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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