Self-ownership is the concept of property in one's own person, expressed as the moral or natural right of a person to be the exclusive controller of his own body and life. According to G. Cohen, the concept of self-ownership is that "each person enjoys, over himself and his powers, full and exclusive rights of control and use, and therefore owes no service or product to anyone else that he has not contracted to supply."
The writers
William Rees-MoggWilliam Rees-Mogg, Baron Rees-Mogg is an English journalist and life peer.-Education:Rees-Mogg was educated at Clifton College Preparatory School in Bristol and Charterhouse School in Godalming, followed by Balliol College, Oxford...
and
James Dale DavidsonJames Dale Davidson is an American investment newsletter writer and author of The Sovereign Individual, The Great Reckoning, and Blood in the Streets, all three co-authored with William Rees-Mogg. He also wrote The Plague of the Black Debt - How to Survive the Coming Depression. He is also the...
described those possessed of a mind conducive to self-ownership as
sovereign individuals, which have supreme authority and
sovereigntySovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided...
over their own choices, without the interference of governing powers, provided they have not violated the rights of others. This notion is central to
classical liberalismClassical liberalism is the philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets....
,
individualisticIndividualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...
political philosophiesPolitical philosophy is the study of such topics as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...
such as
abolitionismAbolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
,
ethical egoismEthical egoism is the normative ethical position that moral agents ought to do what is in their own self-interest. It differs from psychological egoism, which claims that people can only act in their self-interest. Ethical egoism also differs from rational egoism, which holds merely that it is...
, rights-based
libertarianismLibertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
,
objectivismObjectivism is a philosophy created by the Russian-American philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand . Objectivism holds that reality exists independent of consciousness, that human beings have direct contact with reality through sense perception, that one can attain objective knowledge from perception...
, and
individualist anarchismIndividualist anarchism refers to several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasize the individual and his or her will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. Individualist anarchism is not a single philosophy but refers to a...
. Sovereign-minded individuals would then seem to prefer an atmosphere consisting of
decentralized__FORCETOC__Decentralization or decentralisation is the process of dispersing decision-making governance closer to the people and/or citizens. It includes the dispersal of administration or governance in sectors or areas like engineering, management science, political science, political economy,...
administrative organizations acting as servants to the individual.
Origin of the concept
John LockeJohn Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
wrote in his
Two Treatises on Government,
"every man has a Property in his own Person."
Locke also said that the individual "has a right to decide what would become of himself and what he would do, and as having a right to reap the benefits of what he did."
Private property
Sovereign-minded individuals usually assert a right of
private propertyPrivate property is the right of persons and firms to obtain, own, control, employ, dispose of, and bequeath land, capital, and other forms of property. Private property is distinguishable from public property, which refers to assets owned by a state, community or government rather than by...
external to the body, reasoning that if a person owns themselves, they own their actions, including those that create or improve resources. Therefore, they own their own labour and the fruits thereof.
Nevertheless there can be defense of self-ownership which can be critical of the idea of private property. The anarchist
Oscar WildeOscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
said that "For the recognition of private property has really harmed Individualism, and obscured it, by confusing a man with what he possesses. It has led Individualism entirely astray. It has made gain not growth its aim. So that man thought that the important thing was to have, and did not know that the important thing is to be. The true perfection of man lies, not in what man has, but in what man is...With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true, beautiful, healthy Individualism. Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things, and the symbols for things. One will live. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." Also italian individualist anarchist
Renzo Novatore- Life :Abele Ricieri Ferrari was born in Arcola, Liguria, Italy on May 12, 1890 in a poor peasant family. He did not adjust to school discipline and quit in the first year never coming back after that. While he worked in his father's farm, he self educated himself with an emphasis in poetry and...
said that "Only ethical and spiritual wealth is invulnerable. This is the true property of individuals. The rest no! The rest is vulnerable! And all that is vulnerable will be violated!"
Self-ownership and labour markets
Ian Shapiro says that markets in labour affirm self ownership, because if self-ownership were not recognized then people would not be allowed to sell the use of their productive capacities to others. He says that the individual sells the use of his productive capacity for a limited time and conditions but continues to own what he earns from selling the use of that capacity and the capacity itself, thereby retaining sovereignty over himself while contributing to economic efficiency.
Examples
The
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States ConstitutionThe Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution officially abolished and continues to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. It was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, passed by the House on January 31, 1865, and adopted on December 6, 1865. On...
is sometimes viewed as an implementation of the concept of self-ownership, as are some portions of the
Bill of RightsThe Bill of Rights is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. These limitations serve to protect the natural rights of liberty and property. They guarantee a number of personal freedoms, limit the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and...
.
Self-ownership could be viewed as a decentralized bottom-up philosophy, as opposed to
totalitarianismTotalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
being a centralized top-down system.
Henry David ThoreauHenry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
regarded self-ownership as a key component in achieving
utopiaUtopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
, while
libertarianLibertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
political philosopher
Robert NozickRobert Nozick was an American political philosopher, most prominent in the 1970s and 1980s. He was a professor at Harvard University. He is best known for his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia , a right-libertarian answer to John Rawls's A Theory of Justice...
based his theory of property-ownership on the premise of self-ownership.
Disagreement about distinctions
The trouble of defining the border of the self can be seen in the debate surrounding
abortionAbortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
where the fetus could alternatively be seen as its own or as a part of the property of the mother's body, and the right of the woman to control her own body could therefore be viewed as being in opposition to what may be considered as "the fetus' right to live". This contrast is even more pronounced in situations where women are forced to undergo surgery in order to deliver a healthy baby. Even though self-ownership advocates
civil rightsCivil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
, it does not extend these rights over others, an argument used by both sides of this debate.
In addition to the
abortion debateThe abortion debate refers to discussion and controversy surrounding the moral and legal status of abortion. The two main groups involved in the abortion debate are the self-described "pro-choice" movement and the "pro-life" movement...
, there are also debates surrounding
euthanasiaEuthanasia refers to the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering....
and
suicideSuicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. However, some of these actions can be viewed as
self-destructiveIn human context, self-destructive behaviour is a widely used phrase that conceptualises certain kinds of destructive acts as belonging to the self. It also has the property that it characterises certain kinds of self-inflicted acts as destructive...
, which is
not removed from the original meaning of
self-ownership. The debate is further complicated as many individuals recognize the right of ownership to include the right to destruction: what one has constructed, one may deconstruct. Additionally, some cultures not only respect the act of suicide as an individual right, but also as an honorable action.
Discussion of the boundary of self with respect to ownership and responsibility has been explored by legal scholar
Meir Dan-Cohen in his essays on
The Value of Ownership and
Responsibility and the Boundaries of the Self. The emphasis of this work is in illuminating the phenomenology of ownership and our common usage of personal pronouns to apply to both body and property; this serves as the folk basis for legal conceptions and debates about responsibility and ownership.
Defining the borders of the self can also be difficult if one accepts the notion that the self includes objects that are external to the human body, as is proposed in
Andy ClarkAndy Clark is a Professor of Philosophy and Chair in Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Before this he was director of the Cognitive Science Program at Indiana University in Bloomington. Previously, he taught at Washington University at St. Louis and the University...
's essay,
Natural Born Cyborgs.
The classically liberal view of self-ownership holds that money is alienable because it can be physically alienated from the body (taken, given, earned, paid), while labor is not because it can only be achieved by use of one's inalienable body. Alternatively, some anti-capitalists believe that, because money is the product of inalienable labor, it should be viewed as similarly inalienable, regardless of any voluntary contractual agreements made by the laborer. This leads to a disagreement about how far self-ownership, if affirmed, extends. From this springs the idea of a "wage slave" or a "debt slave," which are meaningless terms in one view, and violate the principle of self-ownership in the other.
Another third view holds that labor is alienable, because it can be contracted out, thus alienating it from the self. In this view, the freedom of a person to voluntarily sell himself into slavery is also preserved by the principle of self-ownership.
Arguments for self-ownership
It has been argued by
Austrian SchoolThe Austrian School of economics is a heterodox school of economic thought. It advocates methodological individualism in interpreting economic developments , the theory that money is non-neutral, the theory that the capital structure of economies consists of heterogeneous goods that have...
economist
Hans-Hermann HoppeHans-Hermann Hoppe is an Austrian School economist of the anarcho-capitalist tradition, and a Professor Emeritus of economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.-Academic career:...
that self-ownership is
axiomIn traditional logic, an axiom or postulate is a proposition that is not proven or demonstrated but considered either to be self-evident or to define and delimit the realm of analysis. In other words, an axiom is a logical statement that is assumed to be true...
atic. His reasoning is that a person contradicts himself when he argues against self-ownership. The person making this argument is caught in a "
performative contradictionA performative contradiction arises when the propositional content of a statement contradicts the presuppositions of asserting it. An example of a performative contradiction is the statement "this statement can't be asserted" because the very act of asserting it presupposes it can be...
" because, in choosing to use persuasion instead of force to have others agree that they are not sovereign over themselves, that person implicitly grants that those who he is trying to persuade have a right to disagree. If they have a right to disagree, then they have legitimate authority over themselves. However, it has also been noted that attempting persuasion in place of force does not necessarily acknowledge a right to disagree but may be a rational economic choice, as using force may have unfortunate consequences for the speaker as well.
The person argues that self-ownership is an undesirable condition, and currently he is only authorized by law to argue against the
status quoStatu quo, a commonly used form of the original Latin "statu quo" – literally "the state in which" – is a Latin term meaning the current or existing state of affairs. To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are...
that allows self-ownership. Moreover, someone that argues against self-ownership does not necessarily do it in an absolute way. Sovereignty does not need to be a black-and-white issue: for instance, the person could be sovereign to have opinions, but not to perform any kinds of acts. For instance, a person that thinks the consumption of drugs should be always illegal is against absolute self-ownership, but not necessarily in favor of full subordination.
In
The Ethics of LibertyThe Ethics of Liberty, by American economist and historian Murray N. Rothbard, first published in 1982, is an exposition of the libertarian political position...
,
Murray RothbardMurray Newton Rothbard was an American author and economist of the Austrian School who helped define capitalist libertarianism and popularized a form of free-market anarchism he termed "anarcho-capitalism." Rothbard wrote over twenty books and is considered a centrally important figure in the...
argues that 100 percent self-ownership is the only principle compatible with a moral code that applies to every person - a "universal ethic" - and that it is a natural law by being what is naturally best for man. He says if every person is not entitled to full self-ownership, then there are only two alternatives: "(1) the 'communist' one of Universal and Equal Other-ownership, or (2) Partial Ownership of One Group by Another - a system of rule by one class over another." He says that it is not possible for alternative (2) to be a universal ethic but only a partial ethic, which says that one class of people do not have the right of self-ownership but another class does. This, therefore, is incompatible with what is being sought - a moral code applicable to every person - instead of a code applicable to some and not to others, as if some individuals are humans and some are not. In the case of alternative (1), every individual would own equal parts of every other individual so that no one is self-owned. Rothbard acknowledges that this would be a universal ethic, but, he argues, it is "Utopian and impossible for everyone to keep continual tabs on everyone else, and thereby to exercise his equal share of partial ownership over every other man." He says the system would break down, resulting in a ruling class who specializes in keeping tabs over other individuals. Since this would grant a ruling class ownership rights over its subjects, it would again be logically incompatible with a universal ethic. Even if a collectivist Utopia of everyone having equal ownership of everyone else could be sustained, he argues, individuals would not be able to do anything without prior approval by everyone in society. Since this would be impossible in a large society, no one would be able to do anything and the human race would perish. Therefore, the collectivist alternative universal ethic where every individual would own an equal portion of every other individual violates the natural "law of what is best for man and his life on earth." He says that if a person exercises ownership over another person, that is, uses aggression against him rather than leaving him to do as he wills, "this violates his nature."
See also
- Individualist anarchism
Individualist anarchism refers to several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasize the individual and his or her will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. Individualist anarchism is not a single philosophy but refers to a...
- Dualism (philosophy of mind)
In philosophy of mind, dualism is a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter, which begins with the claim that mental phenomena are, in some respects, non-physical....
- Redemption movement
The redemption movement consists of supporters of an American conspiracy theory. Redemption theory involves claims that when the U.S. government abandoned the gold standard in 1933, the government pledged its citizens as collateral so that the government could borrow money...
- Law of equal liberty
The law of equal liberty , or equal liberty, is a doctrine first named, though not first conceived, by Herbert Spencer in Social Statics which says "…that every man may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with the possession of like liberty to every other man." Or,...
- Civil liberties
Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...
- Empowerment
Empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social, racial, educational, gender or economic strength of individuals and communities...
- Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
- Sumptuary
- Castle Doctrine
A Castle Doctrine is an American legal doctrine arising from English common law that designates one's place of residence as a place in which one enjoys protection from illegal trespassing and violent attack...
- Non-aggression principle
The non-aggression principle , or NAP for short, is a moral stance which asserts that aggression is inherently illegitimate...
- Self-determination
Self-determination is the principle in international law that nations have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or external interference...
- Victimless crime (political philosophy)
A victimless crime is a term used to refer to actions that have been ruled illegal but do not directly violate or threaten the rights of another individual. It often involves consensual acts in which two or more persons agree to commit a criminal offence in which no other person is involved...
- Public order crime
In criminology, public-order crime is defined by Siegel as "...crime which involves acts that interfere with the operations of society and the ability of people to function efficiently", i.e. it is behaviour that has been labelled criminal because it is contrary to shared norms, social values, and...
- Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
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