TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cover Page
Title page i
Dedication ii
Approval Page iii
Certification iv
Acknowledgements v
Table of contents vi
Abstract viii
Chapter One — Introduction 1
1.1 Background to the Study 1
1.2 Statement of the Problem 2
1.3 Thesis of the Study 2
1.4 Purpose of the study 3
1.5 Scope of the Study 3
1.6 Significance of the Study 3
1.7 Research Methodology 3
1.8. Clarification of Concept 4
End Notes 7
Chapter Two — Literature Review 9
2.1 Theories of Property Right 9
2.1.1 Republic by Plato 9
2.1.2 Politics by Aristotle 10
2.1.3 De Officiis by Cicero 16
2.1.4 Grace and Free Choice in Answer to the Pelagians by Augustine 18
2.1.5 Summa Theological by Thomas Aquinas 18
2.1.6 The Rights of War and Peace by Hugo Grotius 21
2.1.7 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes 23
2.1.8 Divine Right of Kings by Sir Robert Filmer 24
2.1.9 Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume 24
2.1.10 Critique of Practical Reason by Immanuel Kant 26
2.1.11 The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill 27
2.1.12 Communist Manifesto by Karl Max & Friedrich Engel 29
2.2 Biography of John Locke 30
End Notes 33
Chapter Three — Exposition of Locke’s Property Right 39
3.1 State of Nature as the Foundation of Property Right 39
3.2 Property Right 43
End Notes 47
Chapter Four — Implications of Locke’s Concept of Property Right 49
4.1 Negative implication 49
4.2 Positive Implication 55
End Notes 57
Chapter Five — Evaluation, Summary and Conclusion 59
5.1 Evaluation 59
5.1.1 Criticism of Locke’s Property Right 59
5.1.2 Locke’s Property Right and Expedition 64
5.2 Summary and Conclusion 65
End Notes 67
Bibliography 69
ABSTRACT
John
Locke defined property right as right acquired through fixing of property by
means of mixing personal labour with natural resources. Locke asserts that what
constitutes primary title for property is labour. In the state of nature, a
man’s labour is his own and what he mixes with his labour becomes his own. He
focuses attention on propounding natural right to property. As man has the
right and duty to self-preservation, so has he the right to the means required
for this purpose. He argues that God, who gave the world to men in common, gave
them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life and convenience.
However, he sets limit to what a man can mix with his labour and convert to his
property. For him, the same law of nature that gave man property also sets
acquisition limit such that as much as one can use for the advantage of life
before it spoils can he with his labour fix as property. The implications of
Locke’s position on property right is that if mixing of labour with resources
lying in nature is the only criterion for property right then those who acquire
theirs through other means such as inheritance, gift, transfer and trade cannot
claim any property right in them because they did not mix any personal labour
with resources lying in nature to fix them as property. Though, Locke is
correct by proposing mixing of labour with resource lying in nature as the
condition for property right, it is not the only means of property acquisition.
Property can also be acquired through inheritance, transfer, gift and
transaction on already acquired piece of property. However, its strength is
that it addresses the prevalent social ill of demanding and receiving
emoluments without proportional work output.
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
- Background
to the Study
I
had an experience about villages in Umualor community that declare lands which
had been apportioned as personal lands communal and began afresh to reapportion
those lands to individuals who were ready to build houses thereby depriving the
owners who had no fund to start building houses on their own portions where
they already have other economic trees their rights to those lands and economic
trees. Very often the Government acquires someone’s personal land for
construction purpose without compensation in the name of overriding public
interest. People, especially widows and orphans sometimes came to my office to
complain about having their personal belongings claimed from them by usurpers.
These experiences have inspired me to undertake a research on how legitimate
property right can be acquired.
One of the problems facing philosophy today is the issue of property right. The problem focuses on property as a general term for rules governing access and control of land and material resources. These rules are disputed with regard to their general shape and their particular application. In the words of Heinrich Rommen, ‘“thou shall not steal” presupposes the institution of private property as pertaining to the natural law’[i]. Consequently, there are interesting philosophical issues about justification of private property ownership despite the opinion of some philosophers. For instance, John Rawls argues that questions about the system of ownership are secondary or derivative questions, to be dealt with pragmatically rather than as issues in ethical philosophy.[ii] Many more philosophers have developed theories aimed at analyzing the problem of property ownership. John Locke is one of such philosophers. He argues that God gave the world to men in common, and gave them `reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life and convenience. There must necessarily be a means of appropriating those resources owned in common some way or another.[iii] In line with this, Frederick Copleston states that Locke is of the view that, though God has not divided the earth and things on it, reason shows that it is in accord with divine will that there should be private property.[iv] John Locke undertook an intellectual excursus on justification of private property ownership. His theory of property right is built on the nature of property and the nature of the labour. Private property ownership arises from naturally existing resources through application of labour.[v] Labour is both the justification and the means to have legitimate private property. Locke’s theory also seems to place limits on the property acquisition and sets precedence to the ultimate need to protect property by means of governance. [vi] Previous studies on Locke’s concept of property right focused attention on analysis, clarification and evaluation of the concept of property. Little or no attention was paid to articulating its implications in daily life and applying it to specific situations, hence, the need for this study. This project is concerned with issues that relate to this.
1.2. Statement of the Problem
The problem of this study is whether labour can be the only criterion upon which property right can be based. If labour is the only criterion for claiming property right, it implies that inheritance, transfer, mortgage and gift-giving cannot yield property right. On the contrary if inheritance, transfer, mortgage and gift-giving are sources of property right, then John Locke’s assertion that what constitutes title for property right is labour[vii] is not absolute. If this is true, then Locke’s theory can only specify necessary but not sufficient conditions for an individual to become the legitimate owner of an object which has not previously been owned by any individual. This is the problem which this work sets out to analyze.
1.3.
Thesis of the Study
In this work the author sets out to
defend the fact that though labour gives right to private property as Locke
claims, labour is not the only means of acquiring right to private property.
Property right can also be acquired through inheritance, transfer, mortgage and
gift.
1.4. Purpose of the study
The
main objective of this study was to investigate the implications of labour as
the only criterion for property right in John Locke. Specific objectives were
to: (i) expose Locke’s notion of property right, (ii) investigate the
implications of Locke’s position on property right and (iii) highlight the
strengths and weaknesses of Locke’s concept of property right.
1.5. Scope of the Study
This research is limited to an examination of
implications of John Locke’s theory of property right. It is also limited to an intellectual
understanding of right to private property ownership and will not in any way
lay claim to being exhaustive because learning is an ongoing activity.
1.6.
Significance of the Study
This study has both theoretical and
practical significance. Theoretically, it impacts greatly on the academic
domain by advancing an understanding of legitimate claim to property right
among academics. The practical significance is that it brings to light that
work output and remuneration ought to be proportional. John Locke presents a
philosophical system in which labour gives one title to property right. The
phenomenon of unprecedented remuneration without commensurate or proportional
labour output is addressed in this work. It brings to light justice in wages
which has enormous implication in daily life, and for those in political
position, civil service and free capitalist market.
1.7.
Research Methodology
The research methodology adopted historical-descriptive
design. Data for the study were sourced from books, journals and articles. In
handling these materials, the historical, expository, analytical and critical
methods were employed. With the historical
method, the subject of enquiry was located within historical perspective. With
the expository method an attempt was made to understand the author. In the same
vein, the analytical method was used to analyze the subject of enquiry and the
critical method was used to subject his views to critical scrutiny.
1.8. Clarification of Concept
There is the need to clarify the key variables in the topic under discussion. The term property is used to describe the legal and ethical entitlements that particular people or groups have to use and manage particular resources. Property includes the full gamut of rights to use owned resource, exclude others from entering it, and alienate it. According to Michael Weir, ‘the term property is sufficiently comprehensive to include every specie of estate, real and personal, and everything which one person owns and can transfer to another’.[viii] The term ‘property’ is used to describe the legal and ethical entitlements that particular people or groups have to use or manage particular resources.
Right is a legal, social, or ethical principle of freedom or entitlement. Leif Wenar argues that ‘rights are entitlements (not) to perform certain actions, or (not) to be in certain states; or entitlements that others (not) perform certain actions or (not) be in certain states’.[ix] Where there are rights, there are also duties. If one has the right to one’s own body, then all others have a duty to refrain from aggressing against the bodies of others. These rights and duties are reciprocal. Of course, this is also John Locke’s position. He opines that one may give up his right if he aggresses against the rights of others. For example, if Mr. A punches Mr. B in the nose, Mr. A gives up his right not to be punched in return or not to be physically restrained by anyone else to prevent further aggression. Locke’s theory of property rights flows from this axiom.
All men may be restrained from invading others’ rights, and from doing hurt to one another, and the law of Nature be observed, which willeth the peace and preservation of all mankind, the execution of the law of Nature is in that state put into every man’s hands, whereby everyone has a right to punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree as may hinder its violation.[x]
John Locke was one of the early proponents of this view in its modern form, [xi] although Aristotle[xii] and other ancient Greek and Roman philosophers also discussed property rights. John Locke defined property right as right acquired through fixing of property by means of mixing personal labour with natural resources. [xiii] Locke’s position was that if you mix your labor with un-owned resources it becomes yours. No one has a right to use force to take it from you.[xiv] Robert Nozick defends this in his entitlement theory of rights. [xv] In the researcher’s view, property right is a legal, social, or ethical principle of entitlement to use owned resource, alienate it and exclude others from meddling in it.
According to Jeremy Waldron, there are three perspectives of property right arguments: common property, collective property, and private property. In a common property system, right to property centers on rules whose point makes property available for use by all or any members of the society. A park may be open to all for picnics, sports or recreation. Right to use of such common property secures fair access for all and to prevent anyone from using the common resource in a way that would preclude its use by others having right to it.[xvi]
In collective property right, the community as a whole wields the right to determine how collectively owned pieces of property are to be used. These determinations are made on the basis of the social interest through mechanisms of collective decision-making.[xvii]
In private property right, rules guiding the use of property are organized around the idea that various contested resources are assigned to the decisional authority of particular individuals, families or firms.[xviii]
There
might be need to define the following terms that may be found recurrent in the
cause of this work:
- Ethics
is fundamentally a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending
and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct.
- Land is
any part of the earth’s surface bestowed by nature and not covered by water.
- Capitalism
is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including
property right, in which all property is owned privately.
Beyond most general definitions of property and the right to it, is the domain of philosophical controversy. These controversies assume compounded shape especially when property right is not used to apply to the obvious cases of land and chattels.[xix] The topic of this project deals with ethical principle of ownership – not of intellectual property but of tangible property – which allows a person or group of persons to retain and use owned resource, exclude others from using it, and or not alienate it as understood and taught by John Locke.
[i] Heinrich Rommen, The Natural Law, Study in Legal and Social History and Philosophy, (Indiana: Liberty Fund Inc., 1998), 57
[ii] John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 274
[iii] John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, (New York: Everyman’s Liberary, 1978),129
[iv] Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Vol. 5, (London: Continuum, 2003), 129
[v] John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 132
[vi] Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Vol. 5 130
[vii] John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 132
[viii] Michael Weir, “Concepts of Property”, The National Legal Eagle 7:1, (2001), 1.
[ix] Wenar, Leif, Rights, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fall 2015 Edition, Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/rights/>
[x] John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 120
[xi] John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 120
[xii] Aristotle. Politics, ed. Stephen Everson, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) II,5
[xiii] John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 130
[xiv] John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 130
[xv] Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State & Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), 168
[xvi] Jeremy Waldron. “Property and Ownership”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Winter 2016. Edward N. Zalta ed., http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/property/
[xvii] Jeremy Waldron. “Property and Ownership”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/property/>
[xviii] Jeremy Waldron. “Property and Ownership”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Winter 2016, <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/property/>
[xix] Hohfeld, W. “Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning.” Yale Law Journal 23 (1913), 16-59
CHAPTER
TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
This
chapter presents a historical excursus on the development of theories of
private property. Effort will be made at showing how these relate to our topic
positively or negatively.
- Theories of Property Right
Throughout
history ownership of means of production has been understood as the bases of
stable social order. Ethical and political scientists have stressed this fact
from earliest times.
Plato (462b-c), in the Republic argues in favour of collective ownership of property which he said was necessary to promote common pursuit of the common interest. He also opines that it helps to avoid the social divisiveness that would occur ‘when some grieve exceedingly and others rejoice at the same happenings.’[xix] This view relates to John Locke’s doctrine on limitation in accumulation of property. Locke observes that if gathering the fruit of the earth confers ownership right to men, everyone would continue unlimitedly to acquire wealth without reserving some quantity to serve other people’s need. Locke prescribe a limitation on the ground that ‘the same law of nature that doth by this means give us property does also bind that property too’ such that as much as one can make for the advantage of life before it spoils can he with his labour fix as property. Whatever is beyond this is not his but belongs to others.[xix]
Still in the Republic, Plato writes about liberty in a democratic city. He states that the insatiate lust for wealth and the neglect of everything else for the sake of money-making is the cause of the undoing of democracy. This is because in the same way in which democracy arises out of oligarchy, tyranny arises from democracy. The good – that is wealth – is the cause of the establishment of oligarchy. He then opines that the criterion of democracy is liberty and which is ‘best managed in a democratic city, and for this reason that is the only city in which a man of free spirit will care to live’.[xix] This smacks of similarity between Plato’s views and Karl Marx[xix] as both were major proponents of communism.
Locke,
on the other hand, is a renowned exponent of liberty. Only liberty which the
government has the duty to guarantee leads to secure enjoyment of property.
[xix]
According to him, the natural liberty of man is to be free from any
superior power on earth, and not to be under the legislative authority of any
man, but to have only the law of nature as its rule. He holds that liberty to
follow one’s own will in all things is to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain,
unknown, arbitrary will of another man. He further states that this freedom
from absolute, arbitrary power is very necessary and closely joined with man’s
preservation, that he cannot part with it except what ends both his
preservation and life together.[xix] This
idea came as a reacting against Sir Robert Filmer who holds that liberty for
everyone is to do what he lists, to live as one pleases, and not to be tied by
any laws. Aristotle did not find Plato’s view accommodating and proposed the
opposite instead.
The views of Aristotle (384 – 321 B.C.), in the Politics are very important because the entire structure of his thought had an enormous and even dominant influence on the economic and social thought of the middle Ages. Although, Aristotle, in the Greek tradition, scorns money making and is scarcely a supporter of laissez-faire, he argues in favour of private property. Aristotle attacks the communism of the ruling class advocated by Plato denouncing Plato’s perfect unity of the State through communism. He points out that such extreme unity contravenes the diversity of mankind and a reciprocal benefit that everyone reaps through market exchange.
Aristotle
makes contrast between private and communal property. He asks: ‘let us consider
what should be our arrangements about property: should the citizens of the
perfect State have their possessions in common or not?’[xix]
He presents his answers thus: first, private property is highly productive and
will therefore lead to progress. ‘Goods owned in common by a large number of
people will receive little attention, since people will mainly consult their
own self-interest and will neglect all duties they can leave for others. In
contrast, people will devote the greatest interest and care to their own
property’. He writes: ‘Property should be in a certain sense common, but, as a
general rule, private; for, when everyone has a distinct interest, men will not
complain of one another, and they will make more progress, because everyone
will be attending to his own business’.[xix]
Second,
against Plato who argued that communal property is conducive to social peace,
since no one will be envious to grab the property of another, Aristotle asserts
that communal property would lead to perpetually intense conflict since
everyone will complain that one has worked harder and, yet, obtain less than everyone
else who has done little and taken more from the common store.[xix]
‘When the husbandmen are not the owners, the case will be different and easier
to deal with; but when they till the ground for themselves the question of
ownership will give a world of trouble. If they do not share equal enjoyments
and toils, those who labour much and get little will necessarily complain
against those who labor little and receive or consume much’.[xix]
Third,
private ownership of property is natural to man. This is most evident in his
love of self, of money, and of property which are bound together in a ‘natural
love of exclusive ownership’.[xix]
Fourth, Aristotle points out that private
property is as old as man himself since it has existed always and everywhere[xix].
Thus, to impose communal property ownership on society would amount to a
disregard of record of human experience, and a leap into novelty, not yet
experimented. Therefore, abolishing private property would perhaps raise more
problems than it would solve.
To summarize
his argument, Aristotle opines that only private property furnishes people with
the opportunity to act morally, for instance to practice the virtues of
benevolence and philanthropy[xix].
For, although ‘every man has his own property, some things he will place at the
disposal of his friends, while of others he shares the use with them. The
Lacedaemonians, for example, use one another’s slaves, and horses, and dogs, as
if they were their own; and when they lack provisions on a journey, they
appropriate what they find in the fields throughout the country. It is clearly
better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the
special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent
disposition’.[xix]
Hence, Aristotle is of the view that property should be owned privately but
should be used commonly.
Aristotle’s
thought relates closely to John Locke’s in the sense that Locke opines that God
has given the wealth of the earth to men in common. Locke writes that he would
‘endeavor to show, how men might come to have property in several parts of that
which God gave to mankind in common’.[xix]
However, he stated that God, who gave the world to men in common, gave them
`reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life and convenience. Thus,
all the fruits it naturally produces and beasts it feeds belong to mankind in
common but there must necessarily be a means of appropriating them some way or
another. Dilating on this point Locke claimed that ‘the fruit, or venison,
which nourishes the wild Indian, who knows no enclosure, and is still a tenant
in common, must be his, and so his…that another can no longer have any right to
it, before it can do him any good for the support of his life’.[xix] In
line with this, Frederick Copleston states that Locke is of the view that,
though God has not divided the earth and things on it, reason shows that it is
in accord with divine will that there should be private property.[xix]
Aristotle
also reflects on the relation between property and freedom, and the contribution
that ownership makes to a person’s being a free man and thus suitable for
citizenship. The Greeks take liberty to be a status defined by contrast with
slavery, and for Aristotle, to be free is to belong to oneself, to be one’s own
man, whereas the slave is by nature the property of another. Self-possession is
connected with having sufficient distance from one’s desires to enable one
practice the virtuous self-control. This means that natural slave is not free
because his reason cannot prescribe a rule to his bodily appetites to own
property. Thus, not to own property is to be perpetually enslaved to another
who dictates the means and the mode of use of the property. He makes the case that private property is
the best form of property ownership.
John
Locke is also of the view that there is a relationship between liberty and
property right. For Locke the end of Government is the preservation of property
right as deduced from the right man enjoys in a hypothetical state of nature
marked by natural liberty and equality. Locke further states that this freedom
from absolute, arbitrary power is very necessary and closely joined with man’s
preservation, that he cannot part with it except what ends both his
preservation and life together[xix] and
that is the only fertile ground for secure enjoyment of property. It is also
clear that Locke claims that lack of freedom is to be enslaved and any
condition that can lead to slavery is the enemy of self-preservation and ought
to be fought with an incredible quantity of energy. He asserts that a man may
destroy a man who makes war on his liberty or has discovered enmity with his
being for the same reason he may kill a wolf or a lion because the aggressor is
not under the common law of reason and has no other rule except that of force
and violence. Otherwise, he would destroy his freedom and make him a slave. He
wrote: ‘he who attempts to get another man into his absolute power does thereby
put himself into a state of war with him’.[xix]
Frederick Copleston, reflecting on John Locke, writes that because man has the
moral obligation to preserve and defend his life, he has the means at his
disposal to do so; he has neither the right to take it himself nor the right to
subject himself to slavery, to give another the power to take it[xix] and
deny him the freedom to enjoy his property.
Though,
Aristotle was critical of money-making, he opposes any limitation on an
individual’s accumulation of private property. Education, instead, should teach
people voluntarily to curb their rampant desires and thus lead them to limit
their own accumulations of wealth.[xix]
John Locke on his part places limitation on an individual’s accumulation of
private property. Locke observes that if gathering the fruit of the earth
confers ownership right to men, everyone would continue unlimitedly to acquire
wealth, and he asserted that ‘the same law of nature that doth by this means
give us property does also bind that property too’. As much as one can make for
the advantage of life before it spoils can he with his labour fix as property.
Thus, as much land as man tills, plants, improves, cultivates and can use the
product of, so much is his property. Whatever is beyond this is not his but
belongs to others.[xix] He
makes it clear that reason establishes a limit to property acquisition such
that there can be then little room for quarrels or contentions about property
so established. He writes that if they perished in the possession of one who
has acquired more than he needs, without due use of them such that the fruits
rotten, or the venison petrifies, before they can be spent, one offends the
common law of nature, and is liable to punishment. This is because he invaded
his neighbour’s share, for he has no right, farther than his use calls for any
of them to serve his convenience.
Moreover, while being an overwhelming
proponent of private property, Aristotle justifies its confiscation by the
State later in the Politics.[xix]
It is crysta
