Lockean property rights

==== Pro case ==== 1) Attribution ownership through work A) Insufficient Definition of Life Pro has now clarified his definition of life to the point where I don't feel like nitpicking anymore. Instead, I'll ask that the judges look to my extension – "Life" cannot be the source of rights because insects and amoebas do not have rights. Con offered the standard of Agency to determine whether something has rights. Agency may, by Pro's definition, require life, but a philosophy of life is moot. All we have to do is look at agency. Is something capable of reason? Etc. B) Infinite Regression Pro thinks that parents can own their children to some extent. Presumably this extent is limited to whenever ownership fails some utilitarian test. For example "Can you beat your kids for no reason?" "No, you don't own them that much!". So if pushed, Pro isn't defending property rights, he's defending some other ulterior standard. He has solved the infinite regression by giving up on property rights. C) Performative Contradiction of Self Creation In a similar vein to above, Pro thinks that people can own each other, but eventually self-create themselves out of it. Unless you are living on a sustenance farm in the middle of nowhere, I don't see how this is possible. I eat other people's food, wear clothes they made, etc. I do not create myself. So by my view, his logic means that everyone owns everyone because we trade with one another. Even under his loose child-rearing interpretation, people own each other. So Pro does not successfully justify universal self ownership. D) Self Creation is irrelevant Pro thinks that stuff like AI is beyond the scope of this debate. It wasn't my intention to unleash a slew of "what ifs" under this point. Only to argue that even if something didn't create itself, it could still have rights if it had Agency. In other words, we can ignore Pro's focus on life and biology and still arrive at rights. This means most of Pro's discourse is non-essential. 2) Ownership Control Through Humans A) Rights are antisocial Pro changes his picture of man… I wish he had done this sooner because now we have no empirical conflict. Pro's claim amounts to the idea that people naturally pick Lockean rights, therefore they are natural rights. There's no source on this, but I agree… B) Argument from biological happenstance Pro says that natural tendencies get violated all the time, as in mutation. By natural, pro must mean "probable" or "normal", because mutation IS natural (see evolution). i) Pro thinks we are normally peaceful. I gave a citation showing that we've use violence all through history, especially aggressively. Since he doesn't have a source for his claim, it show flow to Con. EXTENSION – Even if humans are only rarely violent, it is normal for them to be only rarely violent. So Pro doesn't actually shut the door on war and murder. Just… most of the time. Most of the time be libertarian but its also natural to kill each other once in a while. Since murder once in a blue moon is natural, it is a natural right under pro's logic. This dissolves Pro advocacy of a consistent set of rights. ii) Pro concedes that scratching your butt is a natural right. I think what he means is that it is PROTECTED by natural rights… but it is not itself a natural right. That would be absurd right? Natural rights: 1) You own yourself 2) You have property rights 3) You can scratch your butt… Regardless, if you follow Pro's logic that normal = a right, then all sorts of crazy things become natural rights IN AND OF THEMSELVES. Pro's concept of rights is basically historical. He derives rights from what humans have usually done in the past. That's not a bad place to start pragmatically, but it is void of all philosophical content. iii) Anti social beings can still have rights. I thank Pro heartily and sincerely for admitting the drop. Takes oodles of ego-maturity. 3) Mixing Labor with Nature Pro doesn't think that values are subjective. A thousand examples of people feeling strongly over very stupid things come to mind. Instead, I think it will suffice to say that values are by definition subjective. In Pro's narrow sense, only things which directly sustain life can be owned. So you can own food, your house, clothes, and that's about it. === Con Case === 1) Theory of self ownership Pro gives a source refuting the "communism" of ancient societies. My observation was auxiliary fluff. The real point is that I don't care about what people did in the past. If they were perfect libertarians, great. If they were cannibal communists, so what. A theory of natural rights transcends history. Pro goes on to concede that self ownership can never be argued against. This is the whole point – that self ownership springs up instantly in any theory of rights, any philosophy, or any argument for that matter. This is what makes self ownership a NATURAL right. Whether people choose to ignore it doesn't change this fact. Communists might murder everyone and think that 2+2=5. Do their actions change natural rights? Is mathematics wrong? No. They're wrong. 2) Extension of Self Ownership Pro conceives of action only in the narrowest, physical sense. I asked him to instead consider extended actions. You don't just plow land and then stop owning it when you go to sleep. You are farming the land. That includes plowing, sowing, harvesting, selling, etc. So you don't stop owning something just because you physically aren't engaged in it. Again, mine is a non-materialistic approach. You approach human behavior in abstract by looking at its purpose. Not superficial physical episodes. Pro goes on to claim that you do not own actual material, you own value. This is confusing because his above theory of self ownership and definition of life is PREDICATED on materialism – the physical process of creation. === Pro Conclusion === I'm going to save pro a lot of grief and not go into abortion :P Instead, I'll say that the use-theory of ownership means that parents do not own their children. But they have the right to protect and nurture them. They have homesteaded the right to "parenting" in the way that farmers homestead the right to "farming". === Con Conclusion === 1) Agency Pro never addresses my reliance on the concept of agency to distinguish rights. I pointed out that just because something is alive that doesn't give it rights. Bacteria comes to mind… Agency is the only way we can arrive at self ownership as natural right (via argumentation). 2) Extent of Property Rights On one hand, Pro thinks that human beings can own each other (depending on creation). This obviously nullifies self ownership as a natural right. If you accept my interpretation that everyone creates everyone continuously (in society at least), then you realize that Pro's logic obliterates self ownership entirely. So Pro has rights flying all over the place. On the other hand, Pro only wants to protect property rights that create objective value. Objective value is an oxymoron. People value all sorts of crazy things. Regardless, this makes pro's property rights very very narrow, restricting the human race to production of food, shelter, and clothing. 3) Use Theory of Rights If this seems fuzzy, that's because it is. The only implication of self ownership is non-aggression. But self ownership is a vehicle through which property rights MAY be exerted. If you are doing X, and X is peaceful, you have a right to keep doing it. Whether X is playing ping pong, or farming (plowing+irrigating+harvesting+selling), it is protected. So the Con version of property rights is much more flexible, allowing a greater depth of creativity in property rights to emerge well beyond mixed-labor theory.