I was recently discussing/debating with a friend the subject of whether or not self-ownership is indeed a self-evident truth. I firly hold that it is. I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on this subject - is it or is it not self-evident? Thanks in advance for any feedback.. : )
What is ownership? The right to control? If it is, then your right to control yourself is self-evident self-ownership.
If he was debating with you he was acknowledging your right to disagree, and consequentially, your right to authority over yourself.
You can take it to be self-evident but, like any axiom, its adoption or rejection is strictly voluntary. Aristotle made a necessity “argument” for the axiom of identity but any such argument is self-assuming. Asserting that A implies A because to reject it would entail its opposite is only to note that alternative logics do not behave like classical logic. I know that is likely to singe the ears of any good Austrian but it is an important point. Any necessity argument is inherently circular and, therefore, meaningless. Worse, to impart a normative sense to the necessity argument makes such an argument collectivist. Ordinary axioms are shared assumptions. Logical discussion is built on such shared assumptions: “If you start by assuming these axioms, then you can arrive at this conclusion via this argument.” By asserting not only that axiom X is necessarily the case but that you must assent to axiom X, I am arguing as a collectivist, I am asserting normative power over your will.
The illogical man is free to be illogical. He will be unable to derive any of my well-reasoned arguments or, worse, he will be able to derive both them and their contradictions. His rejection of the law of identity is not a mistake. It simply renders his participation in reasonable discussion and debate nil.
The same goes for those who reject self-ownership. It may be inconsistent (though David Friedman persuasively debunks even this). But that, in itself, doesn’t prove anything except that a person must be inconsistent to reject self-ownership.
Clayton -
is it or is it not self-evident?
what is the alternative to self ownership?? to be owned by another or no-self-ownership at all??
owned by another i would guess to be someone applying force that would end a ‘self’ if you didnt compy with an action/request.
i guess non-self-ownership woud be various forces interacting wiht other forces…succesful and non-succesful usage attmpts rather than ownbership. perhopas that is wha twe have now.
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Ownership is a relationship between a person and an object. There isn’t any need to talk about self-ownership, since it would be talking about a relationship between something and itself (which would be redundant).
@Solid_Choke, the body is inanimate without the mind controlling it. Therefore, the mind, the self, owns it’s body. “Self-ownership” may be redundant when thinking of the mind and body as one, but it’s used to contrast with other-ownership.
@cret, Rothbard wrote this, The Ethics of Liberty, page 45:
Let us set aside for a moment the corollary but more complex case of tangible property, and concentrate on the question of a man’s ownership rights to his own body. Here there are two alternatives: either we may lay down a rule that each man should be permitted (i.e., have the right to) the full ownership of his own body, or we may rule that he may not have such complete ownership. If he does, then we have the libertarian natural law for a free society as treated above. But if he does not, if each man is not entitled to full and 100 percent self-ownership, then what does this imply? It implies either one of two conditions: (1) the “communist” one of Universal and Equal Other-ownership, or (2) Partial Ownership of One Group by Another—a system of rule by one class over another. These are the only logical alternatives to a state of 100 percent self-ownership for all.
@Skyler Collins, why is the mind anymore “the self” than the body"? I don’t think I am on shaky ground when I say that the mind and body (together) are the self. “Otherownership” isn’t excluded because of self-ownership, but because enlaving someone violates a convention against torts and so others are not at liberty to enslave you. Talk of self-ownership is unnecessary, adds confusion, and should be abandoned.
There are bodies with minds, there are also bodies without minds.
There is a one to one relationship between bodies with minds and people that are ‘selfs’.
@nirgrahamUK, are you saying that self-ownership relies on mind/body dualism? If it doesn’t and ownership is a relation between a person and an object (or a set of acts involving an object), then it is redundant.
I’m not opposed to ‘redundancies’ in language. English if full of redundancies and would function poorly with out them. Yes, self-ownership says no more than that the relation between a particular-person (self) and some property (the body this self directly controls, whose mind is emergent of the body) is that of ownership. Are we to condemn a two word phrase that compresses the meaning of a longer construction on the grounds of ‘redundancy’ ?
p.s. I could press the point about the serviceability of the terminology …
ownership is a relation between a person and an object (or a set of acts involving an object)
leaving person ambiguous. One must presume you are referring to body objects which have emergent minds and not body objects that don’t. The concept of ‘self’ does quite well to cover this domain.
Damnit, I’m about to give up on this forum. It won’t blockquote without giving an error.
I think I get what you are saying, through your De Jasay quote
It is not entirely nonsense to talk of a relation between me and me. There is a relationship of identity for example. There could be a relationship of esteem. etc. etc. But I can get the drift of what he is saying. He seems to be missing the point of what self-ownership asserts. it is not asserting that a mind owns its own mind. it asserts that a mind which is emergent of a body is the rightful owner of the body on which it is emergent. And when we are talking about people, persons, self’s the terminology of self-ownership is meant to reflect that a ‘body/mind’ be the owner of the grounding body.
Furthermore, I am not knowingly Nozickian and feel like I’m being talked past when it comes to the ‘entitlements’ theory being critiqued. I agree with that critique! It just makes me curious why De Jasay put the two critiques in the same paragraph. as if self-ownership must entail clamorings for positive entitlements?
@Solid_Choke, do you have an alternative to the concept expressed with the term “self-ownership”? I’ve never confused anyone by that term. Are you confused by that term?
The entitlement theory isn’t about positive entitlements, it is just the (badly named) theory of justice put forward by Nozick (it is simply an update of Locke). You can read about it here.
Also, it seems to me that having a “right” to self-ownership is unnecessary, because people are already unfree to enslave you. You don’t need a right to protect you from things people are already unfree to do to you (because they violate conventions against torts). Also, you don’t need a right to do what you would with your own property because you are already free to do so (since it violates no conventions). Saying that you need a right to do something that is already free for you to do makes it sound like everything is unfree unless you have a right to it. This is wrong, you are free to do anything unless it violates a convention (in which case it would be unfree).
is it bad language to talk of dark when you are referring to absence of light? people being unfree to enslave you is a different expression of the right to not be enslaved by others.
You don’t need a right to protect you from things people are already unfree to do to you
Similarly you would not need for people to be unfree to do certain things to you if you already had a right to be free from such interference… this is silly.. they are two ways to express the same concepts
Also, you don’t need a right to do what you would with your own property because you are already free to do so
Im not against the concept, I’m against the greedy terminology. ‘having the right’ is language that expresses your freedom, plus the information that to violate your ‘right’ is violating ‘torts’.
Saying that you need a right to do something that is already free for you to do makes it sound like everything is unfree unless you have a right to it.
you dont need a right to do something that is already free for you to do … ‘already’? these concepts do not have a time-related heirarchy. there is no already about it. Its like saying you don’t need up if you already have ‘the opposite of down’. they are equivalent, they co-exist
@Solid_Choke, I understand what you are saying completely, http://truth.skylerjcollins.com/2010/04/rights-as-things.html
No, I don’t think self-ownership is self-evident. However, my view is that we have to separate the value-free component of self-direction and the normative concept of self-ownership. I wouldn’t call it an axiom but it is obviously the case that we each control our own body and that most of the ways in which others control our bodies are still mediated through our own volition. Hoppe, in an online lecture on the foundations of Austrian economics, talks of the ability to move one’s arm… you just wish it to move and it moves. No other mind has this relationship with your arm, only you do, and Hoppe further quotes some German (Austrian?) psychologist who identifies this relationship as the basis of the concept of “I” or “self.” To deny this, you have to go out into la-la land… you can deny it through epiphenomenalism, solipsism, nihilism, and so on. These are all very bizarre, cartoonish philosophical ideas. I cringe to call it an axiom* but I would feel comfortable calling it a self-evident truth.
But self-direction does not necessarily imply self-ownership. Ownership is the question of who has the ultimate rightful possession of something. Possession and ownership are clearly separated in many areas of human action - rental, storage, transport, and so on. There is no a priori reason why an individual’s mind could not be in a custodial or “mere possessor” relationship with his or her arm. In a world where slavery obtains, this relationship would necessarily be the case by virtue of our physiology. That is, even if I owned your arm, I could never take “full possession” of it since it is physiologically impossible for my mind to enjoy the same relationship to your arm that it does to my arm. But there is no in-principle reason why you could not be a “permanent custodian” or “permanent renter” of your arm, which belongs to me.
To get to self-ownership, we have to introduce normative, ethical concepts and this is where things get complicated. Simple, deductive analysis is no longer sufficient, we have to get our hands muddy in the swamp of human evolution, language, society, and so on.
I think self-ownership is a culturally universal normative ethic - like ethical universalizability** - and this is an important point in understanding human self-conception. Ultimately, however, I think that self-ownership is the consequence of good law… unfortunately, we are trapped within a system of monopolist law which has perverted the law, weakened property rights in material objects and even one’s self.
The solution is not to try to prove self-ownership to be an axiom, the solution is to tear down the territorial law monopoly and open the law market back up to free entry and competition.
Clayton -
*For me, “axiom” carries a connotation of formalism
**Ethical universalizability is roughly synonymous with the Golden Rule
@Clayton, why can’t it be as simple as, “Does anyone else own you?” “No” “Then you own yourself.” Hence, self-ownership is self-evident.