Property
September 21st 2007 02:27
To possess is to have something in your power. For instance, Nietzsche somewhere talks about different ways of possessing a woman -- along the lines of: one man simply wants access to her body, another wants also her love, and the third, the most egotistical, is moved to confess to her, to make sure he is adored in his specificity and for his vices as well as virtues.
The concept of "ownership", however, can carry a stronger flavour. For "possess" need refer to no more than having in your power -- non-human animals can possess, can piss-mark their property and fight to defend it. Whereas "ownership" (though perhaps there are many senses of the word) often speaks of rightful possession and usage.
And "rightful" and "unrightful" are relative to, require the recognition of, some morality, culture, custom, law.
We often think that if it's our property, then we're free to do whatever we like with it. In particular, we can exclude other people from access to it, and we can destroy it.
But in legal terms, this sort of absolute ownership is perhaps less common than we might imagine. Copyrighted objects are one obvious example -- CDs, DVDs, trademarks, etc. And another example is land, for we still pay taxes on land, our development of it must pass council approval, our title can coexist with indigenous usufructuary rights, the government can compulsorily acquire it, a police officer can search it, and most estates in Australia are held in fee simple -- such that, in a sense, it's not really us who "owns", but the Crown.
Even with other sorts of objects there are various sorts of limitations, often trivial, and usually to do with what happens when our property comes into relation with the world. We might be barred from photographing in museums, from bringing beer into a restaurant, from wearing boots on a tennis court, from carrying knives in public, from playing a stereo too loudly.
And manufacturers often attempt to restrict usage -- for instance, code-protected software, or gaming consoles hard-wired to be used in particular ways, or even food packets marked "not for individual sale".
More interesting (from a philosphical point of view) are moral issues that potentially restrict claims of ownership or modify the notion. These are often to do with ideas of waste and need, how happiness can be maximized, sins of omission, and human rights.
For instance:
-- One might feel guilty about an expensive skiing trip.
-- One might disapprove of other people's discarding habits -- "How could you throw away a perfectly good plasma TV."
-- Should people be allowed to own air and water?
-- Oscar Wilde tells the story of "The Selfish Giant", who prevented children from enjoying his garden: "'My own garden is my own garden,' said the Giant; 'any one can understand that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself.'"
-- Peter Singer, in Practical Ethics, speculates on migration, foreign aid, and walled communities. If, say, one country has more than enough food, is it morally obliged to prevent other countries from starving?
-- And the Catholic church, in its wisdom, is prepared to forgive thievery when you're stealing bread to feed your family.
It should be added that there are limitations, both legal and moral, on one's ownership of one's own body -- restrictions on what one may do with it. Often self-mutilation and suicide are illegal. Usually drug-taking, prostitution, and various forms of risky activity, are illegal. And always there are all sorts of impositions on action -- compulsory voting, education, military service, legally enforceable dress rules, etc.
Regarding "moral" matters, if one wants to be really picky, then letting alone issues to do with the purchasing (buying chocolate supports African child labour, etc), there is no object that can be used without butterfly-effecting other people -- by the object's consumption of resources, by its reinforcement of institutions and "systems" of various kinds (economic systems, sign systems, status systems, chess clubs...), by influencing those around you (eating a McDonald's hamburger is an advertisement), or by changing yourself physically or psychologically and thereby affecting other people (for instance, making yourself smarter or more obese).
The sheer use of time is at the expense of something.
There is no ultimate public/private distinction.
In one passage in Deathly Hallows it's observed that goblins have a different notion of ownership from wizards. If you commission a goblin armourer to forge a sword for you, then ownership of the sword reverts to the armourer on your death (or, if the armourer also is dead, to the goblin race in common).
You're not entitled to will the sword to anyone: your possession is mere renting.
If the goblin system is a practical one, I take it to illustrate (if communism didn't already make this point) that the rules of property could have turned out differently, depending, for instance, on who we decide has an interest and how we hierarchize those interests.
There are different aspects to "property", and there are many imaginable arrangements.
Giving the craftsman a claim, and placing restrictions on transfer, have intuitive support among humans as well. For instance, John Locke claimed that you make something your property by adding your labour to it. And (contrary to his earlier writings) in The Examined Life Robert Nozick wishes to place restrictions on undeserved inheritances.
Say I purchase your painting to wipe my arse with it. The odds are that most people would disapprove.
Here's three issues.
Firstly, the waste.
Secondly, the aesthetic crime -- it's wrong to destroy beauty and/or to interfere with art -- art is intrinsically valuable, art and artist are semi-sacred... (Poet as divine mouthpiece goes back to Hesiod and Homer. TS Eliot once said something along the lines of, "There is nothing more terrible than the death of a beautiful woman." Westley in The Princess Bride tells Inigo, "I'd rather smash a stained glass window than destroy an artist like yourself, but since I can't have you following me either... [thump]... Please understand that I hold you in the highest respect." Atticus warns Scout that it's a terrible sin to kill a mockingbird, basically because they have no business but dispensing round their magnaminities of sound. GE Moore thought that even if there's no issue of the happiness of any sentient life form, it's better to create beauty than ugliness. Etc.)
And thirdly, the deception or breach of contract. It's practically a condition of purchase that I care for the object and employ it only in particular ways. If you'd known its fate was toilet paper, you wouldn't have sold it to me.
More generally, this is the idea that the artist has an interest, no matter how many times the painting changes hands. At the very least, the artist's sentimental tie should be honoured. The painting is part of the artist, or is the artist's child, and while it survives it reflects on the artist, testifies to the artist's skill, is relevant to the artist's happiness.
Aesthetic issues suggest the possibility of other sorts of intrinsic values and limitations on what can be owned and what you can do with your property -- crimes against knowledge (destroying Freud's last manuscript), crimes against God, crimes against human nature, crimes against love...
Consider, for instance, attempts to patent the human genome, and ownership of human remains (see comments section below).
On the one hand, the rules of private property: this building is mine, and I'm free to do what I like with it, and you may not touch it.
On the other hand, if your building is in the public space, and that space is used by other people as well as you (perhaps used more by them), then don't they have an interest, and shouldn't this interest be legally recognised?
So governments and councils often assert control over the appearance of private property. It used to be the case (I think) that the roofs in Nice were required to be of the same colour. And in many places residents can complain on aesthetic grounds about development proposals.
After all, if a society can regulate noise and air pollution, then why not aesthetic pollution? A friend of mine would go so far as to argue for regulation of "light pollution" -- the light from neon signs obscuring our view of the stars.
In an article on grafitti, Ag of Eat French Bread makes a number of provocative remarks, including:
-- "it contests conventions of public space, private and corporate property".
-- "Why is a wall with writing on it is more ‘ugly’ than a wall with no writing on it? As a form of aesthetic sabotage, it interrupts the pleasant, efficient, uniformity of planned urban space. The appreciation of buildings clear of graffiti is about an affection for authority and the way property looks when it is under the firm control of its private, corporate, and governmental owners."
-- "In the article, Graffiti Gets Philosophical, Crispin Startwell offered his views on the relationships between vandalism, art and advertising. He said, 'Money brings with it an absolute right to convey your message and your name and your image to everyone, to completely dominate space of all kinds.' Corporations can purchase space in massive, graphic ways so that they rule the cityscape aesthetic, and the public has no choice but to be exposed to it. Graffiti is a medium of public expression for many who don’t have the money of advertisers, but police continue to protect concrete abutments, shattered warehouses and filthy trains, not to mention advertising itself, from 'the original, personal, at times brilliant expression … of real artists.'"
I wonder, though, if the logic can be extended to cars -- they're parked on the street, they're part of the aesthetics of the neighbourhood -- mayn't I take a spraycan to them?
Or what about personal appearance. If I don't like your hair, can I go to work on it?
The Age, Sunday 9 September 2007, page 18.
The Ethicist
by Simon Longstaff, executive director of the St James Ethics Centre
Q: -- Is it always wrong to take someone else’s property?
A: -- As many of you will know, this is the 20th year of the Open Garden Scheme in Australia’s Garden State. The curtain-raiser for this anniversary season was provided by Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, who opened her Cruden Farm to the public a fortnight ago. Now, imagine that one of her visitors had come armed with secateurs and the intention of pinching a handful of Dame Elisabeth’s daffodils by the lake. Would this have been wrong? More generally, how should we evaluate the actions of those who knock off a bloom or two from their neighbour’s garden, or scrump apples from another’s orchard?
To some people, the answers will seem obvious. Taking or using another person’s property without their permission is wrong -- so wrong that such behaviour is, in many cases, a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment. In general terms, it seems self-evident that we should be able to enjoy the use of our own property without interference by others. Even governments, with their extensive powers to tax and acquire through compulsion, require the consent of parliament.
Of course, some people reject the very idea of owning private property -- sometimes as a matter of religious conviction, sometimes for reasons of ideology. Those who hold that everything should be held in common (or not held at all) will not agree that taking a flower is wrong, even if it is located across a fence. If they object, then it is likely to be based on other grounds. For example, cutting a bunch of Dame Elisabeth’s blossoms might be condemned as a kind of aesthetic crime destroying the beauty of the garden.
Mind you, I don’t think that the "no private property" case is going to have much traction these days. Interestingly, there is a middle position that comes from a rather surprising source.
Among other things, 17th century philosopher John Locke is credited with being one of the strongest advocates for the rights of individuals to hold property.
Locke referred to property in two senses. In the broad sense, he included a wide range of human goods -- most notably, the rights to life and liberty. In the narrower sense, Locke used the term much as we do today -- as things we make and accumulate.
And it is at this point that his argument gets interesting.
Although Locke was a great defender of property rights, he also argued that you could not own more than you could use.
Indeed, Locke believed waste to be an offence against nature. A person might enclose land and plant an orchard, but if he grew more than he could eat, then Locke would allow any person to take and make use of the surplus. It is only the invention of money (ideally made from an incorruptible substance like gold) that allows for the possibility of converting a perishable surplus into a durable store of value.
Seen in this light, we might "scrump" a surplus apple liable to go to waste, but we dare not steal the orchardist’s money, because that would be wrong.
What this tells us is that, at the level of ethical principle (I am not talking about the law) there may be occasions when it is OK, and even right, to make use of a perishable item without the permission of the person who claims to be its owner.
From an ethical perspective, this will not be stealing because the claim to ownership in such cases is unfounded.
Now, one of the problems with this approach is that it becomes quite difficult to determine what is and is not surplus liable to go to waste. For example, plucking a neighbour’s carefully cultivated prize rose (for a buttonhole) has got to be wrong even if the rose is destined to wilt. Apart from anything else, if the value of the flower is solely aesthetic, then your actions deprive the breeder of the joy of appreciating an instance of creation. On the other hand, if the flower is really languishing unnoticed in some obscure part of a garden, or if it is indistinguishable amid a mass of blooms, then there may be no great wrong in it being used for some good purpose; presumably without ever being missed by its putative owner.
Notes
-- The image of the town of Nice came from this website.
-- Saturday 22 September 2007: -- "Drug addiction and the open society" by Lee Harris: "In the debate over legalizing drugs, the relevant simple universal principle is the one cherished by libertarians and given its classic expression in John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty: 'The only purpose for which power may be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.' Against this laissez-faire moralism, [Theodore] Dalrymple argues that 'no man, least of all a drug addict, is an island; we all live in society with other men. It is hard to discover activities that affect only the person who undertakes them. And while it is certainly possible for opiate addicts to lead otherwise normal lives, the fact is (and is likely to remain) that the great majority of them do not ... they impose costs on others, often very heavy ones.'" (emphasis added)
-- Sunday 23 September 2007: -- Robert Williams (University of Illinois at Chicago) in an unpublished paper entitled "Ricoeur and Hegel on recognition" mentions: "Anerkennen... taken in a legal and contractual context, can signify the social transformation of personal or private possessions into property (Eigentum), which implies not only ownership, but also the socially acknowledged right to exclude others, ie, their own self-renunciation of ownership rights in this particular case of ‘my property’. This is Hegel’s and Fichte’s theory of property in a nutshell." I suppose one place where I'd disagree is that I don't think you need a society for a notion of "rightful possession".
-- Friday 25 January 2008: -- It may be that entitlement on the grounds that "otherwise it would go to waste" is behind terra nullius, dispossession of indigenous peoples, etc.
-- Thursday 14 February 2008: -- In an article entitled "Keeping the home tome-free" (Sunday Tasmanian, 10/2/08, supplements, p 6), it's noted: "Joe Moran in the Guardian last week observed... All I ask as an author is that, as I should like some say over the disposal of my bodily remains, I am consulted about what happens to my books when they are pulped."
The concept of "ownership", however, can carry a stronger flavour. For "possess" need refer to no more than having in your power -- non-human animals can possess, can piss-mark their property and fight to defend it. Whereas "ownership" (though perhaps there are many senses of the word) often speaks of rightful possession and usage.
And "rightful" and "unrightful" are relative to, require the recognition of, some morality, culture, custom, law.
***
We often think that if it's our property, then we're free to do whatever we like with it. In particular, we can exclude other people from access to it, and we can destroy it.
Even with other sorts of objects there are various sorts of limitations, often trivial, and usually to do with what happens when our property comes into relation with the world. We might be barred from photographing in museums, from bringing beer into a restaurant, from wearing boots on a tennis court, from carrying knives in public, from playing a stereo too loudly.
And manufacturers often attempt to restrict usage -- for instance, code-protected software, or gaming consoles hard-wired to be used in particular ways, or even food packets marked "not for individual sale".
***
More interesting (from a philosphical point of view) are moral issues that potentially restrict claims of ownership or modify the notion. These are often to do with ideas of waste and need, how happiness can be maximized, sins of omission, and human rights.
For instance:
-- One might feel guilty about an expensive skiing trip.
-- One might disapprove of other people's discarding habits -- "How could you throw away a perfectly good plasma TV."
-- Should people be allowed to own air and water?
-- Oscar Wilde tells the story of "The Selfish Giant", who prevented children from enjoying his garden: "'My own garden is my own garden,' said the Giant; 'any one can understand that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself.'"
-- Peter Singer, in Practical Ethics, speculates on migration, foreign aid, and walled communities. If, say, one country has more than enough food, is it morally obliged to prevent other countries from starving?
-- And the Catholic church, in its wisdom, is prepared to forgive thievery when you're stealing bread to feed your family.
***
It should be added that there are limitations, both legal and moral, on one's ownership of one's own body -- restrictions on what one may do with it. Often self-mutilation and suicide are illegal. Usually drug-taking, prostitution, and various forms of risky activity, are illegal. And always there are all sorts of impositions on action -- compulsory voting, education, military service, legally enforceable dress rules, etc.
***
Regarding "moral" matters, if one wants to be really picky, then letting alone issues to do with the purchasing (buying chocolate supports African child labour, etc), there is no object that can be used without butterfly-effecting other people -- by the object's consumption of resources, by its reinforcement of institutions and "systems" of various kinds (economic systems, sign systems, status systems, chess clubs...), by influencing those around you (eating a McDonald's hamburger is an advertisement), or by changing yourself physically or psychologically and thereby affecting other people (for instance, making yourself smarter or more obese).
The sheer use of time is at the expense of something.
There is no ultimate public/private distinction.
***
You're not entitled to will the sword to anyone: your possession is mere renting.
If the goblin system is a practical one, I take it to illustrate (if communism didn't already make this point) that the rules of property could have turned out differently, depending, for instance, on who we decide has an interest and how we hierarchize those interests.
There are different aspects to "property", and there are many imaginable arrangements.
Giving the craftsman a claim, and placing restrictions on transfer, have intuitive support among humans as well. For instance, John Locke claimed that you make something your property by adding your labour to it. And (contrary to his earlier writings) in The Examined Life Robert Nozick wishes to place restrictions on undeserved inheritances.
***
Say I purchase your painting to wipe my arse with it. The odds are that most people would disapprove.
Here's three issues.
Firstly, the waste.
Secondly, the aesthetic crime -- it's wrong to destroy beauty and/or to interfere with art -- art is intrinsically valuable, art and artist are semi-sacred... (Poet as divine mouthpiece goes back to Hesiod and Homer. TS Eliot once said something along the lines of, "There is nothing more terrible than the death of a beautiful woman." Westley in The Princess Bride tells Inigo, "I'd rather smash a stained glass window than destroy an artist like yourself, but since I can't have you following me either... [thump]... Please understand that I hold you in the highest respect." Atticus warns Scout that it's a terrible sin to kill a mockingbird, basically because they have no business but dispensing round their magnaminities of sound. GE Moore thought that even if there's no issue of the happiness of any sentient life form, it's better to create beauty than ugliness. Etc.)
And thirdly, the deception or breach of contract. It's practically a condition of purchase that I care for the object and employ it only in particular ways. If you'd known its fate was toilet paper, you wouldn't have sold it to me.
More generally, this is the idea that the artist has an interest, no matter how many times the painting changes hands. At the very least, the artist's sentimental tie should be honoured. The painting is part of the artist, or is the artist's child, and while it survives it reflects on the artist, testifies to the artist's skill, is relevant to the artist's happiness.
***
Aesthetic issues suggest the possibility of other sorts of intrinsic values and limitations on what can be owned and what you can do with your property -- crimes against knowledge (destroying Freud's last manuscript), crimes against God, crimes against human nature, crimes against love...
Consider, for instance, attempts to patent the human genome, and ownership of human remains (see comments section below).
***
On the other hand, if your building is in the public space, and that space is used by other people as well as you (perhaps used more by them), then don't they have an interest, and shouldn't this interest be legally recognised?
So governments and councils often assert control over the appearance of private property. It used to be the case (I think) that the roofs in Nice were required to be of the same colour. And in many places residents can complain on aesthetic grounds about development proposals.
After all, if a society can regulate noise and air pollution, then why not aesthetic pollution? A friend of mine would go so far as to argue for regulation of "light pollution" -- the light from neon signs obscuring our view of the stars.
***
In an article on grafitti, Ag of Eat French Bread makes a number of provocative remarks, including:
-- "it contests conventions of public space, private and corporate property".
-- "Why is a wall with writing on it is more ‘ugly’ than a wall with no writing on it? As a form of aesthetic sabotage, it interrupts the pleasant, efficient, uniformity of planned urban space. The appreciation of buildings clear of graffiti is about an affection for authority and the way property looks when it is under the firm control of its private, corporate, and governmental owners."
-- "In the article, Graffiti Gets Philosophical, Crispin Startwell offered his views on the relationships between vandalism, art and advertising. He said, 'Money brings with it an absolute right to convey your message and your name and your image to everyone, to completely dominate space of all kinds.' Corporations can purchase space in massive, graphic ways so that they rule the cityscape aesthetic, and the public has no choice but to be exposed to it. Graffiti is a medium of public expression for many who don’t have the money of advertisers, but police continue to protect concrete abutments, shattered warehouses and filthy trains, not to mention advertising itself, from 'the original, personal, at times brilliant expression … of real artists.'"
I wonder, though, if the logic can be extended to cars -- they're parked on the street, they're part of the aesthetics of the neighbourhood -- mayn't I take a spraycan to them?
Or what about personal appearance. If I don't like your hair, can I go to work on it?
***
The Ethicist
by Simon Longstaff, executive director of the St James Ethics Centre
Q: -- Is it always wrong to take someone else’s property?
A: -- As many of you will know, this is the 20th year of the Open Garden Scheme in Australia’s Garden State. The curtain-raiser for this anniversary season was provided by Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, who opened her Cruden Farm to the public a fortnight ago. Now, imagine that one of her visitors had come armed with secateurs and the intention of pinching a handful of Dame Elisabeth’s daffodils by the lake. Would this have been wrong? More generally, how should we evaluate the actions of those who knock off a bloom or two from their neighbour’s garden, or scrump apples from another’s orchard?
To some people, the answers will seem obvious. Taking or using another person’s property without their permission is wrong -- so wrong that such behaviour is, in many cases, a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment. In general terms, it seems self-evident that we should be able to enjoy the use of our own property without interference by others. Even governments, with their extensive powers to tax and acquire through compulsion, require the consent of parliament.
Of course, some people reject the very idea of owning private property -- sometimes as a matter of religious conviction, sometimes for reasons of ideology. Those who hold that everything should be held in common (or not held at all) will not agree that taking a flower is wrong, even if it is located across a fence. If they object, then it is likely to be based on other grounds. For example, cutting a bunch of Dame Elisabeth’s blossoms might be condemned as a kind of aesthetic crime destroying the beauty of the garden.
Mind you, I don’t think that the "no private property" case is going to have much traction these days. Interestingly, there is a middle position that comes from a rather surprising source.
Among other things, 17th century philosopher John Locke is credited with being one of the strongest advocates for the rights of individuals to hold property.
Locke referred to property in two senses. In the broad sense, he included a wide range of human goods -- most notably, the rights to life and liberty. In the narrower sense, Locke used the term much as we do today -- as things we make and accumulate.
And it is at this point that his argument gets interesting.
Although Locke was a great defender of property rights, he also argued that you could not own more than you could use.
Indeed, Locke believed waste to be an offence against nature. A person might enclose land and plant an orchard, but if he grew more than he could eat, then Locke would allow any person to take and make use of the surplus. It is only the invention of money (ideally made from an incorruptible substance like gold) that allows for the possibility of converting a perishable surplus into a durable store of value.
Seen in this light, we might "scrump" a surplus apple liable to go to waste, but we dare not steal the orchardist’s money, because that would be wrong.
What this tells us is that, at the level of ethical principle (I am not talking about the law) there may be occasions when it is OK, and even right, to make use of a perishable item without the permission of the person who claims to be its owner.
From an ethical perspective, this will not be stealing because the claim to ownership in such cases is unfounded.
Now, one of the problems with this approach is that it becomes quite difficult to determine what is and is not surplus liable to go to waste. For example, plucking a neighbour’s carefully cultivated prize rose (for a buttonhole) has got to be wrong even if the rose is destined to wilt. Apart from anything else, if the value of the flower is solely aesthetic, then your actions deprive the breeder of the joy of appreciating an instance of creation. On the other hand, if the flower is really languishing unnoticed in some obscure part of a garden, or if it is indistinguishable amid a mass of blooms, then there may be no great wrong in it being used for some good purpose; presumably without ever being missed by its putative owner.
***
Notes
-- The image of the town of Nice came from this website.
-- Saturday 22 September 2007: -- "Drug addiction and the open society" by Lee Harris: "In the debate over legalizing drugs, the relevant simple universal principle is the one cherished by libertarians and given its classic expression in John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty: 'The only purpose for which power may be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.' Against this laissez-faire moralism, [Theodore] Dalrymple argues that 'no man, least of all a drug addict, is an island; we all live in society with other men. It is hard to discover activities that affect only the person who undertakes them. And while it is certainly possible for opiate addicts to lead otherwise normal lives, the fact is (and is likely to remain) that the great majority of them do not ... they impose costs on others, often very heavy ones.'" (emphasis added)
-- Sunday 23 September 2007: -- Robert Williams (University of Illinois at Chicago) in an unpublished paper entitled "Ricoeur and Hegel on recognition" mentions: "Anerkennen... taken in a legal and contractual context, can signify the social transformation of personal or private possessions into property (Eigentum), which implies not only ownership, but also the socially acknowledged right to exclude others, ie, their own self-renunciation of ownership rights in this particular case of ‘my property’. This is Hegel’s and Fichte’s theory of property in a nutshell." I suppose one place where I'd disagree is that I don't think you need a society for a notion of "rightful possession".
-- Friday 25 January 2008: -- It may be that entitlement on the grounds that "otherwise it would go to waste" is behind terra nullius, dispossession of indigenous peoples, etc.
-- Thursday 14 February 2008: -- In an article entitled "Keeping the home tome-free" (Sunday Tasmanian, 10/2/08, supplements, p 6), it's noted: "Joe Moran in the Guardian last week observed... All I ask as an author is that, as I should like some say over the disposal of my bodily remains, I am consulted about what happens to my books when they are pulped."
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Comment by Nonymous
Philosophy Blog
Comment by Louie
randomthoughts
Phil's Wellness Tips
interesting post
happy friday
Comment by Anonymous
I could argue that a person who uses art as toilet paper is not necessarily regarding it as worthless - in fact, they could have chosen it specifically for the purpose because they deemed it 'worthy' of them. They would have to be supremely egoistic, but they could savour the art in their own particular way.
Great post as usual, Adrian!
I wonder if you could let me know what the best way to get to the Surry Hills Russoc meeting place would be? I live in Randwick (Eastern Subs) if it helps... I wanted to go to the Heidegger discussion but I wasn't sure how to find the spot.
Comment by postmoderncritic
Postmodern Critic
Relativity Watch
Padsoc
Comment by Damo
Interesting post.
Carl Marx take on the matter of ownership was Property is Theft.
Douglas Adams: If property is theft thefore theft is property. If I steal I own it and it is mine.
Franciscan Monks aim to own nothing so that nothing can own them.
Now to go and pour some break fluid on my neighbor's black rose. I kill it so he may never own it.
Damo
Comment by Nonymous
Philosophy Blog
Dear Louie -- happy Sunday to you.
Dear Epiphanie -- I don't think anyone ever accused Nietzsche of believing in equality, of gender or otherwise. But, in fairness, the particular passage wasn't patriarchal if he was describing patriarchal beliefs rather than condoning them.
You're right that a butt-wipe needn't come from lack of appreciation. Such a desire might come from perfect appreciation.
Best way to get to the Russoc discussion from Randwick would be to catch a bus to Central. The location is across the road from the Devonshire street/Chalmers street entrance to Central Station. Look forward to seeing you there one day, though I should probably warn you that I might be very different in person from however I present online!
Dear Damo -- One thought your comment provokes is that almost all our property is arguably in origin theft. For instance, the land has arguably been stolen, and all our manufactured goods relied on land to produce them.
The following I think is a nice example of the way that ownership can be restricted...
West Australian, 22/9/07, page 48
Sad uncle ordered to bury baby mummy
A US judge has ordered a New Hampshire man to lay to rest an unusual family heirloom: a mummified baby that has been passed down for generations.
Judge Richard Hampe said the infant, known as "Baby John" and belonging to Charles Peavey’s family, must be buried because there was no DNA evidence proving kinship.
Mr Peavey said this week his family were disappointed but would not appeal against the decision. "I’m just washing my hands of it," he said. "I’m disappointed it came to this." The mummy had been on display on a desk in Mr Peavey’s home until police confiscated Baby John last year. Relatives and friends treated the desiccated infant as a family member, giving it cards during holidays and a dried fish as a pet.
Authorities learnt of the mummy ’s existence after Mr Peavey ’s niece mentioned to day-care staffers that her uncle kept a dead baby at his house.
Mr Peavey said his family believed the mummy was the stillborn child of a great-great uncle.
Testing concluded the baby died of natural causes soon after birth and confirmed the remains were decades old but did not determine the mummy’s age or origin. Mr Peavey said he could not afford DNA testing and authorities would not release the remains until there was proof of a family relationship.
"It’s one of the few things from our family past that we have left," he wrote in a petition to the court. "And when I pass on, I was looking forward to passing it on to another family member, to keep some of the history for future family members." In court, prosecutor Richard Head raised concerns about the family ’s treatment of the mummy if it were returned, pointing to Mr Peavey’s page on the social networking site my space that opens with The Addams Family theme song and makes joking references to Baby John, including a photograph of a small crypt.
Mr Peavey said the page was created as a joke by his niece and he was going to ask her to take it down.
"I do not think this is a joke," he said. "I’ve never treated him like a joke. No weirdness was going on."
Comment by Miswanderlust
Killer Beats
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Mis
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Comment by Nonymous
Philosophy Blog
Went to a talk on property last night, and was told that "Property is theft" came from Proudhon rather than Karl Marx.
Will blog more on property at a later stage.