Suchergebnisse

Hillel Steiner's left-libertarian theory of justice is the most serious recent attempt to reconcile the ideals of (luck-egalitarian) equality and freedom. This attempt consists in an argument that a universal right to equal freedom, which in Steiner's view means also a universal right to maximal freedom, implies a universal right to self-ownership and to an egalitarian share of the world's natural resources. In this article, I argue that this argument fails on Steiner's own terms. I argue that, on Steiner's conceptions of freedom, self-ownership, and an egalitarian share of the world's natural resources, insofar as the right to equal freedom implies the right to self-ownership and to an egalitarian share of the world's natural resources, it is incompatible with (luck-egalitarian) equality.

Hillel Steiner's left-libertarian theory of justice is the most serious recent attempt to reconcile the ideals of (luck-egalitarian) equality and freedom. This attempt consists in an argument that a universal right to equal freedom, which in Steiner's view means also a universal right to maximal freedom, implies a universal right to self-ownership and to an egalitarian share of the world's natural resources. In this article, I argue that this argument fails on Steiner's own terms. I argue that, on Steiner's conceptions of freedom, self-ownership, and an egalitarian share of the world's natural resources, insofar as the right to equal freedom implies the right to self-ownership and to an egalitarian share of the world's natural resources, it is incompatible with (luck-egalitarian) equality. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

"The concept of self-ownership was first articulated in anglophone political thought in the decades between the outbreak of the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution. This book traces the emergence and evolution of self-ownership over the course of this period, culminating in a reinterpretation of John Locke's celebrated but widely misunderstood idea that "every Man has a Property in his own Person." Often viewed through the prism of libertarian political thought, self-ownership has its roots in the neo-Roman or republican concept of liberty as freedom from dependence on the will of another. As Lorenzo Sabbadini reveals, seventeenth-century writers believed that the attainment of this status required not only a specific kind of constitution but a particular distribution of property as well. Many regarded the protection of private property as constitutive of liberty, and it is in this context that the vocabulary of self-ownership emerged. Others expressed anxieties about the corrupting effects of excessive concentrations of wealth or even the institution of private property itself. Bringing together canonical republican writers such as John Milton and James Harrington, lesser-known pamphleteers, and Locke, a theorist generally regarded as being at odds with neo-Roman thought, Property, Liberty, and Self-Ownership in Seventeenth-Century England is a bold, innovative study of some of the most influential concepts to emerge from this groundbreaking period of British history. "This book is a major achievement, offering a novel and highly original account of property and liberty in seventeenth-century English republican thought. It is a brilliant piece of scholarship that makes an important contribution to the history of early modern political thought." Markku Peltonen, University of Helsinki."--

A.H. COHEN HAS PRODUCED AN INFLUENCTIAL CRITICISM OF LIBERTARIANISM THAT POSITS JOINT OWNERSHIP OF EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD OTHER THAN LABOR, WITH EACH JOINT OWNER HAVING A VETO RIGHT OVER ANY POTENTIAL USE OF THE WORLD. A CLOSE EXAMINATION SHOWS THAT COHEN'S ARGUMENT RESTS ON TWO CENTRAL ERRORS OF REASONING AND DOES NOT SUPPORT HIS EGALITARIAN CONCLUSIONS. THAT ASSUMPTION WAS REJECTED FOR REASONS THAT COHEN DOES NOT REBUT.

Examines the conflict between self-ownership and egalitarianism. Argues that there are 2 importantly different aspects of ownership which need to be considered separately. Once the distinction is made clear, demonstrates that the essence of self-ownership can be preserved while instituting mechanisms designed to maintain equality of condition. (SJK)

Abstract: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.

2016 Spring. ; Includes bibliographical references. ; To view the abstract, please see the full text of the document.

This article explores the conceptual relations Hobbes perceived between justice, law and property rights. I argue that Hobbes developed three distinct arguments for the State-dependency of property over time: the Security Argument, Precision Argument and Creation Argument. On the last and most radical argument, the sovereign creates all property rights ex nihilo through distributive civil laws. Hobbes did not achieve this radically conventionalist position easily: it was not defended consistently until the redefinition of distributive justice as a virtue of arbitrators in Leviathan. The argument is partly advanced as a critique of C.B. Macpherson's possessive individualist reading of Hobbes. Adapted from the source document.