Does the concept of ”self-ownership” make any sense? Can the ego ”own” the physical body?
Self ownership doesn’t make sense specifically because ownership itself is a social construct. Ownership is not something physical. There is certainly “self control” but an ought cannot be made from an is. If you’re using self control and self ownership synonymously then of course one can can control oneself.
what Neodoxy said. Many disagree with this definition, even some anarchocapitalists here, but it’s consistent both logically and empirically.
We can control ourselves, but we cannot “own” ourselves… Interesting. Can we “own” an external object?
Once again that relies upon what you mean when you say “own”
In theory this depends upon your personal definition.
In practice this depends upon what those around you believe.
This applies to all kinds of ownership, both internal and external.
In modern society you can own external objects, but inherently you cannot as it means nothing outside of society. You can of course control external objects, and as Stirner would argue this constitutes ownership in which case one would always own himself, and when one was forced to things by another he would have to logically forego partial ownership, but so long as ones mind was free one would always retain some semblance of ownership.
OK, I think I’m with you now. The entire concept of ownership is a mass delusion, a social myth of legitimized control. Or not?
I believe that myth is a strange word to use. Simply because something is subjective does not make it a “myth”. The idea of a friendship or society is subjective, but this does not make it a myth per se. The idea of objective or inherent ownership is a myth, the idea of ownership insofar as it is actually practiced is not a myth any more than an agreement is a myth. It’s a general mutual understanding.
“Don’t take other people’s stuff”, is a “mass delusion” just like “don’t eat poisonous mushrooms”, or “don’t sh*t on someone else’s head” are. More often then not, you’d get punched in the face (or worse) if you take what’s not yours, just like more often than not you’d get bad stomach-ache (or worse) if you eat the mushrooms. Thankfully, from a socio-evolutionary perspective, there’s simply not enough defiers of these “delusions” left among us to endanger the flourishing of most societies with their alternative (contrary) “delusions”.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/74983/title/Kids_own_up_to_ownership
People are born understanding the concept of ownership.the idea of Dominion over inanimate objects is part of our psyche. People must be indoctrinated into a worldview thats rejects this native axiom. It doesnt happen by itself.
Ownership, like storytelling and the manufacture of tools is one of those things that defines humanity. In this way, collectivism is arguably objectively wrong for eudaimonists.
Whatever the “I” is, whatever it is that makes you send electrical impulses to your joints to move your limbs and whatever it is that deliberates and makes choices is what “owns” your body, at least that’s how I’ve always read Rothbard and other libertarians. If you don’t exercise control over your body, who should? I think Rothbard’s popular argument works as a reductio ad absurdum.
The other way to define self-ownership is saying, that you and only you have a legitimate control over your body and you can do with it whatever you want. Can someone debunk this, please? Or does it make any sense at all?
This is basically my definition of “self-ownership”. If “ownership” is taken to mean “legitimate possession, use, and/or other form of control”, then the concept of self-ownership simply means that possessing, using, and otherwise controlling one’s body is legitimate.
Right. And I find it hard to understand why left libertarians disagree with it.
If ownership as concept is taken as a matter of faith (criteria X, Y, and Z are satisfied, rendering possession legitimate), then would not that mass belief equate to a myth?
I don’t really understand your analogy. Are you simply taking a utilitarian stance on ownership? If I was confident of no negative reprocussion resulting from appropriation, would it then be reasonable to do so?
All of the children in that article have an understanding of ownership, and they also speak English. Since you seem rather confident that having a concept of ownership at age 4 or 5 proves that the concept of ownership is innate, would it be safe to assume that you also think that the ability to speak English is also innate?
@ Eric080, MaikU, Autolykos,
Before we go any further, could you please define “body”, as you are using it?
How the hell is a maxim a “delusion”?
This is actually something that Hoppe’s Argumentation Ethics holds up to (before it gets to the part where people say it breaks down). You have control over your thoughts, and it is impossible to relinquish that control to someone else. Your thoughts are what controls your body. You can claim to be someone’s servant, but ultimately you are still choosing to do what they say, and could change your mind at any moment. As Rothbard pointed out, this is where the concept of “inalieanable rights” comes from.
…there are certain vital things which, in natural fact and in the nature of man, are inalienable, i.e., they cannot in fact be alienated, even voluntarily.
Specifically, a person cannot alienate his will, more particularly his control over his own mind and body. Each man has control over his own mind and body. Each man has control over his own will and person, and he is, if you wish, “stuck” with that inherent and inalienable ownership. Since his will and control over his own person are inalienable, then so also are his rights to control that person and will. That is the ground for the famous position of the Declaration of Independence that man’s natural rights are inalienable; that is, they cannot be surrendered, even if the person wishes to do so.
And even if that weren’t the case…even if you want to argue that you somehow could alienate your own will, and “sell your body”, you’re still selling your body. The whole reason it’s called “yours” is because (a) you cannot be alienated from it, but also (b) you have a better claim to it than anyone else.
You can try to argue that that is only a “de facto” ownership, but it’s ownership by any understood means, nonetheless. Not only that, but this whole time everyone has been using all the “your’s” that directly imply a claim over something. They imply an individual consciousness outside of everything else, and they recognize it as such. To claim that “you**r idea of ‘ownership’ is a delusion” is a self-contradiction…along the same lines as what Hoppe’s argumentation concept points out. (Of course, he draws conclusions from that that haven’t been sufficiently explained to me, but in the specific case of making the point that your act of arguing proves you are an independent conscious mind in yourself, is basically undeniable as far as I can see.)
See here for a list of resources on the concept of self-ownership.
John James,
How does sleeping factor into you position? How are you defining “body”? Just the bare physical hardware necessary for the continuation of the “mind” (ego)? Where do you draw the line between “self” (ego) and “body”?
To me it’s anything except the mind, which is in fact a manifestation of brain function. So yeah, every body physical parts.
Does someone have proof that the mind (sense of self) exists outside the body? Please share.
@ MaikU,
Is there any sort of temporal aspect to this? That is, do I own dead skin cells, or old hair, too? Or since they are now divorced from my corpus, they do not count as my “body”? What of the non-living (cellular) material? The carbon dioxide I resperate, the lymph I sweat, etc.? What of the sybiotic bacteria in my gut? They are certainly independant lifeforms, but they reside in my GI tract.
@ K. C. Farmer,
That depends on what you consider “proof”.
@ Jackson LaRose
For the purposes of this forum, scientific or philosophical proof.