The Economics of Self-Ownership
The moral case of self-ownership can be strengthened even further by reflecting on its economic dimmension, writes Michael Rozeff. When we realize that a great many of our acts connect with other acts of ours and of other people in a web that extends out in space and backwards and forwards in time, we see that it is practically impossible for someone else to make us better off by making our decisions for us. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (23)
Although it may seem like a quibble, there is a conceptual oddity with "self-ownership"--the owner is the self and what is owned is also the self. The usual relational situation between the owner and what is owned fails to obtain. (Perhaps the most interesting statement of this objection comes from Professor George Mavrodes in the Summer 1971 or 1972 issue The Personalist, a philosophy journal now defunct but edited by John Hospers then.) So, instead of self-ownership, the (Lockean?) idea of one owning one's life--an indefinite series of activities reaching from present to future--would probably work more cogently.
Published: September 6, 2005 9:51 AM
Bravo, Michael! Very well said.
Regarding Tibor Machan's comment: I like to speak in terms of personal sovereignty, rather than ownership. This emphasizes the ultimate decision making authority the I have for my life, and avoids the oddity of reflexive ownership. Decision making authority is, of course, at the core of Michael's point in this piece.
Published: September 6, 2005 10:56 AM
Great article Mr Rozeff, this is what freedom is all about. I just began reading True Civilization by Josiah Warren and came across this sentence that seems to be appropriate:
"But, I implore my fellow-men not longer to commit themselves to indiscriminate subordination to any human authority or to the fatal delusions of logic and analogies, nor even to ideas or principles (so called), but to maintain, as far as possible, at all times, the FREEDOM to act according to the apparent merits of each individual case as it may present itself to each individual understanding. There is no other safety for us--no other security for civilization."
Published: September 6, 2005 12:26 PM
The term "self-ownership" does seem to imply that the self is both what is owned and the owner, which seems to be a logical contradiction. This does not however negate the idea as described in this excellent article. I would assert that the "self" is an individual's consciousness. It is what is inside us that we call ourselves, but which we cannot see, locate or really even describe. For instance we speak of our bodies as being ours ("my hand", "my face" etc,) but then what exactly is "me"? Clearly we don't consider our bodies to be synonymous with "self" or else why would we refer to them as "our" bodies? What is the "our" that is referred to here? Because our bodies are linked to our "self" we may tend to confuse them and think of them in aggregate, but they are two different things.
The body can be owned. It is a physical object like a chair or a rock. It can be crushed, destroyed, moved or confined. The self cannot be owned because ownership implies exclusion. You cannot exclude the self from using itself and therefore you cannot own it. The "self" can be threatened, killed, deceived, flattered or otherwise influenced, but it cannot be controlled like a piece of physical property can. You can exclude the "self" from using the body to a certain degree and therefore it can be said that the body may be owned (in a rather loose sense of the word) by an entity other than the "self" contained inside it.
Thus what is here termed "self" ownership, is really ownership by the conscious entity we call "self" of the vessel within which it is contained which we call the body. Each "self" is entitled to exclusive ownership of the vessel which bears it and therefore any attempt by one "self" to control the vessel of another "self" is illegitimate. This idea obviously has some religious and metaphysical context and thus it is likely that some will choose to disagree. That is fine since as an independent "self" they are fully entitled to think whatever they want.
Published: September 6, 2005 1:22 PM
Tibor Machan wrote:
Why is the sentence "I own myself" any less logically coherent than "I wash myself" or "I hurt myself". Again both the subject and the object are identical, and the sentence is self frelctive, but in turms of everyday language we seem to have no problem with it. And, in answer to Aaron, we don't normally presuppose a mind/body duality when we say such things.
The objection to self-ownership that both Tibor and Aaron raise was raised by Kant earlier, and fairly satisfactorily refuted by GA Cohen in "Self-ownership, Freedom and Equality".
Cohen said, in relation to the type of objection Aaron raised,
To say that A owns himself is not to say that a person owns some deeply inner part of themselves, or that that inner part owns their body. It is simply to say that A owns A. The word 'self' here "signifies a reflexive relation. I see nothing in the concept of self-ownership which (like fatherhood) excludes a reflexive instance of it." The burden falls on those who want to prove that the concept of ownership excludes a reflexive instance of it to show that this necessarily has to be the case.
Kant wrote,
Now this is obviously an extremely confusing passage. However, Cohen felt that we can draw from it the following argument:
Man is a person
Nothing can be both a person and a thing
Therefore man is not a thing
But
Only things can be owned
Therefore man cannot be owned
Therefore man cannot own himself.
We can accept this argument as valid, containing three premises, but still reject it. This is because the premise "Only things can be owned" is completely question begging in this context. One cannot mount a good argument that people, unlike things, cannot be owned with a premise that only things can be owned, since this assumes the conlusion it is trying to prove.
So that addresses one argument as to why the concept of ownership cannot be reflexive. Does Tibor have any others?
Published: September 6, 2005 5:00 PM
Slavery, sadly, is proof enough that man is a thing that can be owned, if not necessarily by its rightful owner. And simply put, if this isn't the basis of human morality, then human morality has no basis at all.
Kantian circumlocutions aside, we all know that unless we have a fundamental right to that which we are, however we define it, then we also have no responsibility for our actions. It follows, then, that if we have no responsibility for our actions, we cannot be held accountable for them. If we cannot be held accountable for our actions, then we can neither be praised nor blamed for them, in which case the establishment of behavioral norms becomes impossible, and with it, the distinction between good and evil.
As this is precisely what the state's ownership of the individual, in whole or in part, effectuates, it is why the state must be minimized to the fullest extent possible and preferably eradicated.
Published: September 6, 2005 5:55 PM
About the logic of "self-ownership" (assuming, of course, a natural law context; the meaning of the term in the context of a system of positive legal rules obviously depends on the rules of that system):
- If there is no conceptual oddity in saying 'Person A owns Person B' then there also is no such oddity in saying 'Person A owns Person A'. It is not as if X owns Y is a relation of the same type as X is longer than Y. Is it conceptually odd to say that A loves A, merely because 'usually' the lover and the beloved are different?
- If the concept of slavery is meaningful then the question 'Which person owns Person A?' also is meaningful. And then so are the conceivable answers to it: 'Every person (possibly with the exception of A) owns A', 'Some person or persons (possibly with the exception of A) own A', 'No person (possibly with the exception of A) owns A'.
To sacrifice the notion of self-ownership while retining the notion of ownership, it seems to me, is to embrace the proposition that every person is a res nullius and that consequently every person (with the exception of that person himself) may 'find and keep' or 'homestead' (or whatever it is one has to do to establish ownership) him.
However, if a person cannot own himself then ownership means nothing: for if I do not own myself then who is the owner of all the other things that I supposedly own? Surely the person who owns me is the owner of those things. But, as he cannot own himself, it is his owner who owns him and his supposed property (including me and my supposed property). And so on ad infinitum.
- To own something inter alia is to be responsible and liable for it and for its actions and behaviour. Surely there is no oddity in saying that Person A is responsible and liable for himself and his actions and behaviour.
Similarly, the owner has a right to hold other persons responsible and liable for their actions and behaviours in so far as they touch or affect his property (in relevant ways, but let's not get into that). Again, it is not conceptually odd to say that Person A has a right to hold other persons responsible or liable for what they to do to him.
Surely, these implications cover much of what we mean by ownership and self-ownership.
- I have often heard the argument that 'A owns A' implies 'A has right to transfer ownership of himself to another (through sale or donation)'. Therefore, it is said, self-ownership implies that slavery is justified if it comes about in such a way. That is a non-sequitur: there are cases where A's owning X implies A's right to eat X, but it is a fallacy to conclude that only edible things can be owned. Is it not equally fallacious to conclude that only transferable or detachable things can be owned?
- Being able to hold and be held responsible and liable is a mark of being a person. I should not say that the same is true for being able to transfer one's person to another--I would not know what that means. This oddity cannot be made to disappear merely by substituting 'transfer of ownership of one's person' for 'transfer of one's person'. I can arrange to cease to be a person (and to transfer ownership of my body to another) but I cannot arrange to be another person's person without myself remaining in full possession of what makes me a person. (This easily translates into the argument that slavery--ownership of another person--is not justifiable in natural law, whereas there is no injustice per se in being or having a faithful servant.)
- 'Person A owns person A' is not the same as 'A owns A's life'. One may cease to be a person without ceasing to be alive (say because of severe, irreparable brain damage). If that is the case then there is no sense to saying that one owns one's life. Does a duck own its life? It would if it were a person and consequently had a personal life--but it isn't and it doesn't.
- It is a mistake to think that the relevant question about self-ownership concerns only the meaning of 'owning'. The relevant question concerns the meaning of 'owning a natural person', which involves an answer to the question 'what is, or makes one, a natural person?'
In 'A owns X', A must refer to a person (natural or artificial), but the expression does not become meaningless or even 'odd' if X too refers to a person.
- Person A owns A, A belongs to A and to no other person, A is his own man, A is a sovereign person, A is a free person--these are all different ways of expressing the same thought, which is basic to libertarian thinking.
Of course, as soon as we scrap the concept of natural persons the whole conceptual edifice of libertarian thought crumbles. It will not do to substitute 'individual' for 'natural person'. True, men and women are individuals (atoms, essentially indivisible entities); but so are cats and dogs and many other things. Men and women have natural rights as natural persons, not as being individual-by-nature. Corporations, states and other artificial persons are not individuals, but even if they were they would not be self-owning because they are not natural persons.
- In conclusion: There is nothing wrong with, or even 'odd' about, the notion of a person owning himself. On the contrary, it seems to me that the concept of a non-self-owning natural person is meaningless.
Published: September 6, 2005 6:03 PM
If a person is going to make an unwise decision from which in hindsight he would prefer to have been prevented from doing or which may harm others and another person can foresee and prevent/preempt this, a libertarian would object?
I realise this opens a can of worms because then one try and justify all sorts of unpleasant meddling (wars etc) but one cannot deny there are many cases where the above (e.g. child rearing) raises awkward questions for a libertarian?
Published: September 7, 2005 9:59 AM
Jonathan,
What you're talking about is the interventionist do-goodery of the positive Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This injects every into everyone else's business, willingly or not, and cannot but result in mayhem, as none can consistently foresee the future as you suggest. And if they could, each would have the ability to determine the actions of the other, which is logically absurd.
As for child rearing, there is nothing awkard about it at all from a libertarian perspective. A child's life must be protected by the parent, who must restrict his liberties in order to do so and until such time as the child is capable of taking care of himself, which is commonly understood as the age of majority: 18.
Published: September 7, 2005 10:33 AM
David,
libertarians rule books take us to extreme outcomes. I grant that no one can foresee the future but there are plenty of real life examples where the libertarian position is a nonsense or would lead to blatantly worse outcomes.
Child rearing is an obvious one. To simply overide the carefully crafted natural rights/self ownership/non aggression etc libertarian rulebook and stick in a special clause that it doesnt count for kids until they are 18 (why not 16 or 19 and a half or never?) doesn't say much for the internal consistency of the libertarian position.
Published: September 7, 2005 11:03 AM
Jonathan,
Like what outcomes, for example, child rearing aside? As for that, adulthood being the age when an individual is capable of fending for himself, it is at this time when he comes into command of his rights. To deny this is to suggest that the child should be in command of his rights at birth -- or before, if you are of the pro-life persuasion -- which is patently absurd.
Published: September 7, 2005 11:40 AM
Michael wrote:
...an individual may make any desired choices as long as he does not initiate or threaten violence against another person or his legitimately held property.
This explanation of what self-ownership entails requires some means to determine whether or not a choice someone makes initiates or threatens violence against another person or his legitimately held property. Most people will rely on the state to accomplish this, and it is an easy (though long) ride from the obvious "shooting someone is an intiation of violence" to "refusing to pay your fair share is an initiation of violence (because it violates the citizenry's right to your part of the cost of government)." In fact, this is the ride we have taken.
So I don't see self-ownership as a great ideal toward which we should strive. In fact, I claim that we already have it, but there are unfortunately others who don't agree that our claims of ownership (of all we earn, for example) is legitimate (because we have to socialistically cover the cost of government). In this light, it is easy for statists to argue that self-ownership is the ideal and that democracy already maintains it - our claims to ownerhsip simply being illegitimate. And they're right, because the state determines the legitimacy of the claim.
The ideal toward which I think we should strive is that we should expet nothing from others, except if they make the choice to provide it. This is how we free ourselves and everyone else. I think of choice as sacred. I try to let people know what choice I'd like them to make and my two possible responses if they do and if they don't make it. This will often constitute a threat of violence and sometimes its initiation.
Imagine if employers had to explain to their potential employees: "You may elect to pay no income tax, but then you have a (1, 10, 50 ??) percent chance that the IRS will audit you and threaten to evict you from your home and place you in prison if you don't pay them." Then, instead of demanding payment when the audit is over, you get a letter "You may choose not to pay this amount $___________ but police will be dispatched to take you from your home by force and place you in prison." Of course, it amounts to the same thing, but it makes it far clearer to everyone that the state is a great evil beast.
Published: September 7, 2005 7:52 PM
David,
I think you make my point quite clearly in your response no? It is patently absurd to expect a child to fend for itself, therefore a parent needs to initiate aggression etc. which contravenes libertarian natural rights etc.etc. Libertarians get around this by making a handy exclusion for people having self ownership until they are adults... as soon as you have a rule book that can have little caveats added to prevent absurd outcomes the whole consistency of the model is at risk. Statists could bastardise a libertarian rulebook by tacking on their own exclusions for special cases (I am no statist by the way).
What I object to in the strict libertarian code is that in order to hold firm to their principles they deny the possibility that there are situations, not extreme ones, where initiation of aggression as you call it, would lead to better outcomes than would otherwise have prevailed. Can this lead to abuses? Absolutely, particularly well demonstrated by most state actions.
But is the solution to adhere to such a code which unsurprisingly won't get many followers and therefore will never be more than an academically interesting school of thought? Probably not.
Published: September 8, 2005 2:52 AM
Janathan,
Maybe you initiate aggression against your children, but I certainly don't initiate aggression against mine, nor does any good parent. What good parents do is instill good behavior, reprimanding their children when they misbehave. Admittedly, such reprimands can go too far, amounting to cruel and unusual punishment, but that's obviously not good parenting either.
As for non-aggression being too strict a code to adhere to, Lew's point about the bourgeoisie in "The State and the Flood" is that non-aggression is natural to it, just as it is natural to a billion city-dwellers worldwide -- http://www.reason.com/0508/cr.rn.illegal.shtml -- who compare quite favorably to the wards of the state in New Orleans.
Face it, your attempt to make something simple difficult only plays into the hands of the state. Spend a couple years reading Oppenheimer, Nock, Mises, Rothbard, Rockwell, Hoppe, DiLorenzo, et al., and we'll talk again.
Published: September 8, 2005 11:24 AM
If Self-ownership is so fudamental, then why do many who hold to the doctrine also say that it can be traded for any "mess-o-pottage"?
The difficulty with ownership of something by the normal definition is that it means what is owned can be sold - Block gives examples of selling oneself into slavery "for a good cause".
My problem with these extreme examples - your child is dying, but X can provide a cure usually are structured to have X demand some taboo be broken - slavery, cannibalism, rape, but because it is a market exchange that becomes correct.
Never given in any example is a suggestion that the owner use his freedom to "burn incense on the altar of socialism". What if X's demand is that you steal, rob, or do violence? Break a libertarian taboo? Commit a mortal sin against the principle of self-ownership. Or perhaps a more abstract - "your child will live if Y is dead by next monday", leaving it to you to see if you can convince Y to commit suicide, or to kill him, or find some other philosophically clean way.
Also, the Golden rule still applies - Any rational being would not want anyone else to micromanage his affairs, but would normally like to be warned of impending danger or even removed from it (pushed out of the way of an oncoming truck when there is not time to debate the point).
Either your life and liberty are something you own or something you are. Life and liberty are either a matter of ownership or actual being.
And there is a further dichotomy - Are we both body and spirit, or just body? The latter seems to be what is called out for in "self-ownership", but if I destroy your body, I can claim your intellect and will are still there somewhere. But if I do something where the body is alive, but the brain is dead, have I committed murder?
Life is in one sense liberty embodied. Sometimes not effectively, and sometimes only in potential (children). But separating them destroys any self capable of ownership.
If you just use the term as a semantic tool so that self-ownership is indissoluable, I don't think I would disagree, but what then does ownership mean since some of the rights aren't there. When your "self" ends, your ability to own ends. It could be equally said that no one can exercise ownership over your "self" but you - but that would also mean you cannot alter this (i.e. you still can't have anyone else "own" you even if you desire - they cannot have this control in any way except that at the given moment your will can acquiesce to theirs but ultimately that is still you owning you).
Published: September 8, 2005 11:32 AM
Another view towards children is that they do have rights, full rights, from birth, but because of their age and inexeperience, they need the help of parents or guardians in exercising their rights. This makes a certain amount of sense, because one of the main goals of raising children is to get them to the point where they can be fully responsible in taking care of themselves. The difficulty remains, though, in deciding when children have become adults, especially in a nanny-state society that attempts to make children of all of us.
Published: September 8, 2005 12:05 PM
Hi Jonathan:
I think I get your point:
If libertarians are against the state telling us what to do, when to go bed, what to eat, what to read, when we can watch tv, then we can hardly be consistent in advocating such parental controls over our own children, who, after all are people too. Therefore, it must follow that we libertarians are guilty of changing our own values and rules at our convenience when it seems suitable to us, rendering our claim to consistency completely false. Have I gathered the essence of your argument?
In answer I would say that the family truly is a special case. It is a situation where parents voluntarily spend their own resources for the specific benefit of their children, even to the exclusion of their own personal desires. There really is no substantial similarity between the parent/child relationship and the state/subject relationship.
On the other hand, when the ruling class becomes non-parasitic and self-funding (not funded by coercive taxation), like a parent is (in relation to the child at least), and the ruled find their paternal assistance worth the pain of submitting to this ruling class's rules, like a child would, and voluntarily and individually, agree to it, i would think that no libertarian would find fault with such an arrangement either.
In that light, I would submit that there is no libertarian inconsistency in conceding a parent’s right to parent, and not conceding the ruling class’s right to rule.
Published: September 8, 2005 12:05 PM
Paul,
The relationship between children and adults is different, since a child is born without the capability to reason or make decisions - yet. This is why family is not a coercive society, but a nurturing one, that is until children become adults and start their own families. The analogy does not apply even if public authorities lived out of our charity, since as thinking adults we are not comparable to children. For the analogy to apply as you want, it would be necessary for all adults, who happened to be under the protection of a great overseeing State, to be lobotomized a priori.
Published: September 8, 2005 12:42 PM
Oh, sorry Paul - did not read your last paragraph... Please disregard what I said :S
Published: September 8, 2005 12:44 PM
Oh, sorry Paul - did not read your last paragraph... Please disregard what I said :S
Published: September 8, 2005 12:45 PM
Paul, you understand my point well but I think it has more complicated implications for libertarians than accepting a fundamental difference between the role of the family and that of the state.
One can think of non family instances where one may inititate aggression against another which leads to a (probable but not definitely) better outcome.
(Stopping a drunken friend from hitting someone (I live in England) or physically bundling a married friend into a cab to stop him engaging in a later to be regretted triste with a hooker etc.etc.)
I agree with libertarians that the net effects of state intervention is negative but to refute that there are ANY instances where using force will have a positive net effect is simply incorrect. In the case of children it is so obvious that even libertarians will contrive to make an exemption by explaining that their model doesnt really apply to families and contrasting it with their real object of all their spleen, the state.
The problem for libertarians (and me) is that if one accepts that there are cases where force is acceptable because the ends achieved will be better than otherwise would have prevailed we open the door for state apologists.
I know that a libertarian response would be along the lines of 'How do you know what would have otherwise prevailed' or 'There is no way to objectively value the alternate outcomes' or a tired list of the evils of state intervention etc. and I respect these but it doesn't take away from the logic that in order to achieve a model that precludes any role for a state you end up with a rather perverse model for behaviour that in many routine instances goes against common sense.
The reason I am persisting with this is that if we are to educate people that there really is no need for a state, the model (IMHO) has to be more sound from quite obvious objections.
Published: September 9, 2005 4:35 AM
Hi Jonathan:
I'm interested to hear your suggestions. Have you posted an elaboration of what you think might be an improved libertarian position that i can take a look at?
Published: September 9, 2005 12:20 PM
Re: Jonathan's post of 9/9 (04:35)
The cases Jonathan mentions differ from state interventions in some important respects.
First of all they involve natural persons (friends, family members) and not artificial persons (the state, its officials, corporations and their officials). Thus, they involve individual persons acting on their own responsibility; not officials who are able to divert questions of responsibility and liability to the organisation that employs them ("I was only doing my job"), and indeed dilute responsibility and liability completely, if the organisation in question is not fully owned by named individual persons.
If private natural persons use violence or force then they should know that they themselves may be held liable for what they do. In the cases cited by Jonathan the risk is minimal because there A uses force against B, who is a friend or relative, for the latter's benefit and at a time when B was out of his senses (drunk, over-excited, possibly too young or inexperienced to know what he was doing). The unstated presumption is that when B returns to his senses he will appreciate that A used force against him for his own good. If he still wants to hold A liable for assault on his liberty then he shall have to turn to a judge (mediator, arbitrator) who should acquit A if B did not suffer an unlawful harm as a result of A's action and, when sober again, did not do what A prevented him from doing.
Nevertheless, A takes a risk in that he may have misjudged the situation, but as a friend or relative he may count on B's willingness to forgive him for his well-intentioned intervention, be prepared to offer his excuses and even to pay for damages (should there be any). A competent judge certainly will take account of the fact that A, although knowingly interfering with B's physical liberty, did not intend to commit an injustice against B, and does not intend to escape from the consequences if his action is found to have been unjust. At most A risks having to pay restitution; he does not risk punishment.
This type of relationship can be extended to cover all personal interactions (not just between friends or relatives). If one finds oneself in a situation where one has to destroy another's property in order to save the life of a third person, then one should not be held automatically as a criminal. One willingly takes the risk that the owner will sue for damages and that the person one has saved (or his friends, relatives or life-insurer) will not assume the costs of the rescue. However, there should arise no criminal liability if one is prepared to let an independent judge determine the extent to which compensation to the owner is due.
The difference with state intervention is clear. Neither the state itself nor its officials are prepared to submit their interventions to a really independent judge to have him determine whether they acted in good faith, and to pay out of their own pocket for any damages they may have caused while acting within their constitutional/legal authority.
Second, the cases cited by Jonathan involve on-the-spur decisions, the person who uses force to stop another perceiving a clear and immediate danger. This is different with legal rules and regulations, which are pre-medidated acts, that often apply across the board to all persons assigned by the state to one or another legal category, without consideration of their personal situation, condition or intentions.
Moreover, while the personal interventions in Jonathan's cases have only a temporary restraining effect (they deal with a particular incident), legal rules and regulations typically remain in force for an extended or even indefinite period of time. The intention behind them is to control not incidental irregular behaviour but the planning and prospects of a whole category of individuals.
Thus, they are an affront to justice even if it turns out that many or most people to whom they apply eventually would agree that the rules are so beneficial that they would not want to sue for damages even if they had the opportunity to do so.
In conclusion, we may accept that there are cases where force is justified/excusable because the ends achieved will be better than otherwise would have prevailed without opening the door for state apologists.
Regarding children: they have the same libertarian (natural) rights as any person. The authority of their parents (or guardians) derives in part from their liability for their children's (or wards) actions towards third parties, in part from the fact that the children live at the expense of their parents/guardians and usually on premises for which the latter are responsible and liable, if they do not actually own them.
What limits the parents' and guardians' authority is the fact that they may be held responsible and liable (by the child or others acting its behalf) for not respecting its natural rights or for exercising their authority without regard for the child's well-being. Biological parents face a special liability in that they caused the child to be born and thereby unilaterally put it (another person) and the rest of the world (other persons) in a situation that is potentially dangerous.
Do libertarian rule books take us to extreme outcomes? Libertarianism, I should think, is not about rule books; it is not some sort of board game. It is about freedom and justice. Thus it must take account of all the complexities of life. To do that it cannot but be a philosophy of argumentation and careful judgement, not a semi-automatic application of some simple behavioural rule.
Published: September 18, 2005 6:23 AM