Self-Ownership, Autonomy, and Non-Conventionalist Accounts of Property: A Comparison of Locke and Kant
Public Deposited- Last Modified
- February 26, 2019
- Creator
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Irvin, Daniel
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Philosophy
- Abstract
- One of the most fundamental issues in western political philosophy is the question of property. Its nature, origin, justification, and purpose have been explored many times over. As an institution that shapes the life of its society, it stands in continuous need of explanation and justification. Most treatments of the question of property have focused on the issue of private property, a form of property where particular individuals have rights—such as rights of access, control, use, or exchange—over particular objects, parts of the world, or ideas. The focus on private property make sense, because it is the form of the institution most commonly found in the societies where western philosophy has developed. The same is true in our present society, where private property and the protection of property rights—particularly rights of exchange and rights of control—is the foundation of capitalism. The many explorations of property have resulted in widely varying theories about its justification, or lack thereof. However, these theories can be roughly categorized into one of three strains. Theories in the first strain argue that moral claims about property rights exist independent of cultural norms, conventional practices, or laws and policy. The second strain is that of the conventionalists and most utilitarians. These theories argue that private property is justified, but that it is justified in virtue of the fact that the practice of property would be consented to and/or it is beneficial to some end, such as utility maximization. The third strain is that of Marxists and some philosophical anarchists. These theories hold that private property is inherently wrong, and that it either cannot be legitimized by consent or that claims that our current property system could be consented to are false. One fruitful way to study the issue of property is to compare two theories that are in the same strain, against the same set of standards. The reason for this is that theories in the same strain will typically reach similar conclusions, but along different lines of argument. By utilizing a set of standards to analyze each theory’s argument, it will become clearer which line of argument is most likely to support the shared conclusions or—if neither argument supports the conclusions—if the conclusions themselves are untenable. The shared standards will also provide a framework where shared weaknesses or strengths can be more clearly identified. Thus, this paper will compare the property theories of Locke and Kant, two writers whose conclusions about private property place them in the first strain. They are of particular interest because they utilize very different lines of argument to get to their conclusions.
- Date of publication
- spring 2016
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- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Note
- Funding: None
- Advisor
- Melenovsky, Christopher
- Degree
- Bachelor of Arts
- Honors level
- Honors
- Degree granting institution
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Extent
- 44
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