Property Rights

Most nonhuman animals live in the wild and it is probable that suffering predominates in their lives due to natural events. Humans may at some point be able to engage in paradise engineering, or the modification of nature and animal organisms themselves to improve the well-being of wild animals. We may, in other words, make nature ‘red in tooth and claw’ no more. We argue that this creates a tension between environmental ethics and animal ethics which is likely insurmountable. First, (...) concern for the environment can be compatible with helping individual wild animals but should see redesigning nature as morally impermissible. Second, if we are concerned with animal well-being, we may reject that we have a duty to help wild animals even to the point of redesigning nature, but we must nevertheless concede that it is permissible to do so under certain circumstances. We show how this permissibility can be derived from three animal rights views: Tom Regan’s, a novel account inspired by Thomas Pogge and a libertarian approach to animal rights. (shrink)

First, I spell out the details of a Hegelish conception of property. To clarify what makes this account unique, I compare it to a labor-mixing conception of property that finds its origins in Locke. In doing so, I highlight strengths of a Hegelish account of property over its Lockean alternative. Then, I show how dolphins, consistent with a Hegelish account of property, are property owners of their oceanic habitats. Finally, I outline the strengths of a Hegelish account of property as (...) it would apply to dolphins and perhaps other nonhuman animals in protecting them. It is not my aim to argue that a Hegelish account of nonhuman property is the only viable path toward recognizing nonhuman property. Rather, I hope to show that such an account holds promise as a tool in the conceptual toolbox handled by theorists of the political turn in animal ethics. (shrink)

Efficiency requires legislative political institutions. There are many ways efficiency can be promoted, and so an ongoing legislative institution is necessary to resolve this choice in a politically sustainable and economically flexible way. This poses serious problems for classical liberal proposals to constitutionally protect markets from government intervention, as seen in the work of Ilya Somin, Guido Pincione & Fernando Tesón and others. The argument for the political nature of efficiency is set out in terms of both Pareto optimality and (...) aggregate welfare maximisation, and similar arguments can be generalised to other social values. (shrink)

In this study, the starting point is the well-known physical laws applied to human social life. On the basis of natural laws human actions are considered and through the prism of physical laws such concepts as use and possession are defined. A parallel is drawn between such a representation of these concepts and those conflicting views that are available in the literature regarding the concept of property. To complete the definitions of use and possession nature is introduced as a fictitious (...) owner. And on this basis, the positive possibility of a theoretical solution to the problem of initial assignment is shown. Again, on the basis of physical laws, the fundamental concept of [human] needs is introduced. It is shown that the collision of people's needs on the same thing allows uniform classifying property defined in literature as the relationship between a person and a thing or as the relationship between people because of a thing. Considering the relationship between two human beings through needs and costs, as a natural necessity, people inevitably renounce their claims to possess and use certain things in favor of other people. It is shown that this refusal forms the right of those people in whose favor this refusal is carried out to possess and use things. The right of one is the refusal of all others to own and use the thing. It is shown that the right was ensured and will always be ensured by force. The use or threat of the use of force is something that can reliably ward off a person from the unbridled realization of his needs. In the process of the formation of mankind, nature itself forces people to organize into communities that can oppose their individual members and their associations with significantly greater power. The whole, as a rule, is stronger than its part. And it is society that can reliably ensure the exercise of rights for its members. Natural laws also make it possible to resolve, on the basis of the concept of law, as a renunciation of possession and use, the issue of belonging to what nature gives us. These are natural resources and the human body. It is shown that the human body should belong to the person himself, and the resources to all members of society equally. The affiliation of all other things produced by man can be unambiguously determined within the framework of contractual relations between members of society, their associations and society as a whole. Since the right of everyone is ensured by the society, and, therefore, by each member of the society individually, a necessary condition for membership is understanding and recognition of the rights of certain things to other members of the society. And this may be the main criterion for joining full members of society, as opposed to the commonly used age criterion, which works on the bulk of people, but gives failures in many special cases. A typical example of such cases is the deprivation or infringement of the rights of persons of full legal age, but committed acts that are called unlawful in society. As part of the research on ownership issues, ownership is considered. It is shown that the necessary tool for using the objects of co-ownership is the voting of co-owners. A special case of co-ownership, when all co-owners have equal shares in co-ownership, is indistinguishable from what is called democracy. It is shown that voting in general and democracy in particular, as procedures for aggregating preferences, can have a positive decision, in refutation of the universality of the conclusion of Arrow's theorem. (shrink)

Lack of attention to definitions of indigeneity is a problem in both political theory and practice. Defining indigeneity has at least two important consequences: it affects who has access to resources or rights reserved for Indigenous peoples; and it shapes the kinds of privileges and resources available to Indigenous peoples. In this article, I draw on Theodor Adorno’s concept of ‘nonidentity’ as a resource for exploring the power and limits of conceptions of indigeneity. I argue that recognizing the non-identical aspects (...) of indigeneity enables critical engagement with constellations of concepts that attend to the distinctive aspects of indigeneity in particular moments and locations. To illustrate my argument, I draw on one conception of indigeneity that could be characterized as non-identity thinking – a research approach called Kaupapa Māori. I suggest that non-identity is a promising resource for conceptualizing indigeneity as it has potential to respond to some of the key problems with current responses to indigeneity; notably, that universal definitions may not best represent what it means to be Indigenous, and that unreflective acceptance of current definitions fails to produce just outcomes. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Sufficientarian libertarianism is a theory of justice that combines libertarianism’s focus on property rights and non-interference with sufficientarianism’s concern for the poor and needy. Persons are conceived as having stringent rights to direct their lives as they see fit, provided that everyone has enough to live a self-guided life. Yet there are different ways to combine libertarianism and sufficientarianism and hence different types of sufficientarian libertarianism. In the article I present and discuss three types, and I argue that the last (...) one overcomes the problems of the other two. The first type combines libertarianism with a sufficiency principle in what is sometimes called the ‘ethics of distribution’. The second incorporates modest welfare rights into a libertarian theory of justice. The third endorses a sufficientarian Lockean proviso for practices of private property within a libertarian theory of justice. I argue that it is superior to the others. (shrink)

Foundations of a Free Society brings together some of the most knowledgeable Ayn Rand scholars and proponents of her philosophy, as well as notable critics, putting them in conversation with other intellectuals who also see themselves as defenders of capitalism and individual liberty. United by the view that there is something importantly right—though perhaps also much wrong—in Rand’s political philosophy, contributors reflect on her views with the hope of furthering our understandings of what sort of society is best and why. (...) The volume provides a robust elaboration and defense of the foundation of Rand’s political philosophy in the principle that force paralyzes and negates the functioning of reason; it offers an in-depth scholarly discussion of Rand’s view on the nature of individual rights and the role of government in defending them; it deals extensively with the similarities and differences between Rand’s thought and the libertarian tradition (to which she is often assimilated) and objections to her positions arising from this tradition; it explores Rand’s relation to the classical liberal tradition, specifically with regard to her defense of freedom of the intellect; and it discusses her views on the free market, with special attention to the relation between these views and those of the Austrian school of economics. (shrink)

Americans today are far less likely to trust their institutions, and each other, than in decades past. This collapse in social and political trust arguably fuels our increasingly ferocious ideological conflicts and hardened partisanship. Many believe that our previously high levels of trust and bipartisanship were a pleasant anomaly and that we now live under the historic norm. Seen this way, politics itself is nothing more than a power struggle between groups with irreconcilable aims: contemporary American politics is war because (...) political life as such is war. -/- Must Politics Be War? argues that our shared liberal democratic institutions have the unique capacity to sustain social and political trust between diverse persons. In succinct, convincing prose, Kevin Vallier argues that constitutional rights and democratic governance prevent any one ideology or faith from dominating all others, thereby protecting each person's freedom to live according to her values and principles. Illiberal arrangements, where one group's ideology or faith reigns, turn those who disagree into unwilling subversives, persons with little reason to trust their regime or to be trustworthy in obeying it. Liberal arrangements, in contrast, incentivize trust and trustworthiness because they allow people with diverse and divergent ends to act with conviction. Those with opposing viewpoints become trustworthy because they can obey the rules of their society without acting against their ideals. Therefore, as Vallier illuminates, a liberal society is one at moral peace with a politics that is not war. (shrink)

Recently, Eric Mack, Edward Feser, and Daniel Russell have argued that self-ownership justifies a constraint on the use of property such that an owner’s use of property may not severely negate the ability of others to interact with the world. Mack has labeled this constraint the self-ownership proviso. Adopting this proviso promises right-libertarians a way of avoiding the extreme implications of a no-proviso view, while maintaining a consistent and cohesive position. Nevertheless, I argue that self-ownership cannot ground the constraint on (...) property use that Mack, Feser, and Russell think that it can. (shrink)

Mirvac chief executive Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz, not one usually associated with sympathy for tenants on the rental market, said earlier this year that ‘renting in Australia is generally a very miserable customer experience…the whole industry is set up to serve the owner not the tenant’ Her observation is basically correct and the solution she offers is to change the current situation where small investors, supported by generous government tax concessions, provide effectively all of the country’s private rental housing. Lloyd-Hurwitz wants Mirvac, (...) a property group currently managing over $15 billion of assets, to become an apartment landlord that would own not one or several properties like small investors currently do but rather thousands of properties to rent out. The proposal is for Mirvac to build apartment blocks and then, instead of selling individual apartments, rent them out on long-term or indefinite leases. This build-to-rent housing scheme would of course make the real estate–investment company a great deal of money. At the same time it would do very little to alleviate the current housing crisis. Such schemes are a nonstarter for people who want the security, stability and independence of home ownership, which is a very Australian aspiration that is increasingly becoming unobtainable not only for those experiencing homelessness, but also for the poor and middle-class. Those of us who care about finding a real solution to the housing crisis would do well to consider how we got into this situation in the first place, and then consider how this might inform what we do next. The following then, traces some of the historical and philosophical roots of our understanding of property and their institutionalisation via various levels of government, especially in the Australian context. (shrink)

The West has created categories of property, including intellectual property, which divides peoples and things according to the same colonizing discourses of possessive individualism that historically disentitled and disenfranchised Native peoples in North America. These categories are often presented as one or both of neutral and natural, and often racialized. The commodification and removal of land from people’s social relations which inform Western valuations of cultural value and human beings living in communities represents only one particular, partial way of categorizing (...) the world. Legal and cultural manifestations of authorship, culture, and property are contingent upon Enlightenment and Romantic notions built upon a colonial foundation. I will argue that the law rips apart what First Nations peoples view as integrally and relationally joined, but traditional Western understandings of culture, identity, and property are provoked, challenged, and undermined by the concept of Aboriginal Title in a fashion that is both necessary and long overdue. (shrink)

Technological and societal changes have made downward social and economic mobility a pressing issue in real-world politics. This article argues that a Rawlsian society would not provide any special protection against downward mobility, and would act rightly in declining to provide such protection. Special treatment for the downwardly mobile can be grounded neither in Rawls’s core principles—the basic liberties, fair equality of opportunity, and the difference principle—nor in other aspects of Rawls’s theory. Instead, a Rawlsian society is willing to sacrifice (...) particular individuals’ ambitions and plans for the achievement of justice, and offers those who lose out from justified change no special solicitude over and above the general solicitude extended to all. Rather than guaranteeing the maintenance of any particular individual or group’s economic position, it provides all of its members—the upwardly mobile, the downwardly mobile, and the immobile—a form of security that is at once more generous and more limited: that they will receive the liberties, opportunities, and resources promised by the principles of justice. (shrink)

S’il n’existe qu’un seul problème intellectuel et culturel vraiment sérieux concernant le capitalisme, c’est celui du manque d’une défense morale soutenue et largement connue, pour ne pas dire acceptée, de l’institution des droits de propriété privée.Il n’y a pas de doute, dans le monde actuel, qu’une société dotée d’une infrastructure légale où cette institution fait défaut connaisse un grave désordre économique. Le fait de ne pas respecter et protéger légalement l’institution de la propriété privée — et ses corollaires, comme la (...) liberté de contracter et de poser les termes par les parties en affaire — a provoqué les faiblesses économiques à travers le monde.Sans une défense morale, l’institution de la propriété privée, qui est la source de beaucoup d’ avantages pour nous tous, restera pour toujours vulnérable aux critiques, du style de celle de Karl Marx qui disait que “le droit de l’homme à la propriété est le droit de jouir de ses possessions et d’en disposer arbitrairement, sans souci des autres hommes, indépendamment de la société, le droit de l’égoïsme”.Cet essai proclame que contrairement aux sentiments et impressions répandus, l’institution des droits de propriété privée est en accord avec la conception pratique de la moralité humaine.If there is one really serious intellectual and cultural problem with capitalism it stems from the lack of a sustained and widely known, let alone accepted, moral defense of the institution of private property rights.Few doubt, in today’s world, that a society with a legal infrastructure that lacks this institution is in serious economic trouble. The failure to respect and legally protect the institution of private property — and its corollaries, such as freedom of contract and of setting the terms by the parties to trade — has produced economic weakness across the globe.Without a moral defense, however, the institution of private property, which is the source of a great many benefits to us all, will forever remain vulnerable to the critics, such as Karl Marx who said that “the right of man to property is the right to enjoy his possessions and dispose of the same arbitrarily, without regard for other men, independently from society, the right of selfishness.”This essay argues that contrary to such widespread sentiments and impressions, the institution of private property rights fully accords with a sensible conception of human morality. (shrink)

This article examines the flaw in the libertarian conception of the right to property. It argues that libertarians fail to recognize that, in a settled society, the right to amass property must be qualified and limited by the right of all people - including those without property - to have access to sufficient property for a satisfactory life.

A libertarian theory of justice holds that persons are self-owners and have the Hohfeldian moral power to justly acquire property rights in initially unowned external resources. Different variants of libertarianism can be distinguished according to their stance on the famous Lockean proviso. The proviso requires, in Locke’s words, to leave ‘enough and as good’ for others, and thus specifies limits on the acquisition of property. Left-libertarians accept an egalitarian interpretation of the proviso, ‘right-libertarians’ either reject any kind of proviso or (...) accept rather weak versions of it. In be-tween there is room for moderate interpretations of the proviso, and in particular for a sufficientarian interpretation: a ‘sufficiency proviso.’ The resulting theory of justice can be called ‘moderate libertarianism.’ In this article I make a case for moderate libertarianism, so understood. I argue that moderate libertarianism has advantages over both left- and right-libertarianism because it better coheres with the most plausible rationale for endorsing a libertarian theory of justice in the first place. (shrink)

This paper argues that the practical implementation of blockchain technology can be considered an institution of property similar to legal institutions. Invoking Penner's theory of property and Hegel's system of property rights, and using the example of bitcoin, it is possible to demonstrate that blockchain effectively implements all necessary and sufficient criteria for property without reliance on legal means. Blockchains eliminate the need for a third-party authority to enforce exclusion rights, and provide a system of universal access to knowledge and (...) discoverability about the property rights of all participants and how the system functions. The implications of these findings are that traditional property relations in society could be replaced by or supplemented with blockchain models, and implemented in new domains. (shrink)

This paper provides further evidence to the argument that Smith' theory of justice did not follow the natural justice school and that subsequently the ethical position on acquiring private property is not independent of the effects which such acquisition may have on the property-less individuals. I will show that the justification for private ownership is based on “reasonable expectations” which owners of assets have with regard to the fruits of the asset. The expectation to subsist through the use of one's (...) natural assets is equally reasonable. This is not to say that Smith believed that society should equally distribute income. But it does mean that the acquisition of private property must not interfere with the rights of individuals to subsist. Consequently, distribution is clearly an important part of Smith's conception of justice. (shrink)

Whereas conventional analyses characterize environmental problems as examples of market failure, proponents of free-market environmentalism consider the problem to be a lack of markets and, in particular, a lack of enforceable and exchangeable property rights. Enforcing property rights alleviates disputes about, as well as the overuse of, most natural resources. FME diagnoses of pollution are much weaker, however. Most FME proponents suggest that common-law tort suits can adequately protect private property and ecological resources from pollution. Yet such claims have not (...) been substantiated. Further research is needed before the common law, or regulatory reforms grounded in common-law principles, can be seen as a viable alternative to traditional environmental regulation. (shrink)

For some time now, commentators in and out of the scientific community have been expressing concern over the direction of scientific research. Cogent critics have labeled it excessively commercial, out of touch with its “pure,” public-spirited roots, and generally too much a creature of its entrepreneurial, self-interested times. In most if not all of this hand-wringing, the scientific community's growing reliance on intellectual property rights, especially patents, looms large. Indeed, for many the pursuit of patents is emblematic of just what (...) is rotten in the republic of science today. (shrink)

The dominant approach to environmental policy endorsed by conservative and libertarian policy thinkers, so-called “free market environmentalism”, is grounded in the recognition and protection of property rights in environmental resources. Despite this normative commitment to property rights, most self-described FME advocates adopt a utilitarian, welfare-maximization approach to climate change policy, arguing that the costs of mitigation measures could outweigh the costs of climate change itself. Yet even if anthropogenic climate change is decidedly less than catastrophic, human-induced climate change is likely (...) to contribute to environmental changes that violate traditional conceptions of property rights. Viewed globally, the actions of some countries—primarily industrialized nations—are likely to increase environmental harms suffered by other countries—less developed nations that have not made any significant contribution to climate change. It may well be that aggregate human welfare would be maximized in a warmer, wealthier world, or that the gains from climate change will offset environmental losses. Yet such claims, even if demonstrated, would not address the normative concern that the consequences of anthropogenic global warming would infringe upon the rights of people in less-developed nations. As a consequence, this paper calls for a rethinking of FME approaches to climate change policy. (shrink)

Modern discussions of natural resources focus on increasing public control over extractive industries proposing measures that range from increasing the public's share of the gain via royalties and taxes to regulating extractive activities to prevent environmental problems to outright expropriation of private investments. This article argues that such efforts are counterproductive because the fundamental economic problem of natural resources is producing the knowledge necessary to locate and extract resource deposits. The public benefit comes from enabling the use of the resources (...) and the increased economic activity their discovery produces rather than from royalties or expropriation. The key question in designing natural resource laws is thus their effects on the incentive to discover and manage resources. Private property rights in natural resources are the best way to provide such incentives. Fortunately, the combination of property rights and tort law principles enables property rights to solve environmental problems related to natural resource extraction as well. (shrink)

This paper argues that the occurrence of a non-native species, such as purple loosestrife, on one's property does not constitute a nuisance in the context of background principles of common law. No one is injured by it. The control of non-native species, such as purple loosestrife, does not constitute a compelling public interest, moreover, but represents primarily the concern of an epistemic community of conservation biologists and ecologists. This paper describes a history of cases in agricultural law that establish that (...) a public authority may enter private property to destroy a tree or other species but only to protect a compelling public interest, such as the apple industry in Virginia or the citrus industry in Florida, and only if it pays all the costs including just compensation. The paper argues a fortiori that if a public authority enters private property to control non-native or “invasive” species it must pay all the costs and indemnify the owner—contrary to what many state laws contemplate and the Environmental Law Institute recommends. (shrink)

The environment has often been thought to consist of resources that are unowned, and hence subject to the well-known tragedy of the commons. But in recent years, property ideas have been increasingly recruited for environmental protection, in a manner that appears to vindicate the view that property rights evolve along with the needs for resource management. Nevertheless, property regimes have some pitfalls for environmental resources: the relevant parties may not be able to come to agreement; property regimes may be weak (...) or ineffective; they may be aimed at purposes inconsistent with environmental protection; property rights definitions may not work well for environmental resources; modern property regimes may promote monoculture rather than diverse environments. This essay describes these problems and asks to what degree they apply to a new effort to use property rights approaches, namely cap-and-trade programs to control greenhouse gases. It concludes that property rights, while imperfect and something of a retreat from a regime of complete liberty, may offer gains for environmental protection. But success will depend on close attention to the accountability and effectiveness of the governmental institutions necessary to support environmental property regimes. (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)

The connection between property rights and free-speech rights has most often surfaced in conflicts between the two. In his classic formulation of the problem, journalist A. J. Liebling mocked the First Amendment's free-press clause by noting that ownership of a printing press was required in order to actually enjoy the constitutional protection. In an important case decided in 1980, Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a group wishing to circulate political petitions at a shopping center (...) had a constitutional right to do so. There the Court found that such governmentally enforced access to private property did “not amount to an unconstitutional infringement of [the shopping center owners'] property rights under the Taking Clause of the Fifth Amendment….”. (shrink)

In contemporary market societies, the laws do not place individuals under enforceable obligations to aid others. Perhaps the most striking exception to this broad generalization is the practice of conscription of able-bodied males into military service, particularly in time of war. Another notable exception is the legal enforcement in some contemporary societies of “Good Samaritan” obligations — obligations to provide temporary aid to victims of emergencies, such as car accident victims. The obligation applies to those who are in the immediate (...) vicinity of the emergency and who can supply aid of great value to the victim at small risk and tolerable cost to themselves. The fact that not all contemporary societies have enacted such Good Samaritan laws underscores the point that the general rule is that individuals are under no legal obligation to help others. According to some moral views, this legal situation approximately accords with the moral fact that persons who have not voluntarily incurred obligations to aid others should not be coerced into tendering such aid. Moreover, it is worth noting that these two prominent exceptions to the tendency of legal systems to eschew enforcement of positive obligations to aid others are plausibly in everyone's ex ante interest and not notably redistributive in intent. (shrink)

This article contends that liberalism in America underwent a fundamental transformation during the Progressive Era. This transformation took place, partly, through the Progressives' reinterpretation of the doctrine of property rights that had served as a foundation for founding-era liberalism. Progressives rejected the eighteenth-century, natural-rights principles which had privileged individual rights to life, liberty, and property as the fundamental aims of any just government, and argued instead that America at the turn of the twentieth century was beset by a tyranny of (...) the minority which was employing property rights to inhibit genuine freedom for the bulk of the population. This article examines the character of founding-era liberalism and points to the connection between the political theory of the Declaration of Independence and John Locke's Second Treatise of Government. It then provides an account of the Progressive critique of this original version of American liberalism. The Progressive critique is shown to take two forms: a rejection of property rights in principle, followed by a rejection of them in practice. (shrink)

Suppose the prevailing distribution of property rights is unjust as determined by the relevant conception of distributive justice. You have far more than you should have under that theory and I have far less. Then I defraud you and in doing so reallocate resources so that our holdings ex post more closely approximate what distributive justice requires. Do I have a duty to return the property to you? There are many good reasons for requiring me to return to you what (...) I have taken. One is that while you may have no right in justice to all that you own, it does not follow that I do, or that I have a right to take it. Thus, requiring me to return the property to you is a way of recognizing that I had no right to take it from you in the first place. (shrink)

William Perm summarized the Magna Carta thus: “First, It asserts Englishmen to be free; that's Liberty. Secondly, they that have free-holds, that's Property.” Since at least the seventeenth century, liberals have not only understood liberty and property to be fundamental, but to be somehow intimately related or interwoven. Here, however, consensus ends; liberals present an array of competing accounts of the relation between liberty and property. Many, for instance, defend an essentially instrumental view, typically seeing private property as justified because (...) it is necessary to maintain or protect other, more basic, liberty rights. Important to our constitutional tradition has been the idea that “[t]he right to property is the guardian of every other right, and to deprive a people of this, is in fact to deprive them of their liberty.” Along similar lines, it has been argued that only an economic system based on private property disperses power and resources, ensuring that private people in civil society have the resources to oppose the state and give effect to basic liberties. Alternatively, it is sometimes claimed that only those with property develop the independent characters that are necessary to preserve a regime of liberty. But not only have liberals insisted that, property is a means of preserving liberty, they have often conceived of it as an embodiment of liberty, or as a type of liberty, or indeed as identical to liberty. This latter view is popular among contemporary libertarians or classical liberals. Jan Narveson, for instance, bluntly asserts that “Liberty is Property,” while John Gray insists that “[t]he connection between property and the basic liberties is constitutive and not just instrumental.”. (shrink)

The Industrial Revolution caused an expansion of our ideas of property to include other forms of wealth, such as innovations and productive techniques. And the modern age has caused a further expansion of our ideas of property to include inchoate items, particularly information. The Framers of the U.S. Constitution presumed that government not only took an expansive view of the nature of property rights, they also believed that such rights should be protected. To James Madison and the other Framers, property (...) was a “broad and majestic term” that “embraces everything which may have a value to which man may attach a right.”. (shrink)

This essay deals with property rights in body parts that can be exchanged in a market. The inquiry arises in the following context. With some exceptions, the laws of many countries permit only the donation, not the sale, of body parts. Yet for some years there has existed a shortage of body parts for transplantation and other medical uses. It might then appear that if more sales were legally permitted, the supply of body parts would increase, because people would have (...) more incentive to sell than they currently have to donate. To allow sales is to recognize property rights in body parts. To allow sales, however, makes body parts into “commodities”—that is, things that can be bought and sold in a market. And some view it as morally objectionable to treat body parts as commodities. (shrink)