You inherit a significant sum of money from a distant relative. In researching the estate, you discover strong evidence that the original family wealth was built through serious historical wrongdoing — exploitation, land appropriation, or similar. You had no part in this. The victims are long dead and largely unidentifiable. Accepting the inheritance does not harm anyone alive. Refusing it returns it to an estate that will distribute it to others who have no more right to it than you.
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Question

You inherit a significant sum of money from a distant relative. In researching the estate, you discover strong evidence that the original family wealth was built through serious historical wrongdoing — exploitation, land appropriation, or similar. You had no part in this. The victims are long dead and largely unidentifiable. Accepting the inheritance does not harm anyone alive. Refusing it returns it to an estate that will distribute it to others who have no more right to it than you.

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Accepted Answer

54% chose "Accept it and use it well — the good I do with it matters more than its origin" and 46% chose "Refuse or donate it entirely — I will not benefit from this regardless of the logic". This dilemma tests the moral weight of clean hands in a situation where the harm is historical and already done. Bernard Williams argued that certain acts contaminate a person's integrity in ways that cannot be neutralised by good consequences — moral residue is real. The counterargument notes that every inherited wealth in human history can be traced to some form of historical exploitation and that the demand for clean hands is therefore practically impossible.

Accept money built on wrongdoing?

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