Replying to Avatar Michael Matulef

My philosophy is based on the principle of self-ownership. You own your life. To deny this is to imply that another person has a higher claim on your life than you do. No other person, or group of persons, owns your life nor do you own the lives of others.

https://video.nostr.build/87003c81bd1276fa2b3ce7d4819b8a3fa92811ca3af7a505e6dc26d48fd206ef.mp4#m=video%2Fmp4&dim=720x720&blurhash=UN9QqOkEN%25a%23OLofs%3Aa%24XBjYsQWUV%40WAWUj%3F&x=d257a65d8c7a29ed13fe6ee084a83d4c4e0df12460a0b21c42e617df7e93569b

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marc 2y ago

I don't think the analogy with property holds up, because it's circular and because it'd mean you can give yourself away. It's circular because the definition of property is that it belongs to you. If you are your own property, that means you belong to you belong to you belong to you... leading to an infinite regression. "You" is never actually defined.

If something is your property, you can sell it or give it away. If you regarded people as their own property, that'd be a very thin legal protection against, from the video, slavery or rape. Because you could sell yourself and what the new owner does with her/his new property is none of your business (again: "you" isn't defined anyway).

So those are reasons I think your moral philosophy absolutely shouldn't ever equate people and property.

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Leo Fernevak 2y ago

No, on the contrary.

Owning yourself is another way of expressing that you are born free and sovereign; you are your own master, without external masters. (Except perhaps god if you are religious, yet that is a voluntary choice).

Your sovereignty as a free, self-governing individual is inherent in your biology. You can't transfer ownership of your body; your mind is still there. You can sell your organs, but this implies that you already own your body.

This goes back to John Locke whose ideas provided a groundwork for the abolition of slavery. When you own yourself, nobody else can lay a claim to own you, or the fruits of your labor. Hence slavery becomes a violation of property rights.

John Locke, 1690:

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"Every man has a "property" in his own "person". This nobody has any right to but himself. The "labour" of his body and the "work" of his hands, we may say, are properly his. (Part 2, Chapter 5.27, page 130, Two Treatises of Government)

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This is about individual sovereignty and liberty principles.