Rescuing self-ownership: tackling the pollution problem

Abstract

Two powerful arguments have been raised against the notion of self-ownership. One is that a robust right of self-ownership makes too many things impermissible. In particular, it is argued that the concept yields deeply counter-intuitive results when we consider trivial infringements such as very mild pollution or trivial risks such as having planes fly overhead. The other is that if we are to advance a plausible theory of self-ownership, then libertarians must make rights infringements fungible for social good. But avoiding this weighing and compromising is seen by many libertarians as a key attraction of their view. If these arguments are correct, then it seems that any plausible libertarianism, if we can still call it that, will be weak indeed. In this paper, I argue that both of these claims are false and in doing so I seek to rescue self-ownership from these objections.

Keywords:

• Self-ownership
• pollution
• libertarianism
• rights violations
• moral responsibility

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to two CRISPP referees for their insightful and helpful reviews. I am also grateful to my colleagues and friends at the University of Manchester, especially Richard Child, Billy Christmas, and James Pattison. A special thank you is reserved for Hillel Steiner, Jonathan Quong, and Liam Shields for their support and for reading and rereading earlier drafts of this article.

Notes

1. Left-libertarians build upon G. A. Cohen’s explication of self-ownership. Cohen defines self-ownership as conferring the fullest right a person (logically) can have over herself provided that each other person also has just such a right. See Cohen (1995, pp. 213–214). It is, however, important to emphasise that Cohen would not describe his own views as libertarian.

2. This is based on the idea that world-ownership rights – in order to be determinate – require grounding in an unavoidably distributive principle.

3. See also, Zwolinski (2014, pp. 9–21).

4. For this judgemental definition of paternalism, see Quong (2011, p. 80).

5. These conditions are influenced by Hart (1961).

6. An example would be BPs actions in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, see McDonell (2012).

7. Karl Widerquist raises a similar objection against the sufficientarian approach, arguing that sufficientarianism leads to an onerous duty to maintain a social minimum at sufficiency level. In the same way, it might be argued that my approach leads to an onerous moral duty to reduce our consumption levels consistent with survival. See Widerquist (2010, pp. 474–480).

8. World Bank (2016, p. x).

9. This can be seen by the signing of Paris Agreement which is taking place within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The 180 UNFCCC members that have signed the treaty are committed to the significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

10. In particular, Nozick argues that redistributive taxation violates self-ownership as it allows people to be used as a means by being forced to work for the sake of the good of others. See Nozick (1975).

11. This proposal fits nicely with Eric Mack’s recent ‘elbow room for rights’ explanation for minor intrusions. Mack argues that a reasonable delineation of moral rights must be such that the claim rights that are ascribed to individuals do not systematically preclude people from exercising their liberty rights that the claim rights are supposed to protect. Mack argues that impermissibility of minor right’s intrusions would be hogtying as we would have very few options if we could not cross anyone else’s boundaries. For Mack, the point of self-ownership is to protect our ability to live our lives in our own chosen way, unprevented by others. See Mack (2015). To avoid indeterminacy, I suggest that if self-ownership is to be adjusted to make space for liberties, then these liberties need to be equal, since, otherwise, one person’s exercise of such liberties can very easily engross the whole of another person’s liberty.

12. This list of basic liberties is mostly drawn from Rawls (1996, p. 291) and also, Hart (1973, p. 541).

13. Locke (1980, p. 57).