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Self-ownership (or sovereignty of the individual or individual sovereignty) is the moral or natural right (aka Freedom) of a person to be the exclusive controller of his or her own body and life. Economic freedom is freedom to produce trade and consume any goods and services acquired without the use of force fraud or theft Freedom, or the idea of being free is a broad concept that Political freedom is the absence of interference with the sovereignty of an individual by the use of coercion or aggression Liberty, the freedom to act or believe without being stopped by unnecessary force Freedom of assembly, sometimes used interchangeably with the Freedom of association, is the Individual right to come together with other individuals and collectively Freedom of association is the Individual right to come together with other individuals and collectively express promote pursue and defend common interests thumb| |Broken Liberty Istanbul Archaeology Museum Civil liberties are freedoms that protect the Individual from the Government. Freedom of movement, mobility rights or the right to travel is a Human rights concept which is respected in the Constitutions of numerous Freedom Constitutional or statutory protections pertaining to freedom of the press Freedom of religion is the freedom of an individual or community in public or private to manifest religion or belief in teaching practice worship and observance Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without Censorship or Limitation. Freedom of thought (also called freedom of conscience and freedom of ideas) is the freedom of an individual to hold or consider a fact viewpoint The right of self-defense (also called alter ego defense, defense of others, defense of a third person) is the right for civilians acting on their Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable harmful or sensitive as determined by a censor Coercion (co-er-shion is the practice of compelling a person or manipulating them to behave in an involuntary way (whether through action or inaction by use of threats Children's rights are the Human rights of Children with particular attention to the rights of special protection and care afforded to the young including their Human rights refers to the "basic Rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled There are several Non-governmental organizations that publish and maintain assessments of the state of freedom in the world according to their own various definitions of Media Transparency is the concept of determining how and why Information is conveyed through various means The concept of negative liberty refers to freedom from interference by other people ||-||} Positive liberty refers to the opportunity and ability to act to fulfill one's own potential as opposed to Negative liberty, which refers to freedom from It is the concept of property in one's own person. According to G. Cohen, the concept of self-ownership "says that each person enjoys, over herself and her powers, full and exclusive rights of control and use, and therefore owes no service or product to anyone else that she has not contracted to supply. "[1]
The writers William Rees-Mogg and James Dale Davidson described this condition as being a sovereign individual, in which individuals have supreme authority and sovereignty over their own choices, without the interference of governing powers. William Rees-Mogg Baron Rees-Mogg (b July 14 1928, Bristol England) is a journalist and writer in the United Kingdom. James Dale Davidson is an American investment newsletter writer and author of The Sovereign Individual, The Great Reckoning, and Blood Sovereignty is the exclusive Right to control a Government, a country, a people or oneself This notion is central classical liberalism, individualistic political philosophies such as abolitionism, ethical egoism, libertarianism, objectivism, and anarchism. Classical liberalism (also known as traditional liberalism, Laissez-faire liberalism, Market liberalism or in much of the world Political philosophy is the study of questions about the City, Government, Politics, Liberty, Justice, Property, Rights Abolitionism was a political movement of the 18th and 19th century which sought to make Slavery illegal particularly in the United States and British West Indies Ethical egoism is the normative ethical position that Moral agents ought to do what is in their Self-interest. Libertarianism is a term used by a broad spectrum of political philosophies which prioritize individual Liberty and seek to minimize or even abolish the Objectivism is a Philosophy developed by Ayn Rand in the 20th century that encompasses positions on Metaphysics, Epistemology, Anarchism is a Political philosophy encompassing theories and attitudes which support the elimination of all compulsory Government, i Sovereign individuals hold to the premise that government only has authority and power which is given to it by the individual, with decentralized administrative organizations acting as servants to the individual and never their master. __FORCETOC__ Decentralization or Decentralisation (see Spelling differences) is the process of dispersing Decision-making governance closer to the people
Friedrich Nietzsche uses the term sovereign individual quite differently in On the Genealogy of Morals. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15 1844 August 25 1900 ( was a nineteenth-century German philosopher and classical philologist On the Genealogy of Morality, or On the Genealogy of Morals (German Zur Genealogie der Moral) subtitled "A Polemic " ( Eine Streitschrift
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Origin of the concept
The concept of self-ownership has been traced to John Locke, who said, the individual "has a right to decide what would become of himself and what he would do, and as having a right to reap the benefits of what he did. John Locke (29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704 was an English Philosopher. "[2] Or, as stated more succinctly by Locke, "every man has a Property in his own Person. "[3]
From self-ownership to private property
Those who support self-ownership usually hold that this entails a right of private property external to the body with the reasoning that if a person owns himself then he owns his actions, including those which create or improve resources; therefore he owns the resources or improvement he produces. Property is any physical or virtual entity that is owned by an individual [4]
Self-ownership in wage labor
Ian Shapiro says that markets in labor affirm self ownership, because if self-ownership were not recognized then people would not be allowed to sell the use of their productive capacities to others. He says that the individual sells the use of his productive capacity for a limited time and conditions but continues to own what he earns from selling the use of that capacity and the capacity itself, thereby retaining soveriegnty over himself while contributing to economic efficiency. [5]
Examples
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is sometimes viewed as an implementation of the concept of self-ownership, as are some portions of the Bill of Rights. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution officially abolished and continues to prohibit Slavery, and with limited exceptions such as those A Bill of Rights is a list or summary of rights that are considered important and essential by a group of people
The trouble of defining the border of the self can be seen in the debate surrounding abortion where the fetus could alternatively be seen as its own or as a part of the property of the mother's body, and the right of the woman to control her own body could therefore be viewed as being in opposition to what may be considered as "the fetus' right to live". An This contrast is even more pronounced in situations where women are forced to undergo surgery in order to deliver a healthy baby. Even though self-ownership advocates civil rights, it does not extend these rights over others, an argument used by both sides of this debate.
In addition to the abortion debate, there are also debates surrounding euthanasia and suicide. The abortion debate refers to discussion and controversy surrounding the moral and legal status of Abortion. Euthanasia (literally "good death" in Ancient Greek) refers to the practice of ending a life in a painless manner However, some of these actions can be viewed as self-destructive which is somewhat removed from the original meaning of self-ownership, as this also meant taking responsibility for self. Moral responsibility can refer to two different but related things
Defining the borders of the self can also be difficult if one accepts the notion that the self includes objects that are external to the human body, as is proposed in Andy Clark's essay, Natural Born Cyborgs. Andy Clark is a Professor of Philosophy and Chair in Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland
Self-ownership could be viewed as a decentralized bottom-up philosophy, as opposed to totalitarianism being a centralized top-down system. Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is a concept used to describe Political systems where a State regulates nearly every aspect of public and private Henry David Thoreau regarded self-ownership as a key component in achieving utopia, while Robert Nozick, an influential libertarian political philosopher, based his theory of property-ownership on the premise of self-ownership. Utopia is a name for an ideal community taken from the title of a book written in 1516 by Sir Thomas More describing a fictional Island in the Robert Nozick ( November 16, 1938 &ndash January 23, 2002) was an American Philosopher and Pellegrino University Libertarianism is a term used by a broad spectrum of political philosophies which prioritize individual Liberty and seek to minimize or even abolish the
Arguments for self-ownership
It has been argued by Austrian School economist Hans-Hermann Hoppe that self-ownership is axiomatic. The Austrian School, also known as the “ Vienna School ” or the “ Psychological School ” is a heterodox school of economics that advocates Hans-Hermann Hoppe (born September 2, 1949) is an Austrian school Economist of the anarcho-capitalist tradition and a former economics In traditional Logic, an axiom or postulate is a proposition that is not proved or demonstrated but considered to be either self-evident, or subject His reasoning is that a person contradicts himself when he argues against self-ownership. The person making this argument is caught in a "performative contradiction" because, in choosing to use persuasion instead of force to have others agree that they are not sovereign over themselves, that person implicitly grants that those who he is trying to persuade have a right to disagree. A performative contradiction arises when the propositional content of a statement contradicts the noncontingent presuppositions that make possible the performance of the speech act such If they have a right to disagree, then they have legitimate authority over themselves. [6]
The person argues that self-ownership is an undesirable condition, and currently he is only authorized by law to argue against the status quo that allows self-ownership. Status quo is a Latin term meaning the present existing state of affairs or "the state in which" Moreover, someone that argues against self-ownership does not necessarily do it in an absolute way. Sovereignty does not need to be a black-and-white issue: for instance, the person could be sovereign to have opinions, but not to perform any kinds of acts. For instance, a person that thinks the consumption of drugs should be always illegal is against absolute self-ownership, but not necessarily in favor of full subordination.
In The Ethics of Liberty, Murray Rothbard argues that 100 percent self-ownership is the only principle compatible with a moral code that applies to every person - a "universal ethic" - and that it is a natural law by being what is naturally best for man. The Ethics of Liberty, by American economist and historian Murray N Murray Newton Rothbard (March 2 1926 – January 7 1995 was an American economist of the Austrian School who helped define modern Libertarianism Moral universalism (or universal morality) is the meta-ethical position that some system of ethics or a universal ethic applies universally, that He says if every person is not entitled to full self-ownership, then there are only two alternatives: "(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. " He says that it is not possible for alternative (2) to be a universal ethic but only a partial ethic which says that one class of people do not have the right of self-ownership but another class does. This, therefore, is incompatible with what is being sought - a moral code applicable to every person - instead of a code applicable to some and not to others, as if some individuals are humans and some are not. In the case of alternative (1), every individual would own equal parts of every other individual so that no one is self-owned. Rothbard acknowledges that this would be a universal ethic, but, he argues, it is "Utopian and impossible for everyone to keep continual tabs on everyone else, and thereby to exercise his equal share of partial ownership over every other man. " He says the system would break down, resulting in a ruling class who specializes in keeping tabs over other individuals. Since this would grant a ruling class ownership rights over its subjects, it would again be logically incompatible with a universal ethic. Even if a collectivist Utopia of everyone having equal ownership of everyone else could be sustained, he argues, individuals would not be able to do anything without prior approval by everyone in society. Since this would be impossible in a large society, no one would be able to do anything and the human race would perish. Therefore, the collectivist alternative universal ethic where every individual would own an equal portion of every other individual violates the natural "law of what is best for man and his life on earth. " He says that if a person exercises ownership over another person, that is, uses aggression against him rather than leaving him to do as he wills, "this violates his nature. "[7]
Criticism
A common left-wing criticism is that equality of condition is a fundamental principle, therefore self-ownership must be rejected because it allows the generation of inequality of condition. Equality of outcome or equality of condition is a form of Egalitarianism which seeks to reduce or eliminate differences in material condition between individuals or [8]
After articulating the difference between the natural need to work in nature and the unnatural need to work for a boss under threat of starvation, Simon Linguet explained the essence of wage slavery in 1763, describing how it undermined self-ownership in the sense of individual autonomy, by basing it on a materialistic concept of the body and its liberty i. Wage slavery is a term first coined by the Lowell Mill Girls in 1836 though articulated as a concept at least as early as Cicero and elaborated by subsequent thinkers e. as something that can be sold, rented or alienated in a class society:
“The slave was precious to his master because of the money he had cost him… Men's blood had some price in the days of slavery. They were worth at least as much as they could be sold for in the market…It is the impossibility of living by any other means that compels our farm labourers to till the soil whose fruits they will not eat, and our masons to construct buildings in which they will not live. It is want that drags them to those markets where they await masters who will do them the kindness of buying them. It is want that compels them to go down on their knees to the rich man in order to get from him permission to enrich him… what effective gain [has] the suppression of slavery brought [him ?] He is free, you say. Ah! That is his misfortune… These men, it is said, have no master—they have one, and the most terrible, the most imperious of masters, that is, need. It is this that reduces them to the most cruel dependence. They live only by hiring out their arms. They must therefore find someone to hire them, or die of hunger. Is that to be free?”[9]
Others point out at the inconsistencies of the Rothbardian concept of self-ownership in rejecting certain kinds of slave contracts. Rothbard's objection revolves around the assertion that a person "cannot, in nature, sell himself into slavery and have this sale enforced -- for this would mean that his future will over his own body was being surrendered in advance" and that if a "labourer remains totally subservient to his master's will voluntarily, he is not yet a slave since his submission is voluntary. " However, all contracts specify some future performance. In the case of the lifetime labour contract, then, according to Rothbard it can be broken as long as the slave pays any appropriate damages: "if A has agreed to work for life for B in exchange for 10,000 grams of gold, he will have to return the proportionate amount of property if he terminates the arrangement and ceases to work. " [Man, Economy, and State, vol. I , p. 441] Having to pay such damages (either as a lump sum or over a period of time) could turn the worker into the most common type of modern slave, the debt-slave. Rothbard's emphasis on quitting fails to recognise the actual denial of will and control over ones own body that is explicit in wage labour. Moreover, a modern slave contract would likely take the form of a "performance bond," on which Rothbard laments about its "unfortunate suppression" by the state. In such a system, the slave could agree to perform X years labour or pay their master substantial damages if they fail to do so. It is the threat of damages that enforces the contract and such a "contract" Rothbard does agree is enforceable. Another means of creating slave contracts would be "conditional exchange" which Rothbard also supports. As for debt bondage, that too, seems acceptable. He surreally notes that paying damages and debts in such contracts is fine as "money, of course, is alienable" and so forgets that it needs to be earned by labour which, he asserts, is not alienable. [The Ethics of Liberty, pp. 134-135, p. 40, pp. 136-9, p. 141 and p. 138] [10]}}
See also
Notes and references
- ^ Cited in The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy. Individualist anarchism refers to any of several traditions that hold that "individual conscience and the pursuit of self-interest should not be constrained by any collective The sovereign citizen movement is a network of American litigants who claim to be "sovereign citizens" that is people who have certain rights under English common The law of equal liberty (aka the law of equal freedom) or equal liberty, is a doctrine first named though not first conceived by Herbert Spencer which thumb| |Broken Liberty Istanbul Archaeology Museum Civil liberties are freedoms that protect the Individual from the Government. Empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, Social or economic strength of individuals and communities The question of free will Sumptuary laws (from Latin sumptuariae leges) are Laws which attempt to regulate habits of consumption The non-aggression principle (also called the non-aggression axiom, anticoercion principle, or zero aggression principle) is a Deontological Self-determination is defined as free choice of one’s own acts without external compulsion and especially as the freedom of the people of a given Territory to determine their The term victimless crime refers to infractions of Criminal law without any identifiable Corpus delicti, or evidence of an Individual that For relevant case law see Public order crime case law in the United States In Criminology public order crime is defined by Siegel (2004 As a social-economic system slavery is a legal institution under which a Person (called "a slave" is compelled to work for another 2004. Blackwell Publishing. p. 630
- ^ Olsaretti, Serena. 2004. Liberty, Desert and the Market. Cambridge University Press. p. 91
- ^ Dan-Cohen, Meir. 2002. Harmful Thoughts: Essays on Law, Self, and Morality. Princeton University Press. p. 296
- ^ Harris, J. W. 1996. Property and Justice. Oxford University Press. p. 189
- ^ Shapiro, Ian. 2001. Democratic Justice. Yale University Press. pp. 145-146
- ^ Terrell, Timothy D. Property Rights and Externality: The Ethics of the Austrian School. Journal of Markets & Morality, Volume 2, Number 2 • Fall 1999
- ^ Rothbard, Murray Newton. The Ethics of Liberty. NYU Press. 2003. pp. 45 - 45
- ^ Elster, Jon & Moene, Karl Ove. Alternatives to Capitalism. Cambridge University Press. p. 115.
- ^ MARX, Karl (1863). Chapter 7. Theories of Surplus Value. Marxists. org.
- ^ Infoshop FAQ sec F2.
External links
- Self-Ownership, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- The Philosophy of Liberty
- The Ego and Its Own (also translated as The Individual and His Property), the main work by German philosopher Max Stirner
- What is a sovereign individual?
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