Self-ownership (or sovereignty of the individual or individual sovereignty) is the moral or natural right (aka Freedom) of a person to be the exclusive controller of his or her own body and life. It is the concept of property in one's own person. 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."^[1]

The writers William Rees-Mogg and James Dale Davidson described this condition as being a sovereign individual, in which individuals have supreme authority and sovereignty over their own choices, without the interference of governing powers. This notion is central classical liberalism, individualistic political philosophies such as abolitionism, ethical egoism, rights-based libertarianism, objectivism, and some forms of anarchism. Sovereign individuals hold to the premise that government only has authority and power which is given to it by the individual, with decentralized administrative organizations acting as servants to the individual and never their master.

Friedrich Nietzsche uses the term sovereign individual quite differently in On the Genealogy of Morals.

Origin of the concept

The concept of self-ownership has been traced to John Locke, who said, the individual "has a right to decide what would become of himself and what he would do, and as having a right to reap the benefits of what he did."^[2] Or, as stated more succinctly by Locke, "every man has a Property in his own Person."^[3]

From self-ownership to private property

Those who support self-ownership usually hold that this entails a right of private property external to the body with the reasoning that if a person owns himself then he owns his actions, including those which create or improve resources; therefore he owns the resources or improvement he produces.^[4]

Self-ownership in wage labor

Ian Shapiro says that markets in labor affirm self ownership, because if self-ownership were not recognized then people would not be allowed to sell the use of their productive capacities to others. He says that the individual sells the use of his productive capacity for a limited time and conditions but continues to own what he earns from selling the use of that capacity and the capacity itself, thereby retaining soveriegnty over himself while contributing to economic efficiency.^[5]

Examples

The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is sometimes viewed as an implementation of the concept of self-ownership, as are some portions of the Bill of Rights.

The trouble of defining the border of the self can be seen in the debate surrounding abortion where the fetus could alternatively be seen as its own or as a part of the property of the mother's body, and the right of the woman to control her own body could therefore be viewed as being in opposition to what may be considered as "the fetus' right to live". This contrast is even more pronounced in situations where women are forced to undergo surgery in order to deliver a healthy baby. Even though self-ownership advocates civil rights, it does not extend these rights over others, an argument used by both sides of this debate.

In addition to the abortion debate, there are also debates surrounding euthanasia and suicide. However, some of these actions can be viewed as self-destructive which is somewhat removed from the original meaning of self-ownership, as this also meant taking responsibility for self.

Discussion of the boundary of self with respect to ownership and responsibility has been explored by legal scholar Meir Dan-Cohen in his essays on The Value of Ownership and Responsibility and the Boundaries of the Self. The emphasis of this work is in illuminating the phenomenology of ownership and our common usage of personal pronouns to apply to both body and property; this serves as the folk basis for legal conceptions and debates about responsibility and ownership.

Defining the borders of the self can also be difficult if one accepts the notion that the self includes objects that are external to the human body, as is proposed in Andy Clark's essay, Natural Born Cyborgs.

Self-ownership could be viewed as a decentralized bottom-up philosophy, as opposed to totalitarianism being a centralized top-down system. Henry David Thoreau regarded self-ownership as a key component in achieving utopia, while Robert Nozick, an influential libertarian political philosopher, based his theory of property-ownership on the premise of self-ownership.

Arguments for self-ownership

It has been argued by Austrian School economist Hans-Hermann Hoppe that self-ownership is axiomatic. His reasoning is that a person contradicts himself when he argues against self-ownership. The person making this argument is caught in a "performative contradiction" because, in choosing to use persuasion instead of force to have others agree that they are not sovereign over themselves, that person implicitly grants that those who he is trying to persuade have a right to disagree. If they have a right to disagree, then they have legitimate authority over themselves.^[6]

The person argues that self-ownership is an undesirable condition, and currently he is only authorized by law to argue against the status quo that allows self-ownership. Moreover, someone that argues against self-ownership does not necessarily do it in an absolute way. Sovereignty does not need to be a black-and-white issue: for instance, the person could be sovereign to have opinions, but not to perform any kinds of acts. For instance, a person that thinks the consumption of drugs should be always illegal is against absolute self-ownership, but not necessarily in favor of full subordination.

In The Ethics of Liberty, Murray Rothbard argues that 100 percent self-ownership is the only principle compatible with a moral code that applies to every person - a "universal ethic" - and that it is a natural law by being what is naturally best for man. He says if every person is not entitled to full self-ownership, then there are only two alternatives: "(1) the 'communist' one of Universal and Equal Other-ownership, or (2) Partial Ownership of One Group by Another - a system of rule by one class over another." He says that it is not possible for alternative (2) to be a universal ethic but only a partial ethic which says that one class of people do not have the right of self-ownership but another class does. This, therefore, is incompatible with what is being sought - a moral code applicable to every person - instead of a code applicable to some and not to others, as if some individuals are humans and some are not. In the case of alternative (1), every individual would own equal parts of every other individual so that no one is self-owned. Rothbard acknowledges that this would be a universal ethic, but, he argues, it is "Utopian and impossible for everyone to keep continual tabs on everyone else, and thereby to exercise his equal share of partial ownership over every other man." He says the system would break down, resulting in a ruling class who specializes in keeping tabs over other individuals. Since this would grant a ruling class ownership rights over its subjects, it would again be logically incompatible with a universal ethic. Even if a collectivist Utopia of everyone having equal ownership of everyone else could be sustained, he argues, individuals would not be able to do anything without prior approval by everyone in society. Since this would be impossible in a large society, no one would be able to do anything and the human race would perish. Therefore, the collectivist alternative universal ethic where every individual would own an equal portion of every other individual violates the natural "law of what is best for man and his life on earth." He says that if a person exercises ownership over another person, that is, uses aggression against him rather than leaving him to do as he wills, "this violates his nature."^[7]

Criticism

A common left-wing criticism is that equality of condition is a fundamental principle, therefore self-ownership must be rejected because it allows the generation of inequality of condition.^[8]

After articulating the difference between the natural need to work in nature and the unnatural need to work for a boss under threat of starvation, Simon Linguet explained the essence of wage slavery in 1763, describing how it undermined self-ownership in the sense of individual autonomy, by basing it on a materialistic concept of the body and its liberty i.e. as something that can be sold, rented or alienated in a class society:

An anti-capitalist group points to what it sees as inconsistencies of the Rothbardian concept of self-ownership in rejecting certain kinds of slave contracts. Rothbard's objection revolves around the assertion that a person "cannot, in nature, sell himself into slavery and have this sale enforced -- for this would mean that his future will over his own body was being surrendered in advance" and that if a "labourer remains totally subservient to his master's will voluntarily, he is not yet a slave since his submission is voluntary." However, all contracts specify some future performance. In the case of the lifetime labour contract, then, according to Rothbard it can be broken as long as the slave pays any appropriate damages: "if A has agreed to work for life for B in exchange for 10,000 grams of gold, he will have to return the proportionate amount of property if he terminates the arrangement and ceases to work." [Man, Economy, and State, vol. I , p. 441] Having to pay such damages (either as a lump sum or over a period of time) could turn the worker into the most common type of modern slave, the debt-slave. Rothbard's emphasis on quitting fails to recognise the actual denial of will and control over ones own body that is explicit in wage labour. Moreover, a modern slave contract would likely take the form of a "performance bond," on which Rothbard laments about its "unfortunate suppression" by the state. In such a system, the slave could agree to perform X years labour or pay their master substantial damages if they fail to do so. It is the threat of damages that enforces the contract and such a "contract" Rothbard does agree is enforceable. Another means of creating slave contracts would be "conditional exchange" which Rothbard also supports. As for debt bondage, that too, seems acceptable. Rothbard notes (surreally, in the view of the group who criticise him) that paying damages and debts in such contracts is fine as "money, of course, is alienable," despite the fact that it needs to be earned by labour which, he asserts, is not alienable. [The Ethics of Liberty, pp. 134-135, p. 40, pp. 136-9, p. 141 and p. 138] ^[9]

See also

• Individualist anarchism
• Sovereign Citizen Movement
• Law of equal liberty
• Civil liberties
• Empowerment
• Free will

• Sumptuary
• Non-aggression principle
• Self-determination
• Victimless crime (political philosophy)
• Public order crime
• Slavery

Notes and references

External links

• Self-Ownership, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• The Philosophy of Liberty
• The Ego and Its Own (also translated as The Individual and His Property), the main work by German philosopher Max Stirner
• What is a ''sovereign individual''?

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