Abstract

The purpose of this work is to delineate the source and limits of the right to property. In order to accomplish this the major modern philosophical theories of property are critically examined. In this context the views of John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, G.W.F. Hesel, Karl Marx, John Rawls, and Robert Nozick are treated. The view of each of these theorists on the right to property is presented and critically analyzed in order to indicate both the problems and the insights which ensue from the theory. The concluding chapter presents the framework of a theory which rises above the criticisms made of the theories considered and yet which accounts for such truths as are recognized by those theories. This is accomplished according to a view of natural law which is compatible with all of the theories examined and to which all of the insights resultant from these examinations can be, and are, related.