The Right to Bequeath

Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch

As recent empirical research suggests, bequest and inheritance affect the distribution of wealth in many Western democracies in ways that run counter to some of our fundamental beliefs. These beliefs include, for example, the view that there should be reasonable equality of opportunity in the labor market, or that we should see each other as equal citizens in the political sphere. In view of this state of affairs, we have to ask: Why do we hold on to the right to bequeath at all? Should we continue to do so? Or should we replace the right to bequeath (and the right to inherit) with a different way of regulating the intergenerational transfer of wealth? Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the project considers these questions from the perspectives of the philosophy of law, social philosophy, and political philosophy.