Another Attack on Body-Ownership
A Response to Nick Sinard
A little over a week ago I published an attack on the libertarian conception of self-ownership in favor of divine ownership. This week I hope to address a response to my post, written by Nick Sinard. Nick puts forward a response inspired by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, and Stephan Kinsella. According to Nick, echoing an example given by Kinsella,
The parents have put their child in a vulnerable situation and now they must take care of the child. This is similar to throwing somebody in a lake and then being obligated to help the person out of the lake. In both cases there are positive rights acquired. Each parent has a positive right to take care of the child, and the thrower has a positive right to help the person in the lake. These positive rights are not antithetical to the private property ethic, i.e., libertarianism, because they were acquired as a result of the parents’ and thrower’s actions [1]
The problem with this kind of answer is it seems to fall into a problem I demonstrated earlier in my initial post, how can a child be guaranteed such an obligation — such as the one given by the person we push into a lake — when they do not have their rational faculties available to them yet for self-ownership? They are potential rational creatures. Well, Nick also responds to that criticism.
The child gains full body ownership rights when they can demonstrate that they are rational beings, that they can enter into argumentation. This is because the whole idea of validity only arises with argumentation, and the idea of validity, and thus the question of validity of rights, doesn’t exist for, say, rocks or fish*. The question of “what rights are valid, if any,” only exists for rational beings [2]
Before that, children are, as Nick claims, property. Parents take up a trustee position. But the problem is, what moral principle grounds such a positive obligation? Nick cites the aforementioned example of pushing another person into a lake. However, if this comes from the fact the person you pushed into the lake are self-owners, this is not a justification children have available to them since they would yet be capable of argumentation or rationality. They would have this right in potential, just as much as they have their ability to reason in potential.
If children are property of their parents, as Nick claims, then I don’t see why the parent would have anymore obligation to pull out their child as they do a dog, or a couch. The problem seems that Nick is addressing the question “Who owns a child and when do they become full rights-bearing adults”, whereas my objection is “how can a child be considered property of the parent, while exerting their own rights as self-owners without a rational faculty to ground them”.
I will close by thanking Nick for taking an interest, and by agreeing with his last statement, “divine ownership and “secular” libertarian rights are not incompatible”. However, I hold to my own theory of divine ownership - alongside human beings as trustees over their person hood, and that of others- because I view it as the better position thus far.
You can find more of Nick’s content on www.NickSinard.com and on his Facebook page Nick Sinard. His publication is Liberty, Economics and Philosophy.
End Notes
[1] Sinard, A Defense of Body Ownership and Parents, Link
[2] Ibid
