It seems that most people here who subscribe to the notion of “objective ethics” base their ethical systems on property rights. This seems to entail that property rights are objectively valid. However, on these forums, property rights are generally held to derive directly from the Lockean homesteading standard. Therefore, for such theories of objective ethics to be coherent, the Lockean homesteading standard on which they are based must be objectively valid.
I certainly see the value of the Lockean homesteading standard from a consequentialist and evolutionary point of view: it enables prosperity through free market exchange, and it provides standards for a system of justice and social cooperation. Moreover, humans tend to feel instinctively that an unused object taken up and worked with becomes “theirs.” These arguments make good sense to me.
However, such arguments are not sufficient to serve as a basis for any notion of property-based objective ethics that I am familiar with. Can anyone supply or point me to an argument supporting the notion that the Lockean homesteading standard of “mixing one’s labor with an unused thing” objectively determines ownership of that thing? (without using consequentialist/utilitarian or evolution-based arguments.)
There is an alternative, namely that might makes right. You can choose to live that way, but in doing so you are choosing not to live in society. IF you want a prospering society, THEN you should adhere to property rights. That’s based on objective reality.
An other thing to consider is the effect on your person. Biologically, you are wired for cooperation. Act against it, and your emotional capabilities will shut down. So you can say goodbye to happiness. That’s based on objective reality as well.
Surely the Lockean homesteading standard is, I’d say, weak - it was strong in countries and times based mainly on agriculture.
But now it has many deficiencies (in fact always had) it inevitably leads to antinomies and social disorders and conflicts.
Instinct of humans lets them avoid these antinomies rather than supports the Lockean homesteading standard…
Is there something better?
Declaration and lack of resistance, mixed with priority rule?
But this still needs human rationality to apply and maintain.
I agree, but it doesn’t answer my question. I asked:
Can anyone supply or point me to an argument supporting the notion that the Lockean homesteading standard of “mixing one’s labor with an unused thing” objectively determines [rightful] ownership of that thing? (without using consequentialist/utilitarian or evolution-based arguments.)
Thanks Jon and Stephen for the links. I took a whirl through them. The Kinsella one talks about “objective link” but doesn’t fully flesh out the concept; it’s clear he’s talking about a link based on objective reality, but I’d be looking for an argument as to why that link is objectively valid or objectively right. The other articles mostly seem to focus on argumentation ethics, which I have heretofore encountered as an argument for the notion of self-ownership, but does it extend to every other piece of property besides one’s own body as well?
TBH the link by Kinsella builds on to Hoppe’s writing in ATSOC which I’ve yet to read. I mentioned it because it is the approach a lot of Austrians adopt when dealing with homesteading, and not labour mixing. The article is a bit sketchy, so I guess one would have to go to ATSOC to get the full argument.
What objectively gives you rightful ownership is the fact that you have established a unique relationship with the good. Others did not. If they then want to put it under their control, they need to legitimize their actions. They have no basis for this. They are an agent just like you and there is nothing special about them that says that they should be allowed to have control over goods (property rights) and not others.
I think the Lockean homesteading standard does qualify as an objective ethic. Each of us who is alive has a potential claim on all things in the world, (the definition of things being everything else that is not “people”). The Lockean standard is a method that we can use, in the absence of a higher authority, to establish the priority of claims for any particular thing to see who has the superior claim and therefore the right to consider himself the owner. Thus it does objectively determine the rightful ownership of a thing. Or am I completely misunderstanding your question?
I agree it’s a method we can use, but what makes it objectively valid, or perhaps better to say “objectively right”? I think it’s just the most useful way we have discovered so far, and jives well with Western culture and intuitions about property ownership.
That would seem to make ethical systems based on (Lockean) property rights thoroughly utilitarian (or just purely consequentialistic).
Lockean homesteading is a bit quaint. What the law amounts to, in its essence, is that one may appropriate any resource that has not been previously appropriated by someone.
There are legalities to work out over the meaning of appropriation (for example, simply declaring ownership of a planet is not appropriation), but the principle is universally valid regardless.
What makes it valid is the notion of Pareto efficiency. Someone who appropriates something that has not been appropriated creates value for himself and removes no value from anyone else.
I think what Stranger said is the key. It goes back to the non-aggression principle. You only have the right to aggress against me if I have aggressed. So, you cannot appropriate what I consider my property unless you can show that I misappropriated it. If it was unused when I appropriated it, then no one else can show a loss or complain of aggression, therefore I have the right to consider it my property.
