The Philosopher's Arms Free Riders
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Aug 16, 2013 
Anne Barron, an IP expert at LSE, and Roger Crisp, an Oxford moral philosopher, explore free-riding through puzzles and real cases. They debate doughnut honesty boxes, recycling and public goods. They weigh patents, medicines, music sharing, utilitarian trade-offs, and whether shirking can ever challenge unjust systems.
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Free Riding Defined Through Doughnuts And Gyges
- Free riding means taking advantage of others' cooperation to enjoy a public good without contributing.
- Roger Crisp links the doughnut honesty-box example to classic philosophical cases like Gyges to show moral unfairness in free riding.
Neighbour Noise Became An Imperceptible Daily Harm
- Darren describes living next to a flat with ongoing noise that gradually worsened night by night.
- The slow, imperceptible increase made the flat feel alien and caused stress and avoidance of home.
Small Acts Add Up To Real Harm
- Imperceptible harms accumulate when many individuals each do a tiny wrong that together causes serious harm.
- Roger Crisp uses Derek Parfit's torturer thought experiment to show tiny individual acts are morally significant.