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LIBERTARIANISM WITHOUT SELF-OWNERSHIP

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2020

Chandran Kukathas
Chandran Kukathas*
Affiliation:
School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University
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Abstract:

Libertarianism is a political philosophy whose defenders have set its foundations in the principle of self-ownership. But self-ownership supplies an uncertain basis for such a theory as it is prone to a number of serious difficulties, some of which have been addressed by libertarians but none of which can ultimately be overcome. For libertarianism to be a plausible way of looking at the world, it must look elsewhere for its basic principles. In particular, it needs to rethink the way it understands property and its foundations.

Keywords

self-ownershiplibertarianismnonaggressionpropertyanarchismMaboNozickRothbardstateredistribution
Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , Winter 2019 , pp. 71 - 93
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 2020 

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References

1 Andrew Koppelman’s forthcoming book-length critique of libertarianism includes Hayek as a libertarian.

2 It is important to note that John Locke did not consider human beings to be self-owners, since they were, if anything, owned by God. Perhaps this is why he said “I have a property in my person.” See John Locke, Second Treatise of Government. What property we have in our persons is enjoyed by God’s grace, and that property right is not absolute but highly circumscribed inasmuch as we are obligated to care for our persons as God would expect. We certainly do not have the right to abuse or destroy what God has created.

3 Rothbard, Murray, The Ethics of Liberty (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1982), chap. 6.Google Scholar

4 Ibid., chap. 8.

5 Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974).Google Scholar Nozick’s famous opening line asserts that that there are such (natural) rights, though unlike Rothbard he famously offers no reasons why we should think they do.

6 See in particular Steiner, Hillel, An Essay on Rights (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994);Google Scholar Otsuka, Michael, Libertarianism Without Inequality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).Google Scholar

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8 Honoré, Anthony, “Ownership,” in Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence, ed. Guest, A. G. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961), 107–147.Google Scholar

9 Vallentyne, Peter, “Critical Notice of G. A. Cohen, Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 28 (1998): 611.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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11 Ibid., 202.

12 Ibid., 202.

13 Ibid., 204.

14 Ibid., 204. Italics added.

15 See for example Sobel, David, “Backing Away from Libertarian Self-Ownership,” Ethics 123, no. 1 (2012): 32–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Fried, Barbara H., “Left-Libertarianism: A Review Essay,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 32, no. 1(2004): 78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Fried, “Left-Libertarianism,” 78.

18 Vallentyne, Steiner, Otsuka, “Reply to Fried,” 203.

19 Ibid., 205.

20 Ibid., 206.

21 Fried, Barbara H., “Left-Libertarianism, Once More,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 33, no. 2 (2005): 216–22, at 217–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 Vallentyne, Steiner, Otsuka, “Reply to Fried,” 207.

23 See in particular David Sobel, “Backing Away from Libertarian Self-Ownership,” 32–60.

24 Vallentyne, Steiner, Otsuka, “Reply to Fried,” 207–8.

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27 Lomasky, Loren E., Persons, Rights, and the Moral Community (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).Google Scholar

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31 Mill, On Liberty, 611.

32 John Simmons, A., Justification and Legitimacy: Essays on Rights and Obligations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000),CrossRefGoogle Scholar especially chaps. 6 and 7. I do not, however, share Simmons’s Lockean starting point.

33 The invisible hand justification of the state is offered by Robert Nozick. For my skeptical appraisal of a part of his argument see “E Pluribus Plurum, or, How To Fail To Get to Utopia in Spite of Really Trying,” in Bader, Ralf M. and Meadowcroft, John, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 289–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 In this regard I am sympathetic to the arguments advanced by Leslie Green in The Authority of the State (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988)—though he rejects philosophical anarchism as an implication of his view.

35 On this see Oldenberg, Veena Talwar, Dowry Murder (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).Google Scholar

36 See especially Vitoria’s lectures “On the Indians” and “Dietary Laws,” in Political Writings, ed. Fontana, Biancamaria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 19).Google Scholar

37 See, for example, Singer, Peter, The President of Good and Evil: The Ethics of George W. Bush (New York: Dutton, 2004);Google Scholar Murphy, Liam and Nagel, Thomas, The Myth of Ownership: Taxes and Justice (New York, Oxford University Press, 2004). For a critique of Murphy and Nagel seeGoogle Scholar Brennan, Geoffrey, “‘The Myth of Ownership’ Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel: A Review Essay,” Constitutional Political Economy 16 (2005), 207–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 This is perhaps the thought that lies behind Nozick’s discussion of utopia in Part III of Anarchy, State and Utopia. This is not to suggest that libertarians are not sympathetic to market societies but rather that the primary commitment is to nonaggression and, so, respect for the conventions of property by which people live. This is not incompatible with an appreciation of markets both for their economic productivity and their civilizing qualities.

39 I have treated this issue in more detail in Kukathas, “Two Constructions of Libertarianism,” in Libertarian Papers 1, no. 11 (2009), 1–13. See more generally my The Liberal Archipelago: A Theory of Diversity and Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), esp. chap. 4.

40 I have tried to offer a fuller analysis in “A Definition of the State,” University of Queensland Law Journal 33, no. 2 (2014): 357–66.

41 Creveld, Van, The Rise and Decline of the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 52–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42 See Tilly, Charles, “Reflections on the History of European State Making” in Tilly, Charles, ed., The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), 51.Google Scholar

43 Tilly, Charles, “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime,” in Evans, Peter, Ruefemeyer, Dietrich, and Skocpol, Theda, eds., Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 169–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 For an interesting analysis see Olson, Mancur, Power and Prosperity: Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorships (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).Google Scholar Olson argues that the move from anarchy to civilized life involves a move from rule by “roving bandits,” whose incentive is to steal and destroy, to “stationary bandits,” who try to protect society from roving bandits in order to encourage the production of wealth—which, as the holders of power, they would be able to exploit.

45 The libertarian political thinker who has explored this view most fully is Anthony de Jasay in The State (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2017 [1985]).

46 See Olson, Mancur, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965).Google Scholar

47 For a defense of constitutional reform see the works of James Buchanan. On basic income see Friedman, Milton, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002); and, more recently,CrossRefGoogle Scholar Murray, Charles, In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute Press, 2016).Google Scholar

48 Some would say not the liberal but the republican state, but my quarrel here is with both of these viewpoints. See for example, Pettit, Philip, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).Google Scholar