Implications

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl Widerquist ◽  
Grant S. McCall
Keyword(s):  
Property Rights ◽  
The State ◽  
Natural Property ◽  
Government Failure ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Best Response ◽  
Lockean Proviso ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Taking Action ◽  
Disadvantaged People

Earlier chapters of this book found that the Hobbesian hypothesis is false; the Lockean proviso is unfulfilled; contemporary states and property rights systems fail to meet the standard that social contract and natural property rights theories require for their justification. This chapter assesses the implications of those findings for the two theories. Section 1 argues that, whether contractarians accept or reject these findings, they need to clarify their argument to remove equivocation. Section 2 invites efforts to refute this book’s empirical findings. Section 3 discusses a response open only to property rights theorists: concede this book’s empirical findings and blame government failure. Section 4 considers the argument that this book misidentifies the state of nature. Section 5 considers a “bracketing strategy,” which admits that observed stateless societies fit the definition of the state of nature, but argues that they are not the relevant forms of statelessness today. Section 6 discusses the implications of accepting both the truth and relevance of the book’s findings, concluding that the best response is to fulfil the Lockean proviso by taking action to improve the lives of disadvantaged people.

scholarly journals From Social Recognition of Property to Political Recognition by the State

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-300
Author(s):  
Christopher Serkin
Keyword(s):  
Property Rights ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Recognition ◽  
Regulatory State ◽  
Constitutional Protection ◽  
Positive Law ◽  
Regulatory Strategies ◽  
Core Property ◽  
Takings Clause ◽  
Definition Of

Gerhart’s book makes real contributions and nicely incorporates doctrinal payoffs. It sells short, however, the distributional concerns embedded in core property doctrines and so does not entirely account for the extent to which positive law can and does diverge from social recognition. It therefore admits constitutional protection for property that is too parsimonious, and that also does not embrace the full complexity of the relationship between property and the State. This short response argues that positive property rights—especially in a modern regulatory state—are inherently redistributive. When the State has a choice between different regulatory strategies for achieving public goals, constitutional limits like the Takings Clause should not rely on formal categories but must instead account explicitly for distributive concerns. At the end of the day, the State is an active, not passive, player in the definition of property rights, a role that comes with both constitutional limitations and requirements.

The Hobbesian Hypothesis: How a Colonial Prejudice Became an Essential Premise in the Most Popular Justification of Government

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl Widerquist ◽  
Grant S. McCall
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Contract Theory ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Social Contract Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Moral Standard ◽  
Empirical Claim ◽  
Lockean Proviso ◽  
Disadvantaged People

This chapter introduces the role of “the Hobbesian hypothesis” in social contract theory by discussing how Thomas Hobbes introduced it. It defines the version of “the Lockean proviso” relevant to social contract theory as the following moral standard: for a state to be justified virtually everyone must be better off under the state than they could reasonably expect to be in any stateless environment. The chapter defines the contractarian version of “the Hobbesian hypothesis” as the empirical claim that the Lockean proviso is fulfilled by the state: the state benefits everyone or at least everyone who prefers safety to a perilous environment devoid of security. The chapter argues that any plausible justification of existing states drawn from broadly Hobbesian or contractarian principles relies on this hypothesis as an empirical premise comparing the welfare of disadvantaged people in state society and people in stateless societies.

The provisionality of property rights in Kant's Doctrine of Right

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 850-876 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafeeq Hasan
Keyword(s):  
Property Rights ◽  
Institutional Context ◽  
The State ◽  
State Of Nature

AbstractI criticize two ways of interpreting Kant's claim that property rights are merely ‘provisional’ in the state of nature. Weak provisionality holds that in the state of nature agents can make rightful claims to property. What is lacking is the institutional context necessary to render their claims secure. By contrast, strong provisionality holds that making property claims in the state of nature wrongs others. I argue for a third view, anticipatory provisionality, according to which state of nature property claims do not wrong others, but anticipate a condition in which the authority to make such claims can no longer be unilaterally determined.

Myths about the State of Nature and the Reality of Stateless Societies

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl Widerquist ◽  
Grant McCall
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Empirical Claim ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
State Authority ◽  
Disadvantaged People

AbstractThis article argues the following points. The Hobbesian hypothesis, which we define as the claim that all people are better off under state authority than they would be outside of it, is an empirical claim about all stateless societies. It is an essential premise in most contractarian justifications of government sovereignty. Many small- scale societies are stateless. Anthropological evidence from them provides sufficient reason to doubt the truth of the hypothesis, if not to reject it entirely. Therefore, contractarian theory has not done what it claims to do: it has not justified state sovereignty to each person subject to it by demonstrating that they benefit from that authority. To be justified in contractarian terms, states have to do something to improve the living standards of disadvantaged people under their rule.

What we own Before Property: Hugo Grotius and the Suum

Grotiana ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandra Mancilla
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Current Discussion ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Modern Natural ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
Scholarly Attention

At the basis of modern natural law theories, the concept of the suum, i.e. what belongs to the person (in Latin, his, her, its, their own), has received little scholarly attention despite its importance both in explaining and justifying not only the genealogy of property, but also that of morality and war. In this essay I focus on Grotius’s account of the suum and examine what it is, what things it includes, what rights it gives rise to, and how it is extended in the transition from the state of nature to civil society. I then briefly suggest that reviving this concept could help to illuminate the current discussion on the foundations of basic human rights, and to re-evaluate cases where these seem to clash with property rights.

Kant on Property Rights and the State

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis-Philippe Hodgson
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Rational Agents ◽  
State Legitimacy ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Civil Condition ◽  
Central Claim

The central claim of Kant's political philosophy is that rational agents sharing a territory can justifiably be forced to live under a state; they have, in Kant's words, a duty of right to leave the state of nature. Perhaps something along these lines is entailed by any theory of state legitimacy, but the point raises special difficulties for Kant. He believes that rational agents have a right to freedom; that is, he believes that a rational agent's external freedom - her ability to set and pursue ends for herself without being subject to the choices of others - can justifiably be restricted only for the sake of external freedom itself. To establish that human beings can be forced to join a civil condition, it will therefore not do to show that the state promotes security, prosperity or any other such value: Kant has to show that human beings living side by side need a state to be free.

The Modern Constitutional Mode of Government

2020 ◽  
pp. 87-106
Author(s):  
Jean-Philippe Robé
Keyword(s):  
Property Rights ◽  
Private Property ◽  
The State ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Private Property Rights ◽  
Constitutional Order ◽  
Definition Of

The notions of State and of the « Organs of the State » are explained in some details to distinguish their prerogatives from private prerogatives. Private property, in this respect, grants autonomy from the « Organs of the State ». It is part of the constitutional prerogatives protecting private persons against excessive public governmental encroachments. It is part of a constitutional order which combines both democracy and distrust for democracy, by limiting the prerogatives of the Organs of the State. The approach developed proposes a unitary view of the Constitution as providing for both public and private prerogatives, the first ones being exercised by Organs of the State and the second ones by legal persons which are not Organs of the State. Public and private prerogatives operate via fundamentally different rules, private property rights entitling their holders to exercise their prerogatives in a despotic manner, i.e. they can do what they want with what they have without the need to take anybody’s advice or authorization - which is the definition of despotism.

scholarly journals Is life in the state of nature solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short?

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 41-78
Author(s):  
Igor Zivanovic
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
The State ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Basic Assumptions ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
New Information ◽  
State Apparatus

In this paper I intend to question Hobbes?s well known claim that the life in the state of nature is ?solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short?. Without leaving the framework of Hobbes?s materialism, naturalism and individualism, then starting from the basic assumptions about human nature, I?ll try to show that life in the state of nature would be far different from how it was described by Hobbes. To achieve that I will try to show that the basic Hobbes?s assumptions about human nature are too rigid and not entirely factually based, though Hobbes insists that they are. For this reason, I believe they are only partially justified. In accordance with the Hobbesian naturalism some of the basic assumptions about human nature are reexamined and amended with new information obtained in the natural and social sciences, from biology to economics. On the basis of similar findings, some of the underlying assumptions regarding Hobbes?s conception of the state of nature as an ongoing conflict have been dropped. In the final part of the paper Hobbesian views on property and property rights in the state of nature have been critically evaluated. The implication of these analyses is that the Hobbesian individuals wouldn?t choose to constitute the overwhelming state apparatus.

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.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document