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From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Freedom and ownership, round3
Message-ID: <262@gargoyle.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 30-Nov-85 20:53:58 EST
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.262
Posted: Sat Nov 30 20:53:58 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 1-Dec-85 20:46:05 EST
References: <1140@mtuxo.UUCP>
Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 44

Adam Reed writes:

>1.	When exercised for the first time in human history, OWNERSHIP
>is the right to use an owned entity in any way that does not invade,
>or threaten to invade, the person of another.  
>2.	Once it has been exercised by somebody, OWNERSHIP becomes the
>right to use or trade the owned entity in any way that does not invade,
>or threaten to invade, the person or property of another; where PROPERTY
>is the ensemble of things over which a person exercises ownership.
>
>The claim made in my round 1 and round 2 articles is that at least one
>important attribute of ownership (namely, that a previously unowned
>entity becomes the property of the first person to use it) is implied by
>any reasonable (that is, valid and usable) definition of the terms
>defined in those articles. 

I'm still trying to figure out how Adam Reed arrives at his
conclusion; until I do I can neither refute the argument nor agree
with it.  To mention one point, it is apparently pivotal that the
land in question was "unowned" previous to the first use of it.  How
do we know that it was unowned?  I did not postulate this as a
hypothesis of the question.  What is your definition of "owned"?
(Please do not use "ownership" in the definition.)  That is why I
made the very reasonable request that the argument be stated without
the use of own-terms or terms whose definitions contain own-terms,
since they seem to cause confusion.  If Adam Reed can state the
argument so that it is clear what are the premises and how the
conclusions are derived from them, then he has a philosophical
argument; if not, he has an assumed conclusion dressed up with
definitions as an argument.  In the meantime, I will suggest the
following as a statement of the argument:

  When a person comes upon a tract of land that was previously unused
  by humans, he always has a moral right to use the land
  productively, in any way he pleases.  After which, he possesses the
  moral rights of "ownership" over as much land as he has used (these
  rights can be enumerated in various ways but they typically include
  the right to continued use of the land, the right to alienate it, and
  the claim-right that no one else may use it without his permission).

I can at least understand this, but I don't agree with either
sentence.
-- 
Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes