Self-Ownership, World Ownership, and Equality: Part II

Abstract

1. The present paper is a continuation of my “Self-Ownership, World Ownership, and Equality,” which began with a description of the political philosophy of Robert Nozick. I contended in that essay that the foundational claim of Nozick's philosophy is the thesis of self-ownership, which says that each person is the morally rightful owner of his own person and powers, and, consequently, that each is free (morally speaking) to use those powers as he wishes, provided that he does not deploy them aggressively against others. To be sure, he may not harm others, and he may, if necessary, be forced not to harm them, but he should never be forced to help them, as people are in fact forced to help others, according to Nozick, by redistributive taxation. (Nozick recognizes that an unhelping person may qualify as unpleasant or even, under certain conditions, as immoral. The self-ownership thesis says that people should be free to live their lives as they choose, but it does not say that how they choose to live them is beyond criticism.)