Reasons and permissions

The fact that a large animal is attacking me would give me both permission and reason to kill the animal. On the basis of cases like that, one might hypothesize that permissions to ϕ come from particularly strong reasons to ϕ.

But there are cases where things are quite different. There is an inexpensive watch on a shelf beside me that I am permitted to destroy. What gives me that permission? It is that I own it. But the very thing that gives me permission, my ownership, also gives me a reason not to smash it. So sometimes the same feature of reality that makes ϕing permissible is also a reason against ϕing.

This is a bit odd. For if it were impermissible to destroy the watch, that would be a conclusive reason against the smashing. So it seems that my ownership moves me from having a conclusive reason against smashing to not having a conclusive reason against smashing. Yet it does that while at the same time being a reason not to smash. Interesting.

I suspect there may be an argument against utilitarianism somewhere in the vicinity.

Ownership and ontology

We can own dogs, trees, forests, cars, chairs, computers and cupcakes, but of these examples, only dogs and trees really exist. Many of the things we own do not really exist. This makes me sceptical of the idea that there are strong property rights independent of positive law.

You might stop me by saying that my ontology is simply too restrictive. Maybe forests, cars, chairs, computers and cupcakes all really exist. I doubt it, but the examples of non-existent things we can in principle own can be multiplied. It is just as reasonable to talk of owning the vacuum inside a flask as it is to talk of owning the cocoa inside a cup. In both cases, labor was needed to generate the “thing” owned, and there is a reasonable moral expectation of non-interference with respect to it. (I would be destroying your property if I beamed a gas into your vacuum flask.)

What does this have to do with scepticism of strong property rights independent of positive law? First, it becomes very difficult to draw a principled line between ownables and non-ownables. Second, once we recognize that we can own things that don’t exist, such as vacua, it becomes difficult to distinguish “things” we have created and own from other kinds of outcomes of our activity. It then becomes plausible that the relevant right is one that should apply to outcomes of activity without much regard for whether that outcome is a thing that exists, a “thing” that doesn’t exist, or some other kind of outcome, such as a mountain’s being enchanted. There seems to be some kind of a right not to have the intended outcome of one’s virtuous activity destroyed without good reason. But how good the reason has to be will vary widely from case to case, so it is unlikely that this kind of a right will ground a strong view of property rights independent of positive law.

But the difficult is not the impossible. For it may be that although it would be difficult to make the needed distinctions, these distinctions could be grounded in highly detailed facts encoded in our natures.

Parts and ownership

Some Aristotelians believe the following thesis: When a bit of matter comes to be a part of a substance, it ceases to exist. I.e., the bit of matter comes to be a part of a substance in the way in which a horse comes to be a corpse--the horse and the corpse are distinct entities, the corpse originating in the horse. If they believe this thesis, they have to give some explanation of why particles ingested can still be scientifically detected. They will do this either by saying that the particles no longer exist literally, but "virtually" do, or by saying that new particles just like the old ones come to exist out of the old ones, except the new ones have the essential property of being a part of substance that they have joined. There are two different reasons why one might believe such an outlandish thesis: (1) because one doesn't believe in parthood (Patrick Toner and Alexander Pruss incline in this direction), or (2) because one thinks that parts receive their identity from the whole (there is some textual basis in Aristotle for this).

I want to offer two arguments for this thesis, one metaphysical and Aristotelian, the second ethical and eccentric. I find the first plausible, and much less so the second, but the second is kind of neat, so I'll give it, too:

• Matter receives its identity--that which makes it be the entity that it is--from the substance that it makes up. Therefore, if a bit of matter x is a part of substance A and a bit of matter y is a part of substance B, then if A is distinct from B, it follows that x is distinct from y. Therefore, no bit of matter can be a part of two substances. But everything that exists is a substance or a mode, relation, trope, accident or the like. A proper part of a substance is not a mode, relation, trope, accident or the like. Hence, if a substance has a proper part, that proper part is a substance. But the matter of a proper part A of a substance B would then be a part of both substance A and substance B, which contradicts the thesis that a bit of matter can't be a part of two substances.
• This argument uses two main assumptions:
  1. Without receiving special normative power from you or some higher authority, the only way I can by myself make an item x that you presently literally own to cease to be literally owned by you is by destroying x.
  2. It is impossible for one person to literally own a part of another.
  Suppose now you literally own a carbon atom x (e.g., it's part of a steak that you own), and I without having received any special normative power eat the atom x so that it becomes a part of my body. By (2), I have made it happen that you no longer own x. But by (1), it follows (assuming I have received no grant of authority or the like), the only way I could have done this is by destroying x. Hence, when an atom becomes a part of my body, it is thereby destroyed.