同理心。

雖然公開討論看似比投票制度優勝﹐但是本身也不是沒有問題。投票才不過每幾年一次花﹐人民的投票率也偏低。公開討論比投票更花時間﹐並不是每個市民也願意或能夠付出這樣多的時間﹐最終民意共識可能會被少數人騎劫。其次是共識可膩根本不存在﹐理性討論並不能夠解決價值觀取向的不同。在公開討論中某些人可能有隱藏議題﹐他們以公眾利益為名個人利益為實。公開討論得出共識並不一定是最好﹐可能發生集體盲目的羊群效益。由於公開討論參與者的身份是公開﹐有些人會因為其他人的壓力而選擇妥協﹐所以公開討論不能保障所有人的自主意願。

Reference:
Perference and Politics – Cass Sunstein
The Market and the Forum – Jon Elster