Suchergebnisse

This chapter addresses the alienability or inalienability of the bodily self by looking at continuing legal, economic, and cultural issues surrounding three case studies: the growth of cell lines, live organ transfer, and the practices of "forced prostitution" as a contemporary form of slavery. The essay contends that it is, ironically, Locke and Hegel's shared hyperliberal notion of the self as inalienable property that sustains a potential basis, in law and in culture, for troubling cases of self-alienation which persist in the case studies offered. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]

All contemporary societies are structured around work. This paper argues that the need to work violates effective self-ownership. This article explores the importance of effective self-ownership and how this conception relates to the need of work, which is a central organizational principle of modern society. In order to claim effective self-ownership, an individual has to enjoy freedom to do otherwise from that which he is allowed to do, which in the case of employment would signify the possibility to withdraw from the monetized economy. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractThe so-called "commodification argument" maintains that a direct causal relationship exists between certain legal institutions (self-ownership) and attitudes (instrumentalism), and that the undesirability of instrumentalism justifies restrictions on self-ownership. I will critically examine Margaret Jane Radin's book Contested Commodities, which presents a compelling version of the commodification argument. I will advance three central points: first, that the purported causal connection between self-ownership and instrumentalism is either weak or nonexistent; second, that the commodification argument tends to be parasitic on arguments against economic, racial, and gender inequality; and third, that the independent moral work it does do seems directed at liberal neutrality instead of self-ownership. I will then show that the weaknesses of Radin's defenses of the commodification argument cast doubt upon the entire anti-commodificationist enterprise.

IN "SELF-ONWERSHIP, FREEDOM, AND EQUALITY," G.A. COHEN ARGUES THAT LIBERTARIANISM DOES NOT FOLLOW FROM RESPECT FOR FREEDOM, AND THAT LIBERTARIANISM CANNOT BE GROUNDED ON SELF-OWNERSHIP. COHEN'S ARGUMENTS ARE, FOR THE MOST PART, COMPELLING. THAT LEAVES THE LIBERTARIAN PHILOSOPHER THE OPTIONS OF EITHER MOVING LEFTWARDS--FOR EXAMPLE, ALONG THE LINES OF PHILIPPE VAN PARIJ'S "REAL FREEDOM FOR ALL"--OR EMBRACING SOME FORM OF CONSEQUENTIALISM. EITHER WAY, THE RESULT IS AN ABANDONMENT OF CHARACTERISTICALLY LIBERTARIAN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.

Left and right libertarians alike are attracted to the thesis of self-ownership (SO) because, as Eric Mack says, they 'believe that it best captures our common perception of the moral inviolability of persons'. Further, most libertarians, left and right, accept that some version of the Lockean Proviso (LP) restricts agents' ability to acquire worldly resources. The inviolability of SO purports to make libertarianism more appealing than its (non-libertarian) egalitarian counterparts, since traditional egalitarian theories cannot straightforwardly explain why, e.g. forced organ donation and forced labor are serious wrongs even when they generate more equitable outcomes or benefit the greater good. I argue that, when SO is coupled with LP, this appeal is unfounded. SO, as usually construed, allows for the possibility of justified incursions of non-culpable agents up to and including forced organ donation. I conclude by considering a few possible responses on behalf of the libertarian, assessing each one's plausibility.