Self-ownership
Self-ownership is the condition where an individual has the exclusive moral or legal right to control his or her own body and life. The writer William Rees-Mogg described this condition as being a sovereign individual, in which an individual has supreme authority, freedom and sovereignty over their own choices, without the interference of governing powers. This notion is central to the concept of human rights and to individualistic political philosophies such as libertarianism, objectivism, and these groups extend self-ownership to ownership of one's labor and its products (property). According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [1], "The protection that self-ownership affords is a basic protection against others doing certain things to one, but not a guarantee of liberty" because if all one owns is oneself, and everything else is owned by others, then any action would violate the property of others.
The opposite of self-ownership is slavery, as it entails one of the greatest violations of an individual's rights. Writers like William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass expressed the idea that no man is empowered to own or govern another. According to English philosopher Richard Overton self-ownership, the idea that a person owns themself is the basis of individual rights. No one owns another; no person is owned by the collective or by other people. A person owns themself and slavery is act of stealing someone self-ownership from them.
However, even if one generally accepts the value of self-ownership, the implications are not always clear. Debate can revolve around the issues of how self-ownership impacts our relation to natural resources, or around the issue of the extent of the "self," particularly when the border between two individuals is not clear. The issue of "ownership" in the context of self-ownership is also questionable. For example, if by self-ownership it is implied that a person's right over him/herself is a form of property, this may be used as a justification for allowing people in desperate situations to sell themselves into slavery. Or, on the other hand, it may be used as an argument against this possibililty if it asserted than an individual always owns himself. Those who hold that self-ownership is an inalienable right assert that any supposed contract to sell oneself is not legitimate and therefore may be unilaterally broken at anytime without ethical malfeasance.
The trouble of defining the border of the self can be seen in the debate surrounding the morality and legality of abortion, where the right of the woman to control her own body can be in opposition to 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. 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.
The notion of self-ownership is not strictly adhered to in any society or legal system, but can be seen as a general guideline that is only violated in special circumstances. 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.
See also
External links
- The Philosophy of Liberty, an animated production, derives a libertarian philosophy from the principle of self-ownership.
- The Ego and Its Own, also translated as "The Individual and His Property," is the main work by German philosopher Max Stirner, published in 1844. In short, the book portrays the life of a human individual as dominated by authoritarian concepts ('fixed ideas' or 'spooks'), which must be shaken and undermined by each individual's self-interest in order for her to act freely. These include primarily religion and ideology, and the institutions claiming authority over the individual.
- Manifesto by Josiah Warren Classic treatise on individual sovereignty by the first American anarchist
- What is a sovereign individual?
