Is 'self-ownership' coherent?

[Grames]

attempts to defend and explain liberty on the principle of self-ownership.

Self-ownership has a Wikipedia entry where it is described in the initial paragraph as "... (or sovereignty of the individual, individual sovereignty or individual autonomy) is the concept of property in one's own person, expressed as the moral or natural right of a person to be the exclusive controller of his or her own body and life. According to G. Cohen, the concept of self-ownership "says that each person enjoys, over herself and her powers, full and exclusive rights of control and use, and therefore owes no service or product to anyone else that she has not contracted to supply."

I perceive a hierarchy problem, in that a theory of rights (property rights) is being used to justify individual rights. The theory of rights is presupposed with no derivation or justification. To defend individual rights by self-ownership rights is to turn rights into a circular argument, rationalist castle-in-the-air.

Rights are moral principles that apply in a social context but moral principles are necessarily egoistic and logically dependent upon the existence of a self that values and acts. When one conceptualizes 'self' by performing measurement omission of all the details of your own particular life, all moral principles that apply to yourself then apply to all other selves as well. Liberty derives from morality and applies socially through a specific concept, the concept of man.

[Trebor]

I had noticed that Dr. Peikoff addressed this issue. Perhaps this will help:

Episode 15 — May 19, 2008

16:20: "Is there a difference between the principle of self-ownership and the principle of individual rights? Or put it another way, is there a difference between saying that someone is the owner of his own life and he has a right to life?"

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

I perceive a hierarchy problem, in that a theory of rights (property rights) is being used to justify individual rights. The theory of rights is presupposed with no derivation or justification. To defend individual rights by self-ownership rights is to turn rights into a circular argument, rationalist castle-in-the-air.

I agree with your assessment. Basically, you are what you are, a living being with certain requirements to remain alive and happy, and reason cannot work under the threat of force, which is why we have rights. Saying you own yourself instead of saying you are yourself, I think falls into the trap that you or "the I" is something other than what you see in a mirror and observe when you introspect. It is only after one properly identifies the nature of man that one can claim he has the right to have property, along with his other rights. I think the above assessment that we own ourselves is trying to put politics before metaphysics and epistemology.

[Grames]

I had noticed that Dr. Peikoff addressed this issue. Perhaps this will help:

Episode 15 — May 19, 2008

16:20: "Is there a difference between the principle of self-ownership and the principle of individual rights? Or put it another way, is there a difference between saying that someone is the owner of his own life and he has a right to life?"

Good catch Trebor. I've noticed you are pretty good at coming up with references from the podcasts, thanks for that.

[Zip]

When you consider the other noise out there calling itself philosophy that video is heads and shoulders above it. I'd rather accept a rather small misrepresentation of the nature of individual rights than see the message itself lost in crap like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTCuRlz22g4