Cornell Law Review Volume 94 Article 14 Issue 4 May 2009 Virtue and Rights in American Property Law Eric R. Claeys Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/clr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Eric R. Claeys, Virtue and Rights in American Property Law, 94 Cornell L. Rev. 889 (2009) Available at: http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/clr/vol94/iss4/14 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Cornell Law Review by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. RESPONSE VIRTUE AND RIGHTS IN AMERICAN PROPERTY LAW Eric R. Claey4 INTRODUCTION: ON VIRTUE AND FRYING PANS In Plato's Republic, Socrates persuades his conversationalists to help him construct a city organized around commerce. Glaucon, who has an idealist streak, dismisses this city as a "city of pigs."1 In re- sponse, Socrates sketches for Glaucon an ideal city ruled by the most virtuous citizens-the philosophers. 2 To make the city as just and har- monious as possible, the philosophers abolish the institution of pri- vate property. They require the auxiliary citizens to use external 3 assets only in cooperation, to contribute to common civic projects. This conversational thread presents a tension that is simply un- solvable in practical politics in any permanent way. Politics focuses to an important extent on low and uncontroversial ends, most of which are associated with comfortable self-preservation.