What is it to Wrong Someone? A Puzzle about Justice

Abstract

Abstract You have, as we sometimes say, a duty ‘to Sylvia’ not to kill her. You ‘owe’ it to her not to kill her. Such language is perhaps a bit stiff, but we can put the same point more colloquially. We can say, for example, that in killing Sylvia you would wrong her: you would do wrong precisely ‘to’ her, or do wrong ‘by’ her. And, though it opens something of a Pandora’s box, we might reverse terms in the relation, saying, I think quite aptly, that Sylvia has a right, morally speaking, precisely a3ainst you. She has a right, namely, not to be killed by you, and a claim to something better.

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