Study On Preemption Doctrine From An Ethical Perspective

Preemption Doctrine refers to the privileges one owns over others in terms of rights and interests in social life simply because he preceded others on the basis of time. The concept of "Come first, get first" has developed into an agreed habit out of spontaneity in the exchange between human beings over time. As human society develops into civilizations, it has penetrated into human life as a common sense.In the theoretical sphere of jurisprudence, exploration of preemption doctrine has evolved and developed on the basis of defining ownership. As time goes by, both the entity and content of preemption has changed. Thus, preemption doctrine, the basis of ownership in modern civil law, has acquired its specified, or more explicit, denotation thanks to technical restriction. However, as a strategy to tackle the scarcity of resources, preemption doctrine has became one of the basic principles of social distribution, whose application has been found far beyond legal adjustment. Actually, preemption, as it were, is not a single legal problem. It concerns interpersonal relations resulted from resource allocation, which necessitates studies from an ethical perspective. As an effective adjustment, it requires a combination of other means to achieve balance or relative harmony in interpersonal relations so that resource allocation can satisfy varying needs of different people. Incorporation of preemption doctrine into legal system yet restricting it only in the acquisition of ownership of personal property is indicative of the fact that validity of preemption is not equal to its justification. Due to the absoluteness and exclusiveness of legal protection of a person's rights, reasonable control of preemption will effectively avoid questioning of the validity of "first come, first get". However, in recognition of the necessity of the above practice, we must beware that the ethical problems embedded in the preemption doctrine still remain unsolved and potential crisis may arise in due course.This paper is to clarify the basic ethical problems in preemption by means of a reflective study over it, facilitating understanding of the ground of current social systems, the relations between morality and history, and the possibility and extent of humanity to avoid pitfalls covered by common sense.