Introduction. I understand self-ownership, like all other forms of ownership, as a social institution for mutual benefit, defining who may do what things without obtaining permission from others and who must obtain permission before doing what things. These "rights of way" that create mutual benefit are the bases of such basic freedoms as the freedom to work and the freedom to own property.
Forthcoming as “Self-Ownership,” in The Routledge Companion to Libertarianism, edited by M. Zwolinski and B. Ferguson (Routledge) .
Chapter 1. Surprisingly, it is controversial today to say that self-ownership is a form of ownership. But I argue that it is: self-ownership, like every form of ownership, is an institution for optimizing the tradeoff between freedom to go about one’s life and freedom from the interference of others, in a world in which going about one’s life almost always interferes with someone else’s.
Originally published as “Self-Ownership as a Form of Ownership,” in The Oxford Handbook of Freedom, edited by D. Schmidtz and C. Pavel (Oxford, 2016).
Chapter 2. Restrictions on labor are takings of property: liberty to work is property, and restrictions of that liberty are takings. Appreciating that labor is property, and that restrictions on labor are takings, clarifies the justificatory burden that restrictions on labor must bear. And where that justification is lacking, this approach reframes the nature of the wrongs that unjustified restrictions perpetrate, especially against the most vulnerable workers.
Originally published as “Self-Ownership, Labor, and Licensing,” Social Philosophy and Policy 36 (2019), 174-95.
Chapter 3. Self-ownership is a basis of rights to participate in other forms of ownership. Institutions that protect rights of appropriation and exchange are justified insofar as they increase the value of the rights of self-owners, by increasing the value to them of their liberties to pursue their own lives. In that case, self-ownership entitles one to participation in social institutions of appropriation and exchange, insofar as communities find those institutions mutually beneficial to create. (Projected.)
Chapter 4. Self-ownership is the basis of other rights. It is tempting to suppose that we could dispense with self-ownership and simply focus instead on people's rights. The problem with this thought, though, is that in taking people to have rights it assumes that people have the moral authority or standing to present themselves to others as bearers of rights. That standing is a fundamental moral relation between persons, and that relation is the same thing as self-ownership. (Projected.)