Rights


Recommended Posts

Over in this thread, a few of us got into a little back-and-forth over property rights. One of us was arguing that banning blackmail assumes some sort of property right. I disagreed. This line of thought is actually one I've encountered before, namely that of reducing everything down to property rights, claiming that all rights are property rights, or claiming that property rights are themselves some sort of undergirding structure in the whole collage of human rights.

Needless to say, I think this view is flawed. There are two rights I support that come to mind as counterexamples: a right to privacy and personality rights. I do not think one should be able to use another person's likeness without their consent or, say, publish revenge porn without their consent. I bring these up because I do not think they suppose any kind of ownership. I think it is more accurate to say that property rights are specific whereas something like the right to an attorney or the right against unreasonable search and seizure is more general.

Has anyone noticed this or have any thoughts on it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think where some folks get semantically lost is with the dual use of property for a "thing" that you possess/own, as you pointed out.

However, your physical self, is also your property. You mentioned John Locke who is one of my political Gods.

Locke's Political Philosophy
First published Wed Nov 9, 2005; substantive revision Thu Jul 29, 2010

John Locke (1632–1704) is among the most influential political philosophers of the modern period. In the Two Treatises of Government, he defended the claim that men are by nature free and equal against claims that God had made all people naturally subject to a monarch. He argued that people have rights, such as the right to life, liberty, and property, that have a foundation independent of the laws of any particular society. Locke used the claim that men are naturally free and equal as part of the justification for understanding legitimate political government as the result of a social contract where people in the state of nature conditionally transfer some of their rights to the government in order to better ensure the stable, comfortable enjoyment of their lives, liberty, and property. Since governments exist by the consent of the people in order to protect the rights of the people and promote the public good, governments that fail to do so can be resisted and replaced with new governments. Locke is thus also important for his defense of the right of revolution. Locke also defends the principle of majority rule and the separation of legislative and executive powers. In the Letter Concerning Toleration, Locke denied that coercion should be used to bring people to (what the ruler believes is) the true religion and also denied that churches should have any coercive power over their members. Locke elaborated on these themes in his later political writings, such as the Second Letter on Toleration and Third Letter on Toleration.

For a more general introduction to Locke's history and background, the argument of the Two Treatises, and the Letter Concerning Toleration, see Section 1, Section 3, and Section 4, respectively, of the main entry on John Locke in this encyclopedia. The present entry focuses on seven central concepts in Locke's political philosophy.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-political/

Locke on property:

3. Property

Locke's treatment of property is generally thought to be among his most important contributions in political thought, but it is also one of the aspects of his thought that has been most heavily criticized. There are important debates over what exactly Locke was trying to accomplish with his theory. One interpretation, advanced by C.B. Macpherson, sees Locke as a defender of unrestricted capitalist accumulation. On Macpherson's interpretation, Locke is thought to have set three restrictions on the accumulation of property in the state of nature: 1) one may only appropriate as much as one can use before it spoils (Two Treatises 2.31), 2) one must leave “enough and as good” for others (the sufficiency restriction) (2.27), and 3) one may (supposedly) only appropriate property through one's own labor (2.27). Macpherson claims that as the argument progresses, each of these restrictions is transcended. The spoilage restriction ceases to be a meaningful restriction with the invention of money because value can be stored in a medium that does not decay (2.46–47). The sufficiency restriction is transcended because the creation of private property so increases productivity that even those who no longer have the opportunity to acquire land will have more opportunity to acquire what is necessary for life (2.37). According to Macpherson's view, the “enough and as good” requirement is itself merely a derivative of a prior principle guaranteeing the opportunity to acquire, through labor, the necessities of life. The third restriction, Macpherson argues, was not one Locke actually held at all. Though Locke appears to suggest that one can only have property in what one has personally labored on when he makes labor the source of property rights, Locke clearly recognized that even in the state of nature, “the Turfs my Servant has cut” (2.28) can become my property. Locke, according to Macpherson, thus clearly recognized that labor can be alienated. As one would guess, Macpherson is critical of the “possessive individualism” that Locke's theory of property represents. He argues that its coherence depends upon the assumption of differential rationality between capitalists and wage-laborers and on the division of society into distinct classes. Because Locke was bound by these constraints, we are to understand him as including only property owners as voting members of society.

A...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mr. Corwell, I quite agree that rights over one’s person, including one’s living body integral with self, are wrongly conceived of as property rights. I have long found talk of self-ownership grotesque. (To speak of self-possession is a subtly different thing, a thing with the intimacy of lovers reaching "You're mine.") Property rights are consequences of rights in one’s person, rights of basic reciprocal standing among persons. Property rights are consequences of the rightness of the ultimate ends in themselves that are human minds and their lives among their fellows, notwithstanding the necessity of property rights for the realization of that value.

I concur with you about right to privacy (tort and constitutional), of which uses of one’s likeness is a member under tort. Rights to liberty, personal and civil, are also not rightly conceived fundamentally as rights to property.

I doubt the distinction between a civil right, such as right to an attorney or right against unreasonable search and seizure, and a property right is exactly a matter of the former being more general and the latter more specific. Rather, I think it more exact to say the former are part of the framework laws of legal powers making possible the rule of laws that prohibit or enjoin actions of citizens towards each other (as in Hart’s The Concept of Law). Something like general/specific, to be sure.

Thanks for the stimulating post, and thanks to the contributors to the other thread.

Stephen

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Samson wrote:

I do not think one should be able to use another person's likeness without their consent . . . .

end quote

I intuitively agree but what sort of legal action could or should be taken? In the case of invasion of privacy, as with a Peeping Tom or the misuse of your personal photos, it could be viewed as an emergency situation and you would be justified imho in whacking a mole.

I think that even over public photos as with a surveillance camera a person has a smaller right to privacy beyond simply asking the photo taker to be professional. Like libel, the misuse of a public image for the viewer's personal gain can be construed as a wrong.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think that the attempt to reduce everything to property rights is a perversion. Regardless, property rights are the very cornerstone of liberty.

In the Middle Ages (a period everyone who wants to truly understand the modern world should study) the lords owned a great deal of property and they had the right to own property, What they lacked was the right to possession. A lord could not use his land for just about any purpose he might wish like land-owner could today. The right of possession (that is, the right to decide how that property could be used) was still held jointly among the lords (often times a lord's estate would be spread over the domain of other lords, forming a complicated network of vassalage), the clergy, and the peasants. Basically, if you wanted to build a windmill on your land say, you could be overruled by the peasants.

Eventually, the lords and their king were able to cooperate with each other to exclude the clergy and the peasants from having any right of possession over their property. Certain rights of possession, such as the right to levy a tax, were given to the king, hence his bureacracy, hence the fledgeling nation-state. Most others were retained by the lords. And this is the origin of our modern notions of private property. You can have the right to own and use property as you see fit (within certain legal limits), but you don't have the right not to be taxed. This is why taxation is not incompatible with property rights.

Modern accounts of the absolute sanctity of property rights are ahistorical enlightenment fictions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think that the attempt to reduce everything to property rights is a perversion. Regardless, property rights are the very cornerstone of liberty.

In the Middle Ages (a period everyone who wants to truly understand the modern world should study) the lords owned a great deal of property and they had the right to own property, What they lacked was the right to possession. A lord could not use his land for just about any purpose he might wish like land-owner could today. The right of possession (that is, the right to decide how that property could be used) was still held jointly among the lords (often times a lord's estate would be spread over the domain of other lords, forming a complicated network of vassalage), the clergy, and the peasants. Basically, if you wanted to build a windmill on your land say, you could be overruled by the peasants.

Eventually, the lords and their king were able to cooperate with each other to exclude the clergy and the peasants from having any right of possession over their property. Certain rights of possession, such as the right to levy a tax, were given to the king, hence his bureacracy, hence the fledgeling nation-state. Most others were retained by the lords. And this is the origin of our modern notions of private property. You can have the right to own and use property as you see fit (within certain legal limits), but you don't have the right not to be taxed. This is why taxation is not incompatible with property rights.

Modern accounts of the absolute sanctity of property rights are ahistorical enlightenment fictions.

As rights are a human invention one can invent all sorts of arbitrary rights such as "the right to tax." These are arbitrary for they aren't based on the human organism--"natural"--but the political, state apologetic, as above, replacing render unto God and Caesar with render unto Caesar and Caesar's subjects. Not an improvement in theory, for while flowers may grow in shit it doesn't mean they won't do better in something else--and that's just pragmatism.

--Brant

where has the morality gone?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can have the right to own and use property as you see fit (within certain legal limits), but you don't have the right not to be taxed.

Fair enough.

I own a home in Fisherville.

I begin to add a stable on my property, you as the head of the city planning commission and building department send me a letter which lists the legal limits:

What are they Commissioner?

1____________________________

2____________________________

3____________________________

A...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can have the right to own and use property as you see fit (within certain legal limits), but you don't have the right not to be taxed.

Fair enough.

I own a home in Fisherville.

I begin to add a stable on my property, you as the head of the city planning commission and building department send me a letter which lists the legal limits:

What are they Commissioner?

1____________________________

2____________________________

3____________________________

A...

1. This is a residential zone and you can't build a stable on your property.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can have the right to own and use property as you see fit (within certain legal limits), but you don't have the right not to be taxed.

Fair enough.

I own a home in Fisherville.

I begin to add a stable on my property, you as the head of the city planning commission and building department send me a letter which lists the legal limits:

What are they Commissioner?

1____________________________

2____________________________

3____________________________

A...

1. This is a residential zone and you can't build a stable on your property.

Excuse me, the stable is a playhouse for my daughter and her pony.

I started construction today.

A...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

--Brant

where has the morality gone?

Right. Where?

Like Israel and Hamas arguing over blockades etc., there is also reversal of cause and effect with individual rights. Rights (like the blockade) are a consequence, not a cause.

One is not moral because one observes others' rights, one observes others' rights because one is moral.

Not because it is punishable by law to do otherwise; not even because respect for rights would -perhaps- cause others to respect one's own (reciprocity).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can have the right to own and use property as you see fit (within certain legal limits), but you don't have the right not to be taxed.

Fair enough.

I own a home in Fisherville.

I begin to add a stable on my property, you as the head of the city planning commission and building department send me a letter which lists the legal limits:

What are they Commissioner?

1____________________________

2____________________________

3____________________________

A...

1. This is a residential zone and you can't build a stable on your property.

Excuse me, the stable is a playhouse for my daughter and her pony.

I started construction today.

A...

Fisherville

City Planning Commission

and Building Department

Dear Commissioner:

The stable playhouse has been a huge success.

We will be creating a natural pond about one hundred feet south east of the stable playhouse.

Adjacent to the pond, by the stone walkway bridge, will be a windmill.

Construction begins the week after Labor Day.

A...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yo, Gary...

Are you abandoning this "pretend" game that you are so fond of?

A...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yo, Gary...

Are you abandoning this "pretend" game that you are so fond of?

A...

I don't see the point, really. But to play along, I could just order you to take down whatever you're building, and if you refuse, summon you to court.

What would you state as your cause of action in your complaint?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So I can do what I want with my property as long as I get your permission.

Got it.

A...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I understand that he is a statist.

A...

that is a lot - it is a very dangerous world out there and accidents happen

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Adam wrote:

So I can do what I want with my property as long as I get your permission. Got it.

end quote

Gary Fisher responded:

You can do whatever you want with your property so long as you're not breaking the law.

end quote

Not bad, Adam and Gary, but shouldnt sarcasm be more subtle?

"What Is Capitalism?" Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, pg. 19.

The right to agree with others is not a problem in any society; it is the right to disagree that is crucial. It is the institution of private property that protects and implements the right to disagreeand thus keeps the road open to man's most valuable attribute (valuable personally, socially, and objectively): the creative mind.

end quote

Objectivism is contextual. Rand said that was the case. It is not unchanging. Its politics gives us the framework of a government. Clearly, for Ayn Rand the U.S. Constitution is a less than perfect example of her philosophy fleshed out. Yet the US has the best Constitution and is the best country she knew of.

She has died and will not be writing any more or amending her past writings to a changing world. The Constitution HAS changed. It has been amended. It may be amended again. Therefore, Rand's political *example* is changing, though her philosophy may be in opposition to some of those changes, and interpretations by the Supreme Court.

However, there is more to the issue of *property rights* than the flat-out "Objectively sounding" statement: "You may do as you please on your property as long as you do not initiate force to violate my rights." The problem becomes, just what is the initiation of force?

Pollution of course. Noise pollution? Define that. An eyesore perhaps. Blocking the flow of water, of course. Blocking the view well,I will say YES, but that needs to be defined.

Peter

Notes:

The Antidote for Zoning: Bringing Objectivity to the Land Development Process by David Wilens:

"Coming to the Nuisance" means exactly what it sounds like: if a property owner is using his property so as to cause a nuisance to another property owner, then the property owner who was the earlier to start his particular use is the one who has the right to continue his use . . .

Because the right to property means the right to use it indefinitely, it follows that, once a property owner has started using his property in a particular fashion, he has the right to stop others from interfering with that particular use. This is the rationale behind the Coming to the Nuisance doctrine's requirement that, when uses of two properties conflict with each other, the use which has priority is the one started first, and the owner has the right to stop others from interfering with this prior use (the "first in time, first in right" rule).

Since the right to property necessarily implies the right to use it indefinitely, and since the right to use property indefinitely implies the first in time, first in right rule, it follows that respecting property rights ultimately means respecting the Coming to the Nuisance doctrine too. The two are inseparable.

end quote

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So I can do what I want with my property as long as I get your permission.

Got it.

A...

You can do whatever you want with your property so long as you're not breaking the law.

Peter:

I built a stable on my property as a playhouse for my daughter.

Fishervilless planning and buildings commissioner said I am violating his law because it is not zonedd commercially.

I am not running a business from that stable.

A...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Objectivism is contextual. Rand said that was the case. It is not unchanging.

Whoa! I think you want to be a little careful here. Objectivism has contextual components --- see, for example, Rand's theory of knowledge --- but that doesn't mean her philosophy changes with the breeze.

Objectivism is meant to be a theory based on universal and timeless truths about man's nature. In that sense, it is unchanging. It may be revised or expanded if things about it are determined to be incorrect or incomplete, but it is not supposed to be constantly in flux any more than the laws of physics are in flux.

Darrell

Edited by Darrell Hougen
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now