Hostname: page-component-6766d58669-bp2c4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-17T21:27:13.378Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ambidextrous Lockeanism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2019

Billy Christmas
Billy Christmas*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Economy, King’s College London, London WC2B 3BG, UK
*
Email: wichristmas@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Lockean approaches to property take it that persons can unilaterally acquire private ownership over hitherto unowned resources. Such natural law accounts of property rights are often thought to be of limited use when dealing with the complexities of natural resource use outside of the paradigm of private ownership of land for agricultural or residential development. The tragedy of the commons has been shown to be anything but an inevitability, and yet Lockeanism seems to demand that even the most robust common property arrangements be converted to privatized units. This often motivates a move away from natural law in the moral analysis of property rights. I argue however that it is not the deontological nature of Lockean principles that are at fault, but rather the manner of their application. Lockean theory often exhibits a bias in favour of private property: assuming that only private property can protect one’s interest in autonomy, and therefore asserting that each individual has a power of private acquisition. Starting with a claim against interference however enables us to mould the appropriate property rights to each individual’s particular interest in autonomy. This sometimes leads to private ownership, but often leads to various forms of commons.

Keywords

LockeOstromoriginal acquisitionpropertycommonsnatural rightsnatural law

Information

Type
Article
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , July 2020 , pp. 193 - 215
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Anderson, T. L. 1997. Conservation native American style. Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance 37, 769–785.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, T. L. 2016. Native Americans loved private property. Foundation for Economic Education, 10 October. https://fee.org/articles/native-americans-loved-private-property/7/11/16.Google Scholar
Aquinas, T. 1947. Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. New York, NY: Benziger Bros.Google Scholar
Aristotle 1981. The Politics, trans. T.A. Sinclair (Rev. edn). London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Aristotle 2009. Nichomachean Ethics, trans. W.D. Ross. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Arneil, B. 1996. John Locke and America: The Defence of English Colonialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Attas, D. 2003. The negative principle of just appropriation. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 33, 343–371.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barry, B. 1975. Review of Anarchy, State, and Utopia by Robert Nozick. Political Theory 3, 331–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bicchieri, C. 2006. The Grammar of Society: The Nature and Dynamics of Social Norms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Blackstone, W. 1753 [1893]. Commentaries on the Laws of England in Four Books, vol. 1. Philadelphia, PA: J.B. Lippincott.Google Scholar
Brennan, J. 2014. Why Not Capitalism? Abingdon: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brennan, J. 2016. Political Philosophy: An Introduction. Washington, DC: Cato Institute.Google Scholar
Brennan, J. 2017. Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons. In Levy, J. T. (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Classics in Contemporary Political Theory. Published online. Oxford:Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198717133.013.61.Google Scholar
Brennan, J. 2018. Private Governance and the three biases of political philosophy. Review of Austrian Economics 31, 235–243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brennan, G. and Buchanan, J. M.. 2000. The Reason of Rules: Constitutional Political Economy. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.Google Scholar
Brennan, J. and van der Vossen, B. 2018. Myths of the self-ownership thesis. In Brennan, J., van der Vossen, B. and Schmidtz, D. (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Libertarianism. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bryan, B. 2017. The conventionalist challenge to natural rights. Social Theory and Practice 43, 569–587.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byas, J. L. and Christmas, B. 2019. Methodological anarchism. In Chartier, G. and Van Shoelandt, C. (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Anarchy and Anarchist Thought. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Carson, K. A. 2011. Communal Property: A Libertarian’s Analysis. Center for a Stateless Society, Paper 13. https://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Communal-Property.pdf 8/12/16.Google Scholar
Christmas, B. 2017a. Incommensurability and property rights in the natural environment. Environmental Politics 26, 502–520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christmas, B. 2017b. Rescuing the libertarian non-aggression principle. Moral Philosophy and Politics. Online First. https://doi.org/10.1515/mopp-2017-0007.Google Scholar
Christmas, B. 2018. A reformulation of the structure of a set of compossible rights. Philosophical Quarterly. Online First. https://doi.org/10.1093/pq/pqy049.Google Scholar
Coase, R. H. 1937. The nature of the firm. Economica 4, 386–405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, G. A. 1995. Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Day, J. P. 1966 [1971]. Locke on property. Philosophical Quarterly 16, 207–220. Reprinted in Life, Liberty, and Property: Essays on Locke’s Political Ideas, ed. Schochet, G.D.. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Jasay, A. 1997. Against Politics: On Government, Anarchy, and Order. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Den Uyl, D. J. and Rasmussen, D. B. 2005. Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for a Non Perfectionist Politics. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Dobb, M. 1947. Studies in the Development of Capitalism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Ellickson, R. C. 1993. Property in land. The Yale Law Journal 102, 1315–1400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellickson, R. C. 1994. Order without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Epstein, R. 1985. Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Epstein, R. A. 1994. The optimal mix of private and common property. Social Philosophy and Policy 11, 17–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, R. A. 1998. The Principles of a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty with the Common Good. Cambridge: Perseus.Google Scholar
Epstein, R. 2009. Property rights, state of nature theory, and environmental protection. New York University Journal of Law and Liberty 4, 1–35.Google Scholar
Epstein, R. A. 2015. From natural law to social welfare: theoretical principles and practical applications. Iowa Law Review 100, 1743–1772.Google Scholar
Finnis, J. 1980 [2011]. Natural Law and Natural Rights, 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Fisher, I. 1906. The Nature of Capital and Income. New York, NY: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Fressola, A. 1981. Liberty and property: reflections on the right of appropriation in the state of nature. American Philosophical Quarterly 18, 315–322.Google Scholar
Gaius 160 [1904]. Institutes of Roman Law, 4th edn, trans. E. Poste. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Gardner, R., Ostrom, E. and Walker, J. 1994. Rules, Games, and Common Pool Resources. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
George, H. 1929. Progress and Poverty. New York, NY: Modern Library.Google Scholar
Gibbard, A. 1976. Natural Property Rights. Noûs 10, 77–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, H. S. 1954. The economic theory of a common-property resource: the fishery. Journal of Political Economy 62, 124–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grotius, H. 1625 [2005]. The general right of things. In Barbeyrac, J. and Tuck, R. (ed.), De Jure Belli ac Pacis. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.Google Scholar
Hardin, G. 1968. The tragedy of the commons. Science 162, 1243–1248.Google ScholarPubMed
Hart, H. L. A. 1982. Essays on Bentham. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hasan, R. 2018. The provisionality of property rights in Kant’s Doctrine of Right. Canadian Journal of Philosophy. Online First. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00455091.2018.1429181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayek, F. A. 1948. Individualism and Economic Order. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hobbes, T. 1642 [1983]. De Cive, ed. Warrender, H.. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hobbes, T. 1651 [2012]. Leviathan, ed. Malcolm, N.. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hodgskin, T. 1831. The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted. London: B. Steil.Google Scholar
Hohfeld, W. N. 1913. Some fundamental legal conceptions as applied in judicial reasoning. Yale Law Journal 23, 16–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hohfeld, W. N. 1917. Fundamental legal conceptions as applied in judicial reasoning. Yale Law Journal 26, 710–770.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holcombe, R. G. 2005. Common property in anarcho-capitalism. Journal of Libertarian Studies 19, 3–29.Google Scholar
Honoré, A. M. 1961. Ownership. In Guest, A. (ed.), Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hume, D. 1738 [1826]. Treatise of Human Nature. Reprinted in The Philosophical Works of David Hume, vol. 2. Edinburgh: Black and Tait.Google Scholar
Inoue, A. 2007. Can a right of self-ownership be robust? Law and Philosophy 26, 575–587.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, I. 1779 [1991]. The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Gregor, M.J.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kirzner, I. M. 1973. Competition and Entrepreneurship. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kirzner, I. M. 1989. Discovery, Capitalism, and Distributive Justice. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Kirzner, I. M. 1997. Entrepreneurial discovery and the competitive market process: an Austrian approach. Journal of Economic Literature 35, 60–85.Google Scholar
Klein, B., Crawford, R. G. and Alchian, A. A. 1978. Vertical integration, appropriable rents, and the competitive contracting process. Journal of Law and Economics 21, 297–326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klimchuk, D. 2013. Property and necessity. In Penner, J.E. and Smith, H. (eds), Philosophical Foundations of Property Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kogelmann, B. and Ogden, B. G. 2018. Enough and as good: a formal model of Lockean first appropriation. American Journal of Political Science 62, 682–694.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levine, B. L. 1986. The tragedy of the commons and the comedy of community: the commons in history. Journal of Community Psychology 14, 81–99.3.0.CO;2-G>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levy, J. T. 2015. Rationalism, Pluralism, and Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Levy, J. T. 2017. Contra Politanism. European Journal of Political Theory. Online First. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1474885117718371.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Locke, J. 1689 [1986]. Two Treatise of Government. London: Everyman’s Library.Google Scholar
Lomasky, L. E. 1987. Persons, Rights, and the Moral Community. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Long, R. T. 1993/1994. Punishment vs. restitution. Formulations 1(2).Google Scholar
Long, R. T. 1996. In defense of public space. Formulations 3(3).Google Scholar
Long, R. T. 1998. A plea for public property. Formulations 5(3).Google Scholar
Long, R. T. 2002. Alabama Philosophical Society 2002 Presidential Address: Why Does Justice Have Good Consequences?’ Transcript available online. http://praxeology.net/whyjust.htm 5/29/18.Google Scholar
Lloyd, W. F. 1833 [1980]. Two lectures on the checks to population. Population and Development Review 6, 473–496.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mack, E. 1990. Self-ownership and the right of property. The Monist 79, 519–543.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mack, E. 1995. The self-ownership proviso: a new and improved Lockean proviso. Social Philosophy and Policy 12, 186–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mack, E. 2000. In defense of the jurisdiction theory of rights. Journal of Ethics 4, 71–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mack, E. 2002. Self-ownership, Marxism, and egalitarianism Part II: challenges to the self ownership thesis. Politics, Philosophy and Economics 1, 237–276.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mack, E. 2009. John Locke. New York, NY: Continuum.Google Scholar
Mack, E. 2010. The natural right of property. Social Philosophy and Policy 27, 53–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mack, E. 2015. Elbow room for rights. In Sobel, D., Vallentyne, P. and Wall, S. (eds), Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy, vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McKean, M. and Ostrom, E.. 1995. Common property regimes in the forest: just a relic from the past?’ Unasylva 46, 3–15.Google Scholar
Murphy, L. and Nagel, T. 2002. The Myth of Ownership: Taxes and Justice. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagel, T. 1975. Libertarianism without foundations. Yale Law Journal 85, 136–149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nozick, R. 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Olsen, M. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
O’Neill, O. 1976. Robert Nozick’s entitlements. Theoria 19, 468–481.Google Scholar
Ostrom, E. 1990. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostrom, E. 2003. How types of goods and property rights jointly affect collective action. Journal of Theoretical Politics 15, 239–270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostrom, E. 2012. The Future of the Commons: Beyond Market Failure and Government Regulation. London: Institute for Economic Affairs.Google Scholar
Ostrom, E., Walker, J. and Gardner, R. 1992. Covenants without swords: self-governance is possible. American Political Science Review 86, 404–417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Otsuka, M. 1998. Self-ownership and equality: a Lockean reconciliation. Philosophy and Public Affairs 27, 65–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Otsuka, M. 2003. Libertarianism Without Inequality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Otsuka, M. 2006. Comment être libertarian sans être inégalitaire. Raisons Politiques 23: 9–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Penner, J. E. 1997. The Idea of Property in Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Pennington, M. 2013. Elinor Ostrom and the robust political economy of common-pool resources. Journal of Institutional Economics 9, 449–468.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Railton, P. 1985. Locke, stock, and peril: natural property rights, pollution and risk. In Gibson, M. E. (ed.), To Breathe Freely: Risk, Consent, and Air. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld.Google Scholar
Rawls, J. 1955. Two concepts of rules. Philosophical Review 64, 3–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raz, J. 1986. The Morality of Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ripstein, A. 2006. Private order and public justice: Kant and Rawls. Virginia Law Reviews 92, 1391–1438.Google Scholar
Ripstein, A. 2009. Force and Freedom: Kant’s Political and Legal Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Risse, M. 2004. Does left-libertarianism have coherent foundations? Politics, Philosophy and Economics 3, 337–364.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, C. M. 1986 [1994]. The Comedy of the Commons: Commerce, Custom, and Inherently Public Property. University of Chicago Law Review 53, 711–781. Reprinted in Property and Persuasion: Essays on the History, Theory, and Rhetoric of Ownership. Boulder, CO:Westview.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, C. M. 1998. The several futures of property: of cyberspace and folk tales, emission trades and ecosystems. Minnesota Law Review 83, 129–182.Google Scholar
Rossi, E. and Argenton, C. 2017. Libertarianism, capitalism, ideology: a reality check. Unpublished. https://www.academia.edu/20364200/Libertarianism_Capitalism_Ideology_A_Reality_Check.Google Scholar
Russell, D. C. 2018. Self-ownership as a form of ownership. In Schmidtz, D. and Pavel, C. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Russell, D. C. 2019. Self-Ownership and Takings. Social Philosophy and Policy.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanders, J. T. 2002. Projects and Property. In Schmidtz, D. (ed.), Robert Nozick. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Scanlon, T. 1976. Nozick on rights, liberty, and property. Philosophy and Public Affairs 6, 3–25.Google Scholar
Schmidtz, D. 1994. The institution of property. Social Philosophy and Policy 11, 42–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidtz, D. 2009. Functional Property, Real Justice. Berlin: European Liberal Forum.Google Scholar
Schmidtz, D. 2010. Property and Justice. Social Philosophy and Policy 27, 79–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidtz, D. 2011. Property. In Klosko, G. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of The History of Political Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Scott, J. C. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Scott, J. C. 2014. The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google ScholarPubMed
Searle, J. R. 1969. Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, J. R. 1995. The Construction of Social Reality. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Sobel, D. 2012. Backing Away from Libertarian Self-Ownership. Ethics 123, 32–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spencer, H. 1851. Social Statics: Or, The Conditions essential to Happiness specified, and the First of them Developed. London: John Chapman.Google Scholar
Steiner, H. 1994. An Essay on Rights. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Steiner, H. 2009. Responses. In de Wijze, S., Kramer, M.H. and Carter, I. (eds), Hillel Steiner and the Anatomy of Justice: Themes and Challenges. Oxford: Routledge.Google Scholar
Stevenson, G. G. 1991. Common Property Economics: A General Theory and Land Use Applications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stilz, A. 2009. Liberal Loyalty: Freedom, Obligation, and the State. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Téson, F. and van der Vossen, B. 2015. The Kantian case for classical liberalism. Unpublished manuscript, available online. http://www.peterboettke.com/app/download/6938268704/a+Kantian+defense+of+classical+liberalism+gmu.pdf.Google Scholar
Thomson, J. J. 1976. Property acquisition. Journal of Philosophy 73, 664–666.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomson, J. J. 1990. The Realm of Rights. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Tomasi, J. 2012. Free Market Fairness. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Tully, J. 1994. Aboriginal property and western theory: recovering a middle ground. Social Philosophy and Policy 11, 153–180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van der Vossen, B. 2009. What counts as original appropriation? Politics, Philosophy and Economics 8, 355–373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van der Vossen, B. 2015. Imposing duties and original appropriation. Journal of Political Philosophy 23, 64–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waldron, J. 1983. Two worries about mixing one’s labour. Philosophical Quarterly 33, 37–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waldron, J. 1988. The Right to Private Property. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Waldron, J. 1990. The Right to Private Property. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wendt, F. 2018. The sufficiency proviso. In Brennan, J., van der Vossen, B. and Schmidtz, D. (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Libertarianism. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wheeler, S. C. III. 1980. Natural property rights as body rights. Noûs 14, 171–193.Google Scholar
Wolff, J. 1991. Robert Nozick: Property, Justice, and the Minimal State. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Winch, P. 1990. The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy, 2nd edn. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Zwolinski, M. 2014. Libertarianism and pollution. Philosophy and Public Policy Quarterly 32, 9–21.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Christmas Supplementary Materials

Christmas Supplementary Materials

Download Christmas Supplementary Materials(PDF)
PDF 55.9 KB