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Why is property in need of justification, according to Macpherson?
Requires justification because it serves certain social purposes. Society enforces certain classifications of property because of the moral belief that the purposes that it serves are worthwhile. Enforceability of property makes it a legal right BUT enforceability itself depends on a society’s belief that it is a MORAL right. This requires constant justification as the purposes change and are contested over time, and as people seek to redefine and recategorize property to meet different ends.
Ultimate justification is that property is the individual right to (consume and produce the means to) life – property that produces the means of life may need more justification than the other.
Why is property in need of justification, according to Waldron?
Underlying Waldron is a recognition that property shapes communities by structuring how people relate to each other, by allocating goods between them, and by shaping the built environment where they live. It is no wonder then – given the effects of the distribution of property – that the institutions of property are constantly in dispute and in need of justification.
Private property requires public justification for two reasons, according to Waldron:
It empowers people to make decisions about the use of scarce resources in a way that is not necessarily sensitive to others’ needs or the public good.
It does not merely permit that but deploys public force at public expense to uphold it.
Also, it can help defend against its competitors and understand how to operate the institution intelligently.
Justification Theories for Private Property
Cultivation of virtue, and protection of freedom and citizenship:
Plato and Aristotle took opposing views about which of collective and private property would promote social good. What did Aristotle say?
Aristotle reflected on contribution that private ownership makes to person’s freedom and thus suitability for citizenship → implication that people without private property (e.g., women, slaves, the poor) could not meaningfully participate and influence the political sphere.
Justification Theories for Private Property
First occupancy / labour theory / agriculturalist – “moral defense of the legitimacy of unilateral appropriation”:
First user of a natural resource is distinguished from all others in that they didn’t have to displace anyone else in order to take possession, however, some disagree, saying that there may not be anything left in common for them to enjoy (issue of scarcity remains). What was Locke’s answer to this issue?
Locke’s answer was that contribution of labour = property rights, because productive labour increased the value and availability of goods
BUT if one fails to use/develop a resource, can they complain/demand compensation when opportunity is taken up by someone else (think ABs being excluded from the land)?
Justification Theories for Private Property
Agency, personality, and personhood:
What did Kant, Hegel, and Marx say about this topic?
Kant: Property is required for agency and, therefore, personality. Appropriation of a resource as private property requires development of a civil constitution as it affects other people’s interests.
Hegel: Property is required for the development of the self as an autonomous individual.
Marx: Echoes Plato and Hegel – social development occurs in the exercise of private property rights but large-scale cooperative labor is the big picture.
Justification Theories for Private Property
What is the consequentialist POV?
People in general are better off when a given class of resources is governed by a private property regime than by any alternative system (not everyone though).
“Tragedy of the commons” – under a system of common property, each person has incentive to use up resources as much as possible; long-term benefits of self-restraint are uncertain.
Private property allows for planning and self-restraint b/c the person bearing the cost of restraint reaps the benefits BUT it does not necessarily benefit everyone, particularly those who own little or nothing.
Promotes efficiency of markets in allocating resources to those who value them most but the efficiency can be limited by externalities and other market failures.
Justification Theories for Private Property
What is the libertarian POV?
Private property contribute to freedom by providing more choices for earning a living or by allowing for the spread of intellectual and political ideas through the control of media by private entities.
Also seen as a system of unfreedom because it involves exclusion of some people from resources that are owned by others.
Connection b/t private property and independence is not so simple because it depends on distribution of property within a society.
Property as a status symbol and implications of unequal distribution of property for social justice.
Relationship between private property and liberty is complex and multifaceted, and cannot be easily summed up as one or the other.
