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A Quest for Plausible Libertarianism

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A Quest for Plausible Libertarianism Self-Ownership and World- Ownership A Quest for Plausible Libertarianism Kasper Ossenblok A dissertation submitted to Ghent University in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science Supervisor: Prof. dr. Patrick Loobuyck Administrative supervisor: Prof. dr. Bram Wauters Academic year: 2017-2018 December 2017, Ghent, Belgium Examination committee: Prof. dr. Boudewijn Bouckaert Prof. dr. Matthew Clayton Prof. dr. Dries Lesage Prof. dr. Sigrid Sterckx Prof. dr. Patrick Stouthuysen Prof. dr. Marcel Wissenburg 1 Samenvatting Dit doctoraat onderzoekt of het libertarisme een plausibele theorie van sociale en verdelende rechtvaardigheid vormt. Het onderzoek mengt zich daarbij in het levendige hedendaagse debat rond rechtvaardigheid dat met name sinds de publicatie van Een theorie van Rechtvaardigheid van John Rawls (1971) de politiek-theoretische discussies kleurt. Het libertarisme wordt gedefinieerd door de verdediging van het zelf-eigenaarschapsprincipe. Dit principe stelt dat personen de volledige eigenaar zijn van hun eigen persoon, inclusief hun lichaam, geest, talenten en energie. Libertairen voegen aan dit zelf-eigenaarschapsprincipe nog een egalitair of inegalitair wereld-eigenaarschapsprincipe toe. Dit tweede principe beschrijft hoe personen de rechtmatige eigenaar kunnen worden van goederen die extern zijn aan hun eigen persoon, zoals een stuk land of een auto. Door deze twee principes te verdedigen, neemt het libertarisme een positie in met betrekking tot de grenzen van de individuele vrijheid en de rechtvaardige verdeling van rijkdom en goederen. Het libertarisme is een aantrekkelijke theorie van rechtvaardigheid omdat het zelf- eigenaarschapsprincipe een sterke basis vormt voor de bescherming van vele van de vrijheden die verdedigd werden door John Stuart Mill in zijn boek Over Vrijheid (1859). Tegelijkertijd is het libertarisme ook een populaire schietschijf voor criticasters. Deze tegenstelling vormt de motivatie van het onderzoek. Het belangrijkste doel van dit doctoraat is dan ook om uit te maken of het libertarisme een kritische analyse overleeft. Deze analyse zal gebeuren op basis van standaard morele redeneringen. Ik zal concluderen dat een vorm van libertarisme inderdaad plausibel is. In het bijzonder zal ik een theorie verdedigen die ik gematigd links-libertarisme noem. Dit is een libertaire theorie omdat ze het zelf-eigenaarschapsprincipe verdedigt en omdat ze gebaseerd is op de fundamentele libertaire gedachte dat elke persoon vrij moet zijn om haar eigen leven in te vullen. Het is een vorm van links-libertarisme omdat deze theorie een egalitaire versie van het wereld-eigenaarschapsprincipe aanhangt. Daarenboven worden de potentiële inegalitaire implicaties van het links-libertarisme teniet gedaan door een bepaling dat stelt dat elke persoon recht heeft op voldoende externe goederen om op een onafhankelijke wijze eigen levensdoelen te bepalen en na te streven. Het is een gematigde vorm van libertarisme omdat het bijna-volledige (i.p.v. volledige) zelf-eigenaarschapsrechten verdedigt. Daarenboven erkent deze theorie dat zelf-eigenaarschapsrechten in het bijzonder moeten beschermen tegen 2 schendingen van individuele rechten die tot gevolg hebben dat een persoon wordt gebruikt als een middel ten voordele van anderen. 3 Abstract This PhD investigates the plausibility of libertarianism as a theory of social and distributive justice. In doing so, it engages in the lively contemporary debate concerning justice, which experienced a significant boost since the publication of John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice (1971). Libertarianism is defined by its defence of the self-ownership principle. This principle holds that agents have full ownership rights over their own person, which includes their body, mind, talents and energies. Libertarians complement the self-ownership principle with a world-ownership principle that can be more or less (in)egalitarian. The latter principle describes how individuals can become the justified owners of resources that are external to their person, like a plot of land or a car. In defending those two principles, libertarianism takes a stance on the proper limits of individual freedom and on the justifiability of distributions of wealth and resources. Libertarianism is attractive because its defining principle, the self-ownership principle, protects, as a matter of fundamental moral right, many of the liberties famously defended by John Stuart Mill in his book On Liberty (1859). Notwithstanding the attractiveness of the self- ownership principle, libertarianism has been subject to an armoury of criticisms. Because of this contrast, the main aim of this PhD is to determine whether libertarianism survives critical scrutiny based on ordinary moral reasoning. In the end, I will argue that moderate sufficiency-constrained left-libertarianism is, indeed, plausible. This theory is libertarian as it defends the self-ownership principle and as it is grounded in the basic libertarian claim that agents should be free to live their life as they see fit. It is a left-libertarian theory because it defends an egalitarian world-ownership principle. This egalitarian principle, in turn, must be constrained by a sufficiency proviso so as to counterbalance the inegalitarian implications that a left-libertarian theory might still generate. The sufficiency proviso ensures that agents have sufficient external resources to independently set and pursue life-projects. The theory is moderate in that it backs away from the standard libertarian conception of self-ownership and defends near-full (rather than full) self-ownership rights. Moreover, this moderate theory accepts that self-ownership rights should provide extra protections for agents against being used as a means for the benefit of others. 4 5 Acknowledgements Although writing a PhD has on occasions felt like a solitary, nasty, brutish and never ending endeavour, these feelings are only superficial. It was, in fact, great fun! I am well-aware that I will look back at these years as a PhD student as being some of the best years of my lifetime. Many agents (and some non-agents) helped me along the way, both intellectually and personally, to make a success of these years. There are two people in particular who have shown the way forward and guided me while I made my first steps into normative political theory. These are Patrick Stouthuysen and Rob Jubb. Patrick Stouthuysen was my mentor at the Vrije University Brussels and encouraged me to study the theories of justice of John Rawls and Amartya Sen in my MA dissertation. Rob Jubb was my dissertation supervisor at University College London and introduced me to left- libertarianism. Without the right nudges from these two gentlemen, this PhD would probably contain plenty of SPSS analyses and graphs to show some correlation or causation. Luckily to the reader, I suspect, and in high part thanks to Patrick and Rob, none of these empirical methods can be found in the book at hand. Over the course of the PhD, I was privileged to meet a wide range of incredibly gifted political theorists who were very happy to comment on my general project or on some of the specific arguments I made in the book. Among these are Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, Nils Holtug, Philippe Van Parijs, Peter Vallentyne, Axel Gosseries, Eric Roark, Marcel Wissenburg, Michael Otsuka, Robert Van der Veen, Fabian Wendt, Liam Shields and Hillel Steiner. My ideas benefited substantially from conversations with these people at conference workshops, conference dinners, social events and via e-mail. Part of the book was written during two research stays abroad. In the academic year 2013- 2014, I spent six months at the Centre for Ethics, Law and Public Affairs at the University of Warwick. Without a doubt, these six months were the most fruitful of the six-years period. Thanks to the stimulating research environment at Warwick, the intellectual progress I made there was significant. I thank Tom Parr, Fay Niker, Chris Bennett, Adam Slavny, Helen McCabe, Hwa Young Kim and Costanza Porro for making life in this rather grey part of England a nostalgic memory. A very special thanks goes to Tom. He welcomed me openheartedly, taught me a lot about political theory and, more than once, commented on my 6 work extensively. I am also grateful to my local supervisors Victor Tadros and Matthew Clayton. They helped me to convert a vague project into a clear plan of action for some of the chapters. I would like to thank Matthew in particular. He was extremely generous with his time, both during my stay as well as afterwards. His comments made me reconsider my ideas and arguments on plenty of occasions. Moreover, his commitment to challenge students intellectually combined with his patient and respectful manner of communication is a dream for any student and an example for academics. No wonder I travelled back to Warwick multiple times. At the end of 2015, I spent three months at the University of Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. I was lucky to enjoy the company of Isa Trifan, Enric Bea, Gustavo Zavala and Darian Heim. Drinking coffee and the occasional pint of beer was a necessary distraction from the books in the library. My local supervisor Serena Olsaretti provided very helpful and honest comments on my work. Most importantly, she encouraged me to clarify my thoughts more carefully and to make some necessary distinctions between concepts. Of course, most of the PhD was written while based at Ghent University. Therefore, many thanks goes to everyone involved in the Department of Political Science. I thank Tania, Luc and Nicole for their administrative support. Special gratitude is owed to the members of the Gaspar research group. I will mainly remember the joy of engaging with smart and fun colleagues. Steven, Manu and Nicolas were early examples. Hilde, Tom, Floor and Anke very often made my day. Robin, Pieter, Benjamin, Gilles, Lorenzo and Marc regenerated, probably unintentionally, the atmosphere in the office. Bram created structure and stability. I am especially thankful to Bram for becoming my administrative supervisor midway the process. In unexpected ways, the journey at Gaspar was instructive indeed.
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