Political philosophy and private property : an evaluation of four main types of theory concerning ownership and distribution of property in a just society

Abstract

This thesis takes as its starting point the beliefs that government should be neutral between the conceptions of the good life of its citizens; that it should take as one of its foremost goals the maximization of their freedom, and with a tentative acceptance of the view that individuals have natural rights. It attempts to answer the following questions: 1. Is there a natural right to property? 2. can an individual acquire exclusive control over an object independently of the actions or acquiescence of others? 3. Do private property rights infringe or protect freedom? 4. Is equality a desirable goal? If so, what form of equality should a society pursue? 5. Is a free society compatible with an egalitarian society? 6. Does it make sense to speak of distributive justice? In answer to the first two questions the author discusses and rejects John Locke's Labour Theory of Acquisition; in response to the others she discusses the theories of Karl Marx, G A Cohen, Robert Nozick, Michael Oakeshott, John Rawls, Alan Ryan and Ronald Dworkin and attempts conceptual analyses of "freedom", "equality", "justice" and "property". Finally, it is concluded that: 1. There is no natural right to property. 2. The form of property rights adopted requires the hypothetical consent of concerned parties. 3. Private property rights in areas of everyday contact are valuable - for privacy, autonomy and individuality. Security of property rights on a large scale, on the other hand, can threaten the freedom of others. 4. Equality is desirable. Rawls's version, that no inequality be permitted unless it improves the position of the worst-off, or a variant of this, best conforms to the constraint of 2. 5. This version of equality is compatible with freedom. 6. There are deep and conflicting intuitions regarding distributive justice.