Self-ownership

[Eleanor Ritas]

Therefore there will people who are alive, but not are not able to exercise the rights you list.

By your position, they are alive, people, individuals, humans, etc, but not all can exercise the rights that are afforded thereto. Thus the condition of "self ownership" as you describe does not always provide those rights or the capacity to exercise them in such way that it would be meaningful to have them.

Which rights do you have in mind? A natural right is a negative right or negative liberty that you have naturally by virtue of being born with a mind and a body. Negative rights imply inaction, and not action, so you could be in a vegetative state and still have natural rights.

I am referring to the range of rights you defined as being afforded to one with Self Ownership. I'm sorry if I didn't explain that in a way that would be clear to a reader.

You mentioned things like freedom of expression, movement, bodily sovereignty, etc. But to a person whose capacity to express, move, care for and maintain their body, etc, is diminished materially for some reason, they cannot exercise those rights and so are effectively denied them. If their condition is of sufficient severity, they may be unable to benefit from their own labor (being unable to labor), and are thus denied a central right.

Thus, they do not have or are denied the exercise of a number of rights, yet they are still alive and people.

[Arkolon]

Which rights do you have in mind? A natural right is a negative right or negative liberty that you have naturally by virtue of being born with a mind and a body. Negative rights imply inaction, and not action, so you could be in a vegetative state and still have natural rights.

I am referring to the range of rights you defined as being afforded to one with Self Ownership. I'm sorry if I didn't explain that in a way that would be clear to a reader.

Freedom of speech means that if you say something, no one ought to suppress your speech. Being mute does not breach your freedom of expression. Which right specifically, I meant, were you thinking of when you wrote that?

You mentioned things like freedom of expression, movement, bodily sovereignty, etc. But to a person whose capacity to express, move, care for and maintain their body, etc, is diminished materially for some reason, they cannot exercise those rights and so are effectively denied them.

Natural rights imply inaction, not action. I suggest you read up on negative rights and negative liberties and their stark contrast with their positive counterparts.

If their condition is of sufficient severity, they may be unable to benefit from their own labor (being unable to labor), and are thus denied a central right.

Right to accumulate property =/= being granted property. No right is being contravened.

Thus, they do not have or are denied the exercise of a number of rights, yet they are still alive and people.

They have not been denied any rights. You do know what a right is in this context, right?

[Eleanor Ritas]

I am referring to the range of rights you defined as being afforded to one with Self Ownership. I'm sorry if I didn't explain that in a way that would be clear to a reader.

Freedom of speech means that if you say something, no one ought to suppress your speech. Being mute does not breach your freedom of expression. Which right specifically, I meant, were you thinking of when you wrote that?

You mentioned things like freedom of expression, movement, bodily sovereignty, etc. But to a person whose capacity to express, move, care for and maintain their body, etc, is diminished materially for some reason, they cannot exercise those rights and so are effectively denied them.

Natural rights imply inaction, not action. I suggest you read up on negative rights and negative liberties and their stark contrast with their positive counterparts.

If their condition is of sufficient severity, they may be unable to benefit from their own labor (being unable to labor), and are thus denied a central right.

Right to accumulate property =/= being granted property. No right is being contravened.

Thus, they do not have or are denied the exercise of a number of rights, yet they are still alive and people.

They have not been denied any rights. You do know what a right is in this context, right?

Ah, so all the rights in question would allow a crippled helpless person to starve to death on the streets if nobody else chose to voluntarily help them?

I see now the distinction and why it is so important. It says a great deal about your view of rights.

Thus, we can pronounce of the dying cripple, "we did not contravene his rights, he owned himself!" ....until he died, and then did not own himself, being dead, but by then there is none to complain.

"Natural rights". What a pretty phrase for it.

[Arkolon]

Ah, so all the rights in question would allow a crippled helpless person to starve to death on the streets if nobody else chose to voluntarily help them?

No one would be forced to help them, if that's what you mean.

I see now the distinction and why it is so important. It says a great deal about your view of rights.

Definitely.

Thus, we can pronounce of the dying cripple, "we did not contravene his rights, he owned himself!" ....until he died, and then did not own himself, being dead, but by then there is none to complain.

No one would be forced to help the man. People could very well if they wanted to.

"Natural rights". What a pretty phrase for it.

I don't think you actually understand what they are, though.

[Eleanor Ritas]

Ah, so all the rights in question would allow a crippled helpless person to starve to death on the streets if nobody else chose to voluntarily help them?

No one would be forced to help them, if that's what you mean.

I see now the distinction and why it is so important. It says a great deal about your view of rights.

Definitely.

Thus, we can pronounce of the dying cripple, "we did not contravene his rights, he owned himself!" ....until he died, and then did not own himself, being dead, but by then there is none to complain.

No one would be forced to help the man. People could very well if they wanted to.

"Natural rights". What a pretty phrase for it.

I don't think you actually understand what they are, though.

I believe you have aptly illustrated for me what they are. They are a philosophically elegant way to justify watching another human die in pain and need and isolation and terror, because you can justly and rigorously say "What's mine is mine."

Now, you never answered my question. The species I describe above, could it exist? Would it's specimens be "alive"? Would they be alive but not individuals?

[Arkolon]

No one would be forced to help them, if that's what you mean.


Definitely.


No one would be forced to help the man. People could very well if they wanted to.


I don't think you actually understand what they are, though.

I believe you have aptly illustrated for me what they are. They are a philosophically elegant way to justify watching another human die in pain and need and isolation and terror, because you can justly and rigorously say "What's mine is mine."

It is showing the injustice in coercion, nothing else.

Now, you never answered my question. The species I describe above, could it exist? Would it's specimens be "alive"? Would they be alive but not individuals?

If it has a mind and a body then it is alive and it owns itself. If it does not own itself, it is not alive.

[Eleanor Ritas]

I believe you have aptly illustrated for me what they are. They are a philosophically elegant way to justify watching another human die in pain and need and isolation and terror, because you can justly and rigorously say "What's mine is mine."

It is showing the injustice in coercion, nothing else.

Now, you never answered my question. The species I describe above, could it exist? Would it's specimens be "alive"? Would they be alive but not individuals?

If it has a mind and a body then it is alive and it owns itself. If it does not own itself, it is not alive.

People so readily constrain "coercion" to what they object to, but there are so many coercions, economic, interpersonal, psychological, and not all can choose soundly nor enact their choices soundly, and so they are unable to exercise a right.

Being unable to exercise a right takes it from someone no less completely than to remove it than by lengthy philosophical exercise or overt coercion. Again, phrase it as righteously as you need to, but your construct very directly and clearly justifies letting the crippled helpless human die because "nobody can make me help him, my stuff is mine". One can voice it more elaborately and nobly, but that's what it says.

As for the species, you did read the description? Their sense of "self" is that to be alive they need bodies, their bodies survive much better with group cooperation, and so they cooperate as a group that sustains all their bodies and thereby their minds. Therefore, to the extent having mind and body satisfies a state of being, operating in a group satisfies their state of being. They seed to their own survival needs first, then that of others via an optimized algorithm of cooperation that recognizes that basic survival of all group-members is the first goal of all.

That is how their minds work. They have minds, and bodies.

Are they alive?

[Sociobiology]

Too long; didn't read -> TL;DR. Basically, when you say TL;DR, it means you were not bothered to read the wall of text. When you write TL;DR within a wall of text, it means a summary of the wall of text.

Ok. ''Do you own yourself?''

Hmmm... yes? Why wouldn't I?

No one holds property rights over possession of me. No one can sell or buy me or register me into the stock market...

then that would mean no one owns you.

[Sociobiology]

I believe you have aptly illustrated for me what they are. They are a philosophically elegant way to justify watching another human die in pain and need and isolation and terror, because you can justly and rigorously say "What's mine is mine."

It is showing the injustice in coercion, nothing else.

life is coercion. you have no say in its beginning, the majority of its occurrences, and usually no say in when it ends. being alive means being coerced by the rules imposed by our biology.
if you are saying life is not just, well welcome to the universe, it doesn't care about our make believe rules.

Now, you never answered my question. The species I describe above, could it exist? Would it's specimens be "alive"? Would they be alive but not individuals?

If it has a mind and a body then it is alive and it owns itself. If it does not own itself, it is not alive.

1. thats a pretty circular argument.

2. what if it is alive but has no mind? like a tree.

what if it has a mind but is not alive? like say an AI.

things can be alive without minds therefore the second part of your argument is wrong if the first part is true.

[4years]

I can reply to this via TG if you want, but 1. what does this have to do with self-ownership?

2. Link me to such a post, please, and I'll get started on it.

1. How should I know? You're the one who brought it up by making claims about Marxist theory and then wanting a further explanation when I commented that you were wrong.

2. Here it is:

The entire philosophical basis of voluntarism is, of course, destroyed by a very simple truth. Humans do not, cannot, live in isolated systems. As I previously wrote:

the actions of any randomly selected individual impact society as a whole even if that impact is extremely minimal. People don't live in soap bubbles with unlimited resources, our actions impact others in an enormous variety of ways large and small whether we wish them to or not. That is what gives society the right to impose limitations and regulations on individual behave. The man who consumes vast quantities of alcohol and drives doesn't mean to kill anyone else, but he may do so nonetheless. The man who smokes does not mean to give his children cancer, but he may end up doing so. The man who refuses to finish his anti-biotic treatments does not mean to promote the evolution of bacteria resent to modern medicine, but he does so regardless. Acting in isolation is impossible and society has a right to impose restrictions that promote the common welfare, the greatest good for the greatest number.

Absolute individual self-ownership is unjustifiable because it assumes that the actions of any given individual do not impact other individuals or only do so via direct action (i.e. A takes a gun and shots B in the head) and that simply isn't true. Humans rely on each other and depend on each other's efforts for our very survival. As the E.O. Wilson pointed out, we evolved to be social specialists; humankind is the great social animal, all we are depends on this.

Self-ownership can only be justified A) to the extant that the rights, the very humanity, of others is disregarded or B) to the extant that the actions of an individual do not impact any other individuals either directly or indirectly. Since A is obviously untenable and illogical and B consists its solely of whether I should get up and pace the room for a moment or remain seated to the exclusion of any important or major issues, self-ownership can be safely disregarded and tossed on the garbage heap of history.

[4years]

I believe you have aptly illustrated for me what they are. They are a philosophically elegant way to justify watching another human die in pain and need and isolation and terror, because you can justly and rigorously say "What's mine is mine."

That is the social basis for it, yes. The thing about self-ownership is that it relies on anther axiom, that any given individual is the only stakeholder in his/her own life, and that axiom simply isn't true. We can only pretend that we own ourselves insofar as we deny that other people are humans and any rights we have equally extend to them or totally disregard the existence of others. Once we recognize that we our surrounded by other people self-ownership falls apart before the all-conquering god of society and the common welfare.

[Eleanor Ritas]

I believe you have aptly illustrated for me what they are. They are a philosophically elegant way to justify watching another human die in pain and need and isolation and terror, because you can justly and rigorously say "What's mine is mine."

That is the social basis for it, yes. The thing about self-ownership is that it relies on anther axiom, that any given individual is the only stakeholder in his/her own life, and that axiom simply isn't true. We can only pretend that we own ourselves insofar as we deny that other people are humans and any rights we have equally extend to them or totally disregard the existence of others. Once we recognize that we our surrounded by other people self-ownership falls apart before the all-conquering god of society and the common welfare.

Oh, come now, that would only be true if we lived in a common habitat, like a planetary ecosystem or a solar system.

A poor person needs to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, build a Galt Engine powered spaceship, and build a house on the moon commensurate with their willingness to work hard, the sole determining factor in any endeavor.

I propose Johnny Depp for the movie.

[Othelos]

If your body is yours, then yes, you 'own' it.

[Tsa-la-gi Nation]

No, I do not "own" myself. I am in debt to my ancestors who struggled to live before me so I might be here. Without their efforts, I would be nothing. However, that is just a moral point of view.

[Conkerials]

I mean, this is really a philosophical argument. You can say you own your body, but that would put the concept of "you" as your mind, and not 'yourself', thereby putting your body in possession of the mind. So, in a way, if you claim ownership over your body you're kind of embracing a duality of your own existence, which, I suppose, is your decision to make.

Personally, I accept a singularity about myself. I am me, and I am not 'piloting my body' for I am my body (and not in possession of it). My mind and body are one and the same. For the mind does not even exist without the body. And the body does not function without the mind.

That being said human ownership is wrong

Why is human ownership wrong? Justify your position.

Ownership over a human being is unethical, to say the least. It typically involves abuse and relinquishment of rights of the enslaved human being, which is not OK.

I'm curious how people who believe in self-ownership confront slavery, via someone else owning you. If you no longer own yourself, do you lose your identity?

Edit: If you don't own your body, you own your mind? But 'you' can't own your mind because then the concept of you=/= mind. Then who are you?

[Shnercropolis]

Then your prrof contains a logical contradiction and is even more flawed than I thought.

1. Humans own themselves.
2. Parents are humans.
3. Therefore, parents own themselves individually.
4. Offspring comes from parents.
5. Offspring is human.
6. Therefore, offspring owns itself.

so it's a recursive proof. Those are paradoxical in nature.

[Arkolon]

It is showing the injustice in coercion, nothing else.


If it has a mind and a body then it is alive and it owns itself. If it does not own itself, it is not alive.

People so readily constrain "coercion" to what they object to, but there are so many coercions, economic, interpersonal, psychological, and not all can choose soundly nor enact their choices soundly, and so they are unable to exercise a right.

Being unable to exercise a right takes it from someone no less completely than to remove it than by lengthy philosophical exercise or overt coercion. Again, phrase it as righteously as you need to, but your construct very directly and clearly justifies letting the crippled helpless human die because "nobody can make me help him, my stuff is mine". One can voice it more elaborately and nobly, but that's what it says.

I thought you said you understood what I was saying about rights. You could have the physical or mental abilities of a potato and you would not be stripped of any rights.

Notice how I'm not using self-ownership to justify "nobody help that crippled dying old man", but I am using it to justify "no one should be forced to help that crippled dying old man". If you beat me with a stick to help that crippled dying old man, that would be wrong. I am still help the man if I want to, but no one should force me to.

As for the species, you did read the description? Their sense of "self" is that to be alive they need bodies, their bodies survive much better with group cooperation, and so they cooperate as a group that sustains all their bodies and thereby their minds. Therefore, to the extent having mind and body satisfies a state of being, operating in a group satisfies their state of being. They seed to their own survival needs first, then that of others via an optimized algorithm of cooperation that recognizes that basic survival of all group-members is the first goal of all.

That is how their minds work. They have minds, and bodies.

Are they alive?

If they have a mind and have a body, then they own themselves. Look, I wrote this near the bottom of the OP. I'm not going to make any magical exceptions. You could always be in a wolfpack or think you "act much better" with group cooperation, but you would still own yourself. Neither your mind or your body have been stripped from you, so you'd still own yourself. If you still want to pretend that these animals are forced to live together, then these species don't exist. They just don't.

[Arkolon]

Ok. ''Do you own yourself?''

Hmmm... yes? Why wouldn't I?

No one holds property rights over possession of me. No one can sell or buy me or register me into the stock market...

then that would mean no one owns you.

I added the "... except yourself" in another post.

[Arkolon]

It is showing the injustice in coercion, nothing else.

life is coercion. you have no say in its beginning, the majority of its occurrences, and usually no say in when it ends. being alive means being coerced by the rules imposed by our biology.
if you are saying life is not just, well welcome to the universe, it doesn't care about our make believe rules.

Coercion in social environments. Your idea of noncoercive liberty is a positive one, which is wrong because the only liberty that is truly noncoercive is negative liberty. Still got trouble with the distinctions, eh?

If it has a mind and a body then it is alive and it owns itself. If it does not own itself, it is not alive.

1. thats a pretty circular argument.

2. what if it is alive but has no mind? like a tree.

what if it has a mind but is not alive? like say an AI.

things can be alive without minds therefore the second part of your argument is wrong if the first part is true.

1. If a body is shaped a certain way, it will be "functionally" alive. (Notice how functional means alive as in legally alive)
2. To be "functionally" alive, it must have a mind.
3. Because the body makes the mind, the body belongs to the mind.
4. If the body does not belong to the mind, that is because there is no mind (or there is no body).
5. If there is no body or mind, then it is not "functionally" alive.
6. If 5, then that doesn't satisfy 2.

2. A tree does not have personhood.

AI does not have personhood.

[Arkolon]

I can reply to this via TG if you want, but 1. what does this have to do with self-ownership?

2. Link me to such a post, please, and I'll get started on it.

2. Here it is:

The entire philosophical basis of voluntarism is, of course, destroyed by a very simple truth. Humans do not, cannot, live in isolated systems.

I never said they did.

As I previously wrote:

the actions of any randomly selected individual impact society as a whole even if that impact is extremely minimal.

You do realise you're taking a top-down approach at what I am asking you "to do" as opposed to what I am asking you "to believe"? I am justifying that axiom from a Starter Axiom. You can't say, "oh, your philosophy fails because from my starter axiom that's not very nice". That's not how this works. This is a thread about my Starter Axiom, not yours.

People don't live in soap bubbles with unlimited resources, our actions impact others in an enormous variety of ways large and small whether we wish them to or not. That is what gives society the right to impose limitations and regulations on individual behave.

Who is society? What is society? A society is a collection of individuals who all individually own themselves. A society does not have rights. That's ridiculous. People have individual rights.

The man who consumes vast quantities of alcohol and drives doesn't mean to kill anyone else, but he may do so nonetheless.

Precautions would be taken. Threat, or danger, are the possibility of force, which sometimes acts as force itself.

The man who smokes does not mean to give his children cancer, but he may end up doing so.

The children own themselves, and him giving them cancer would be unjustified, so precautions would be taken. What's your point?

The man who refuses to finish his anti-biotic treatments does not mean to promote the evolution of bacteria resent to modern medicine, but he does so regardless.

If it affects other people in a negative way, then that is unjustified. That's what voluntaryism is. It is not a creed for living in isolation; it is a doctrine for healthy living in communities.

Acting in isolation is impossible and society has a right to impose restrictions that promote the common welfare, the greatest good for the greatest number.

A society does not have rights. You can't pretend a society has rights.

Absolute individual self-ownership is unjustifiable because it assumes that the actions of any given individual do not impact other individuals or only do so via direct action (i.e. A takes a gun and shots B in the head) and that simply isn't true.

Self-ownership is the Starter Axiom for showing the injustice in what you call "absolute individual self-ownership", which normal people call "ethical egoism". If A takes a gun and shoots B, that negatively impacts B in a forceful manner, and as such would be unjustified. I'm not an ethical egoist; I am an individualist.

Humans rely on each other and depend on each other's efforts for our very survival. As the E.O. Wilson pointed out, we evolved to be social specialists; humankind is the great social animal, all we are depends on this.

Lucky for you voluntaryism has just the thing for living in social environments: it goes "don't hurt other people, it's bad".

Self-ownership can only be justified A) to the extant that the rights, the very humanity, of others is disregarded

Self-ownership is what gives people rights, and the fact that everyone has rights is what justifies natural law, which is the "don't hurt people, it's bad" I was talking about. I don't know how further I have to dumb this down, but I wouldn't be very pleased if I have to. Self-ownership justifies rights. You can't say self-ownership is unjustifiable because it disregards rights. That's nonsensically circular.

or B) to the extant that the actions of an individual do not impact any other individuals either directly or indirectly.

Ethical egoism =/= individualism. You're the first person to make this ridiculous mistake. Your only prize is embarrassment.

Since A is obviously untenable and illogical and B consists its solely of whether I should get up and pace the room for a moment or remain seated to the exclusion of any important or major issues, self-ownership can be safely disregarded and tossed on the garbage heap of history.

Ethical egoism can, at least. You should talk to the Stirnerites or the Randians for that in the Morality thread. You're in the wrong place whining about the wrong thing, so actually get onto the actual self-ownership as described in the OP.

[Arkolon]

If your body is yours, then yes, you 'own' it.

Why?

[Arkolon]

No, I do not "own" myself. I am in debt to my ancestors who struggled to live before me so I might be here. Without their efforts, I would be nothing. However, that is just a moral point of view.

Since your ancestors are probably not alive, considering you refer to them as "ancestors", would you have not inherited their debts?

[Arkolon]

Why is human ownership wrong? Justify your position.

Ownership over a human being is unethical, to say the least. It typically involves abuse and relinquishment of rights of the enslaved human being, which is not OK.

Why is it unethical? Why is it "not OK"? According to which axioms?

I'm curious how people who believe in self-ownership confront slavery, via someone else owning you. If you no longer own yourself, do you lose your identity?

If you do not own yourself, that is because you are not alive. If you are alive, then you own yourself.

Edit: If you don't own your body, you own your mind? But 'you' can't own your mind because then the concept of you=/= mind. Then who are you?

There can only be a mind if there is a body. If there is no body then there is no mind: because of that, your mind owns your body. If your mind does not own your body, that is because there is no body, in which case there is no mind.

"You" are your mind. Your body is yours.

[Arkolon]

1. Humans own themselves.
2. Parents are humans.
3. Therefore, parents own themselves individually.
4. Offspring comes from parents.
5. Offspring is human.
6. Therefore, offspring owns itself.

so it's a recursive proof. Those are paradoxical in nature.

Are children humans?

[Conscentia]

No one can sell part of your body except you because it is yours.

People have tried. No apparent consensus, though. Stubborn communists.

The problem is that you are being unclear as to whether you are referring to legal personalities, or to meatbags.
Meatbags are owned by their respective legal personalities, but legal personalities cannot be owned.