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M O D E L
BOOK OF FUNDAMENTALS
NEUTRAL-INCLUSIVITY, TRUTH AND PERSONHOOD
PERSONHOOD AS ONE OF FOUR PILLARS

4.4.5 

PROPERTY, EXTRINSIC AND INTRINSIC


When speaking of "property" as a moral or normative right, extrinsic property rights must be distinguished from intrinsic ones. Also with respect to property, every normative system of disciplinary thought has to look at people and their relationships with other people or things both from a doctrinal and from a metadoctrinal standpoint. The basics of extrinsic property have already been discussed in Property as a right to personhood in the last division of the Book of Instruments (I.9.4). There it has been pointed out that extrinsic property is an active, discretionary right, that everyone owns 'er own body and the things which are made by 'im (at least initially and under the relevant description), and that everyone has an initial, equal share too in all things which are not person-made. This latter property right may involve an extrinsic right to an income, dependent on the fact whether natural resources are privately used and/or exploited by other people, or on the fact whether they are collectively used and/or exploited by the state or community. The right to personhood in itself does not guarantee such an income, let alone one which is sufficient for a living. However, everywhere where natural resources are indeed used and/or exploited by others, a person has the extrinsic right to compensation where such use or exploitation involves 'er personal share in these natural resources.

In the Book of Instruments it has also been made clear already that the constellation of extrinsic property rights and duties has still to be fleshed up with substantive normative contents as provided by a first-order ground-world doctrine. The liberty of choosing may be prerequisite for being a moral agent, and the actual possession of extrinsic property for being recognized as a moral agent, to be moral in an intrinsic sense one has to comply with doctrinal principles. On the neutral-inclusivist model this means that one shall opt for equality or solidarity, for everyone's well-being and for inclusivity. Thus, metadoctrinally speaking, one has the right to exclude everyone from one's extrinsic property as one likes, but doctrinally speaking, one does not have this right if doing so would be inequitable, harsh or discriminatory. In such a case a person's intrinsic property is smaller than 'er extrinsic property for the one, and bigger for the other.

As regards external things each person starts life with extrinsic property of the same value, apart from variations thru time which effect everyone. In the intitial stage it is only people's personal, physical conditions which can differ considerably. From the metadoctrinal point of view those who are strong and healthy can say to the weak and sick that they have bad luck. (Those for whom freedom is the sole or highest value do say that.) All persons own the body they have, but these bodies are not all equally strong and healthy. It is from the doctrinal perspective of the DNI that we realize that the strong should help the weak and the healthy the sick, where this is beneficial to people's and children's overall well-being, or where solidarity demands it. This, at least, holds with respect to people or children who are not to blame for their weakness or illness. If they are to blame themselves for it, they have had pleasures or advantages which the others have not had, or they have not fulfilled their own duties towards their bodies either. In such a case the strong and healthy who did not have those pleasures or advantages, or who themselves did fulfil their duties towards their bodies, may not be obliged to help them.

People who had pleasures in the past, but who suffer now because of those pleasures may on the whole not be worse off than people who did not have those pleasures, and who do not suffer now. By arguing that the latter people need, then, not be obliged to help the former, we use a temporal principle of equality, that is, we do not so much look at interpersonal equality at this moment but at interpersonal equality thru time. Evidently this does not preclude anyone from helping another person, even if 'er present misery is 'er own fault or is due to a risk 'e chose to take 'imself. Helping 'im nevertheless will be beneficent and will be conducive to equality at the present moment. All these considerations can play a role, because the DNI is past-, present- and future-regarding.

Not only the Ananorm's doctrinal principles are temporal, also the Ananorm's metadoctrinal principle is. The difference is tho, that the right to personhood can give rise to gross inequalitites while those inequalities are not even prima facie bad in themselves. On the metadoctrinal principle solely initial equality is required. But on the doctrinal principle of interpersonal equality inequalitites are bad in themselves unless they can be justified on a temporal reckoning. Extrinsic inequalities may start with differences in people's physical conditions, but they will be found particularly in the added value of person-made things. From a metadoctrinal perspective every person has the exclusive (extrinsic) right to the whole value 'e has added to a thing (but not to the thing itself, that is, independent of its description). Hence, a person who is very talented has a much greater chance of acquiring more extrinsic property, even tho 'e does, perhaps, not work harder than other people. But 'e does not have the same intrinsic right to the total value 'e has added to a thing; 'e only has such an intrinsic right to the extent that it benefits the whole (the community, society or all sentient beings). From the point of view of equality alone 'e should not have an intrinsic right to more than the average added value. In other words, 'er personal, intrinsic property is smaller than 'er extrinsic property, and on the DNI it is intrinsic property which counts. Yet, a person may also have acquired more extrinsic property, not because of 'er natural cleverness or skilfulness, but because 'e has worked harder than others. In such a case 'e will also have the intrinsic right to more property on the basis of temporal considerations of interpersonal equality, and on the basis of balancing that person's right to more property against 'er loss of free time.

So far as the right to personhood is concerned a person may allow or disallow someone else to use 'er extrinsic property as 'e likes; 'e may also give it away or bequeath it to whomever 'e likes. So far as the norms of neutrality and inclusivity are concerned, however, a person should not in allowing or disallowing the use of 'er extrinsic property discriminate between people on the basis of an irrelevant factor. And when giving away or bequeathing 'er extrinsic property to individuals a person should give and bequeath to poor people and children; other things being equal, that is. In this respect the more than average extrinsic property of the rich is the intrinsic property of the poor.



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