One powerful argument against self-ownership is that it degrades personhood by leading individuals to view themselves and others as mere instrumental goods, alienable commodities to be exchanged in markets like other products and services. In general terms, this line of criticism (called the “commodification argument”) maintains that a direct and causal relationship exists between certain legal institutions (self-ownership) and certain attitudes (instrumentalism) and that the undesirability of the latter justifies restrictions on the former. In this article, I will critically examine (...) Margaret Jane Radin’s book Contested Commodities (1996), which presents a well-developed, compelling version of the commodification argument. I will advance three central points over the course of the article: first, the purported causal connection between self-ownership and instrumentalism is either weak or nonexistent; second, the commodification argument does little independent moral work, tending instead to be parasitic on arguments against economic, racial, and gender inequality; and third, what independent moral work it does do seems to be directed not so much at self-ownership as at liberal neutrality. I will conclude by showing that the weaknesses of Radin’s diverse defenses of the commodification argument cast doubt upon the anticommodificationist enterprise as a whole. (shrink)

Many libertarians believe that self-ownership is a separate matter from ownership of extra-personal property. “No-proviso” libertarians hold that property ownership should be free of any “fair share” constraints, on the grounds that the inability of the very poor to control property leaves their self-ownership intact. By contrast, left-libertarians hold that while no one need compensate others for owning himself, still property owners must compensate others for owning extra-personal property. What would a “self” have to be for these claims to be (...) true? I argue that both of these camps must conceive of the boundaries of the self as including one's body but no part of the extra-personal world. However, other libertarians draw those boundaries differently, so that self-ownership cannot be separated from the right to control extra-personal property after all. In that case, property ownership must be subject to a fair share constraint, but that constraint does not require appropriators to pay compensation. This view, which I call “right libertarianism,” differs importantly from the other types primarily in its conception of the self, which I argue is independently more plausible. (shrink)

Autor v tomto článku rozporuje pojem non-agrese Murrayho N. Rothbarda a využívá při tom to, co nazývá paradoxem non-agresivní vraždy. Autorovou ambicí není nic menšího než rozbít základy Rothbardovy politické filosofie a využívá přitom důkaz sporem, tedy fakt, že vyvrácení kontradiktorního opaku jako nepravdivého je za podmínek úplné disjunkce zároveň důkazem pravdivosti dokazované teze. Dokazovanou tezí je zde teze: v určitých případech existují pozitivní práva a povinnosti, tedy práva a povinnosti nevyplývající ani ze smlouvy, ani z předešlé agrese. O této (...) skupině práv a povinností však Rothbard říká, že ve skutečnosti neexistuje. Důvodem dle Rothbarda je, že takováto pozitivní práva a povinnosti by porušovaly sebevlastnictví povinovaného, resp. jeho právo k vlastní osobě a majetku. Autor tohoto článku naopak jejich existenci dokazuje poukazem na nepravdivost kontradiktorního opaku („pozitivní práva nikdy neexistují“), kterou ukazuje na uvedených paradoxech obklíčitele, majitele člunu, hostitele a skokana. Určité konkrétní majetkové právo nemůže mít subjekt A i subjekt B současně a ve stejném rozsahu. Zatímco však Rothbard tvrdí, že majetkové právo může vyplývat pouze ze smlouvy či z předchozí agrese (jako právo na kompenzaci), autor tohoto článku argumentuje, že majetkové právo nemusí vyplývat pouze ze smlouvy či z předchozí agrese, a dokazuje to existencí případů, kdy popření mimo-smluvního majetkového práva implikuje paradox non-agresivní vraždy: subjekt, který naplánuje úkladnou vraždu, se nedopouští protiprávní agrese. Což je rozpor. Ergo, teze „pozitivní práva nikdy neexistují“ je nepravdivá. Ergo, pravdivá je autorem dokazovaná teze. Mimo-smluvní práva a povinnosti se tedy nachází v obsahu správně pojatého pojmu sebevlastnictví a úkladná vražda se nikdy nenachází v rozsahu správně pojatého pojmu non-agrese. (shrink)

ABSTRACTEntrepreneurs should act as stewards of entrepreneurial rent. Entrepreneurial rent is the difference between the ex post value of a venture and its ex ante costs. It is the result of competition among buyers and sellers within the market process rather than the sole efforts of the entrepreneur. As a result, entrepreneurs should allocate entrepreneurial rent for the benefit of other market participants rather than consuming it for themselves. The moral obligation to steward entrepreneurial rent is consistent with traditional bases (...) of property rights and the norm of social welfare maximization, and it applies to corporations and their shareholders, as well as individual entrepreneurs. (shrink)

:This essay explores the concept of the connected self-owner, which takes account of the metaphysical significance of relations among persons for persons’ capacities to be owners. This concept of the self-owner conflicts with the traditional libertarian understanding of the self-owner as atomistic or essentially separable from all others. I argue that the atomistic self cannot be a self-owner. A self-owner is a moral person with intentions, desires, and thoughts. But in order to have intentions, desires, and thoughts a being must (...) relate to others through language and norm-guided behavior. Individual beings require the pre-existence of norms and norm-givers to bootstrap their selves, and norms, norm-givers, and norm-takers are necessary to continue to support the self. That means, I argue, that the self who can be an owner is essentially connected. Next, I ask how humans become connected selves and whether that connection matters morally. I distinguish among those connections that support development of valuable capacities. One such capacity is the autonomous individual. I argue that the social connections that allow the development of autonomous individuals have moral value and should be fostered. On the basis of these two values, I argue that we can support at least two nonvoluntary obligations, one negative and one positive, that we can ground in our metaphysical essence as connected self-owners. (shrink)

This review essay contains four parts. The first briefly recounts the contours of Rafe Blaufarb’s thesis in The Great Demarcation: The French Revolution and the Invention of Modern Property. The review is not intended to be a full assessment of the book; rather, Blaufarb’s work sets the stage for the focus of my reflections, which begin in Part 3. Using Louis Althusser’s understanding of law, we can see how the demarcation identified by Blaufarb made possible a further deployment of bourgeois (...) law, which perpetuates the dominant ideology ensuring the concentration of resources in a small number of people, seemingly without obligation to the great majority who hold no power in relation to any resources. Part 4 explains the true inequity which this demarcation has wrought, establishing and perpetuating deep divisions between those who hold the ‘social function’ inherent in property—the power unilaterally to alter social relationships—and those who do not—those who suffer the alteration of social relationships to their detriment. In short, property itself is an ideology of power, the legacy of which is not equality, but exploitation. Part 5 concludes that the great demarcation, which Blaufarb so skilfully explicates, turns out to be nothing in which humankind ought to take any pride. Rather, it has served and serves the purposes of the few to work untold misery and hardship upon the many. (shrink)

As a normative ethics theory, virtue ethics theory can present a criterion for criminalization. The revival of this theory brought about a great new change in new ethics philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. Its effects on criminalization are just like the two sides of a coin. On the one hand, it has the capacity of promoting ethics to reach its climax and even act as a permit for criminal intervention in the internal qualities of the individuals (...) and on the other hand, it can decriminalize most of the vicious actions in order to make citizens virtuous.In the field of the philosophy of the law of virtue, the theory of the ethics of virtue is used for the philosophical justification of criminalization. Therefore, in order to present a virtuous criminal theory, special attention is paid to moral vices. In the theory of virtuous criminalism, we are faced with two main axes: one, flourishing, and the second, vice. The presentation of a legislative theory in the philosophy of virtue-based law takes into account human flourishing. Proponents of liberalism, on the other hand, argue that criminalizing moral depravity violates privacy; while the problem is not simple. For this reason, the criminalization of vicious behavior faces challenges including the threat of self-ownership and the justification of these behaviors from the perspective of the principle of harm. The main question now is, to what extent is the criminalization of moral vices in the context of the theory of self-government? One might also ask how virtuous criminal theory can be justified by a reading of the principle of harm. The present paper has achieved the following approach with a descriptive-analytical method: The criminalization of some moral vices violates the right of citizens to self-government. Therefore, criminalizing these behaviors will not be justified. On the other hand, from the perspective of the theory of virtuous criminalism, moral vice is not a sufficient and even necessary condition for criminalization. For this reason, assuming that the criminalization of a vice is justified on the basis of a reading of the principle of harm, it can not necessarily be claimed that the application of criminal law against this behavior is effective. In addition, the purpose of this study is to explain the limits and challenges of the theory of virtuous criminalism in the context of the theory of self-government and the principle of harm. In addition, in this article, readers are introduced to the concerns of liberals. And they will realize that criminalization in the context of virtue-based philosophy of law does not necessarily violate privacy, that is, we will not face maximum criminalization. In addition to the analysis of the nature of virtue ethics, the present thesis dissertation reviews argumentative methods of virtuous criminalization in the context of virtue-oriented criminal law jurisprudence and criticizes hurdles and methods of creating a liberal approach. (shrink)