What is the philosophical argument that explains in principle why owning significant amounts of wealth when others are in poverty is considered unjust?

Question

I’m not looking for the obvious moral explanation, but the philosophical basis behind that line of thinking. Thanks!

In: 2

Answer 1

I am unsure why you make a distinction between morality and philosophy. There are many different kinds of philosophical arguments such as the argument from marginal utility. If you have more money you are going to lose less happiness giving away $1 compared to a poor person receiving it. Therefore giving money to the poor and taking it from the rich would increase happiness. Of course this makes the assumption that we ought to increase happiness which I am unsure why you would believe that is the case. It also poses other problems when it comes to the increase of happiness as we could also assume that the rich person could have spent the money in a way that improved society better than the poor person.