Property Theory

• Locke on natural rights

  • Natural rights existed before the government
  • Equates right to possession to the right to life, liberty and health
• Locke on labour theory

  • Property comes about as a result of labour on natural resources
  • By virtue of labour expenditure, the labourer becomes entitled to its prproduceodcue
  • Labour ranges from simple acts of appropriation to production invol. planning and effort
• What were Robert Nozick's criticisms on Locke's theories?

  • If I own a can of soup and spill it into the sea, do I thereby own the sea
  • Advocated the "entitlement theory" of justice that people can get property through voluntary transactions
  • Nozick suggests a minimal state which enforces basic rights
• What are Waldron's issues with private property?

  • Opportunity costs
  • Morally objectionable behaviour
  • Deprives the community over control of resources
  • Disproportionate distribution of resources
• What were Gray' and Gray's ideas on property as a responsibility?

  • Property is a responsibility with obligations towards others
  • Regulations on land implies obligations as well
• What were Gray and Gray's ideas on property as a fact?

  • Property provides emotional security and sovereignty to landowners
  • The way one behaves says how much property they have sometimes and how much property one has dictates the way they behave
• What were Gray and Gray's ideas on property as a right?

  • Their understanding of property as a right rests on a complex calculus of carefully calibrated estates and interests in land
  • Not necessarily ‘visible’ or ‘material’
  • One step removed from estate/land
  • Ownership of a right in/over physical property
  • An abstract right
• What did Bentham disagree about from The French Declaration?

  • Bentham believes the government is meant to set aside people's selfish nature
• What were Bentham's ideas on rights?


  • Rights didn't exist before the government
  • There are no imprescriptible rights
  • Rights need to be carefully defined if we are to know whether to introduce, keep, or abolish them.
  • No government has the wisdom to establish rights for now and forever
• What was Bentham's utilitarian understanding of law?

  • Law for social change varies as society changes
  • There are no 'unchanging rights'
• What political power did he think those who don't have property should have?

  property ownership derives from one's labour, though those who do not own property and only have their labour to sell should not be given the same political power as those who owned property