scholarly journals A DEFENSE OF HUMEAN PROPERTY THEORY

Legal Theory ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Ira K. Lindsay
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Social Cooperation ◽  
Scarce Resources ◽  
Moral Claims ◽  
Humean Theory

ABSTRACT Two rival approaches to property rights dominate contemporary political philosophy: Lockean natural rights and egalitarian theories of distributive justice. This article defends a third approach, which can be traced to the work of David Hume. Unlike Lockean rights, Humean property rights are not grounded in pre-institutional moral entitlements. In contrast to the egalitarian approach, which begins with highly abstract principles of distributive justice, Humean theory starts with simple property conventions and shows how more complex institutions can be justified against a background of settled property rights. Property rights allow people to coordinate their use of scarce resources. For property rules to serve this function effectively, certain questions must be considered settled. Treating existing property entitlements as having prima facie validity facilitates cooperation between people who disagree about distributive justice. Lockean and egalitarian theories endorse moral claims that threaten to unsettle property conventions and undermine social cooperation.

The Truth in Political Realism

2020 ◽  
pp. 68-121
Author(s):  
Charles Larmore
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Social Cooperation ◽  
Political Realism ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Primary Object

This chapter analyzes groups that follow different moral or religious traditions that generally have their own internal controversies, such as conflicts in the absence of laws to handle them and render social cooperation difficult or even impossible. It also explains why political philosophy is not properly a province of moral philosophy. It talks about the fundamental task in determining the kind of political order that can justifiably impose authoritative rules for handling the major conflicts in society. The chapter also clarifies why legitimacy and not distributive justice should be the primary object of political philosophy. For legitimacy is involved with the conditions under which enforceable rules may be justifiably imposed on the members of a society.

Distributive Justice and the Tensions of Lockeanism

1983 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Mack
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Individual Property ◽  
Private Property Rights ◽  
Personal Nature ◽  
The Right ◽  
Time And Energy

An ongoing tension exists within the Lockean tradition in political philosophy between the claim that each individual is the “Proprietor of his own Person” and the claim that nature is “that which God gave to Mankind in common.” The former claim points to a realm of discrete individual entitlements only formally equal in the sense of each individual having jurisdiction over his own person and not over any other person, while the latter points either to a collective entitlement to nature or to individual entitlements to substantively equal shares of nature. Were the two realms, that of persons and that of extra-personal nature, separate and independent, no tension would arise from the union of these two claims. But the realms are manifestly interconnected. Individuals acquire, use, labor upon, invest their time and energy on, and transform, more or less in accordance with their purposes, elements of extra-personal nature. And Locke and his followers believe that at least certain of these interactions with segments of nature give rise to individual property rights to the segments thereby appropriated, labored upon, transformed, or whatever. The traditional bridging notion is each person's right to his own labor which is seen as part of each person's proprietorship over himself. According to this tradition, if the right of each individual over his own person is to be respected, individual titles to appropriated, labored upon, or transformed nature must also be respected.The task for anyone seeking to embrace all the strands within this Lockean heritage is to reconcile, a) this right to one's own labor and the (or some) system of private property rights tied to it (which system will include historical entitlement principles for legitimating later property configurations) plus the right of self-ownership (or some equivalent) which lies behind the right to one's own labor, with b) some distributionist ideal, at least with regard to natural resources.

scholarly journals Contemporary Liberal Concepts of Property

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 87-111
Author(s):  
Dariusz Juruś
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
The State ◽  
Bundle Theory ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Production And Distribution

The author presents the assumptions which form the bedrock of modern liberal property theories. It refers to the conceptions of John Christman, James O. Grunebaum, Lawrence Becker, Stephen R. Munzer and Jeremy Waldron. All these philosophers have devoted separate monographs to the problems of ownership and their works seem representative of the entire liberal current in contemporary political philosophy. This paper does not provide a detailed analysis of the authors’ views on property, but focuses on the elements that these theories share. These are: (1) the bundle theory of property rights; (2) the priority of distributive justice over ownership; (3) the belief that labour is not a property entitlement; (4) the assumption about the separation of production and distribution; (e) the belief in the redistributive role of the state.

scholarly journals Zur Kritik der libertären Eigentumskonzeption

1981 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Koller
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
The State ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Entitlement Theory

AbstractNozick’s entitlement theory of justice is, besides Rawls’s theory, one of the most widely discussed and intellectually most attractive conceptions within the field of contemporary political philosophy. Nozick’s theory uses Locke's conception of the state of nature and of natural rights, and tries, starting from this point of view, to deliver a comprehensive systematisation of libertarian political ideals. This essay deals mainly with Nozick’s conception of property rights. The argument is put forward that the concept of exclusive and unrestrictable ownership of which Nozick makes use, doesn’t find any acceptable justification on the basis of his theory.

The Social and Institutional Bases of Distributive Justice

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Freeman
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Social Cooperation ◽  
Economic Production ◽  
Political Cooperation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
Trade And Exchange ◽  
Cooperative Institutions

This chapter argues that distributive justice is institutionally based. Certain cooperative institutions are basic: they are necessary for economic production and the division of labor, trade and exchange, and distribution and consumption. These background institutions presuppose principles of justice to specify their terms, allocate productive resources, and define fair distributions. Primary among these basic institutions are property; laws and conventions enabling transfers of goods and productive resources; and the legal system of contract and agreements that make transfers possible and productive. Political institutions are necessary to specify, interpret, enforce, and make effective the terms of these institutions. Thus, basic cooperative institutions are social; they are realizable only within the context of social and political cooperation—this is a fixed empirical fact about cooperation among free and equal persons. Given the nature of fair social cooperation as a kind of reciprocity, distributive justice is primarily social rather than global in reach.

Politics and Kingship in the Historical Books, with Attention to the Role of Political Theory in Interpretation

2020 ◽  
pp. 186-200
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Parsons Miller
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Political Organizations ◽  
Abstract Ideas ◽  
Theological Message

This chapter explores the thesis that the historical narratives of the Hebrew Bible address abstract ideas about politics, government, and law. Taking issue with critics who view the Bible’s spiritual and theological message as incommensurable with political philosophy, the chapter argues that the stories of politics and kingship in the Hebrew Bible’s historical books set forth set forth an impressive political theory that rivals, in some respects, the work of Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek thinkers. The key is to bring out the general ideas behind the specific narrative elements. The chapter illustrates this thesis by examining the Hebrew Bible’s treatment of a number of classic problems of political theory: anarchy, obligation and sovereignty, distributive justice, and the comparative analysis of political organizations.

Cambridge Philosophers VI: Henry Sidgwick

Philosophy ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 71 (277) ◽  
pp. 423-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Philosophy Department ◽  
Henry Sidgwick ◽  
Local Opposition ◽  
Humean Theory

The philosophy department in Edinburgh is in David Hume tower; the philosophy faculty at Cambridge is in Sidgwick Avenue. In one way, no competition. Everybody (who's anybody) has heard of Hume, whereas even the anybody who's anybody may not have heard of Sidgwick. Yet in another way, Sidgwick wins this arcane contest. For if David Hume, contradicting the Humean theory of personal identity, were to return to Edinburgh, he would not recognize the tower. Whereas, if someone with more success in rearousing spirits than Sidgwick himself had could now produce him, Sidgwick would know the avenue. For he planned it; he partially paid for it; and he pushed it past the local opposition. He was its creator. And creator not just of the avenue: if Sidgwick is not quite the only begetter, it was he more than anyone who was responsible for building the school of philosophy in Cambridge which is being celebrated in this series of articles.

Hobbes's Political Philosophy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.P. Martinich
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Literal Meaning ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
New Science ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Apparent Conflict

Hobbes’s Political Philosophy: Interpretation and Interpretations extends a position first explained in The Two Gods of Leviathan (1992). Hobbes presented what he believed would be a science of politics, a set of timeless truths grounded in definitions. In chapters on the laws of nature, authorization and representation, sovereignty by acquisition, and others, the author explains this science of politics. In addition to the timeless science, Hobbes had two timebound projects: (1) to eliminate the apparent conflict between the new science of Copernicus and Galileo and traditional Christian doctrine, and (2) to show that Christianity, correctly understood, is not politically destabilizing. The strategy for accomplishing (1) was to distinguish science from religion and to understand Christianity as essentially belief in the literal meaning of the Bible. The strategy for accomplishing (2) was to appeal to biblical teachings such as “Servants, obey your masters,” and “All authority comes from God.” Criticisms of the author’s interpretations are the occasion for (a) fleshing out Hobbes’s historical context and (b) describing the nature of interpretation in dialogue with opposing interpretations by scholars such as Jeffrey Collins, Edwin Curley, John Deigh, and Quentin Skinner. Interpretation is updating one’s network of beliefs in order to re-establish an equilibrium upset by a text. Interpretations may be judged according to prima facie properties of good interpretations such as completeness, consistency, simplicity, generality, palpability, and defensibility.

Kant’s Naturrecht Feyerabend, Achenwall and the Role of the State

Kant Yearbook ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-71
Author(s):  
Mike L. Gregory
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Sustained Attention ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Law System ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
The Will ◽  
Subjective Rights

Abstract Kant’s Naturrecht Feyerabend has recently gained more sustained attention for its role in clarifying Kant’s published positions in political philosophy. However, too little attention has been given to the lecture’s relation to Gottfried Achenwall, whose book was the textbook for the course. In this paper, I will examine how Kant rejected and transforms Achenwall’s natural law system in the Feyerabend Lectures. Specifically, I will argue that Kant problematizes Achenwall’s foundational notion of a divine juridical state which opens up a normative gap between objective law (prohibitions, prescriptions and permissions) and subjective rights (moral capacities). In the absence of a divine sovereign, formal natural law is unable to justify subjective natural rights in the state of nature. In the Feyerabend Lectures, Kant, in order to close this gap, replaces the divine will with the “will of society”, making the state necessary for the possibility of rights.

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