Self-Ownership, Freedoma DN Autonomy

Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Autonomy
Author(s): George G. Brenkert

Source: The Journal of Ethics, Vol. 2, No. 1, Devoted to G.A. Cohen's Self-Ownership,
Freedom and Equality (1998), pp. 27-55
Published by: Springer
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GEORGE G. BRENKERT
SELF-OWNERSHIP, FREEDOM, AND AUTONOMY
(Received and accepted 1 May 1997)
ABSTRACT. The libertarian view of freedom has attracted considerable attention in the
past three decades. It has also been subjected to numerous criticisms regarding its nature
and effects on society. G. A. Cohen's recent book, Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality,
continues this attack by linking libertarian views on freedom to their view of self-ownership.
This paper formulates and evaluates Cohen's major arguments against libertarian freedom
and self-ownership. It contends that his arguments against the libertarian rights definition
of freedom are inadequate and need modification. Similarly, Cohen's defense of restrictions
on self-ownership on behalf of autonomy are also found wanting. Finally, I argue that the
thesis of self-ownership (whether in its full or partial version) ought to be rejected.
KEY WORDS: autonomy, Cohen, freedom, libertarianism, Nozick, self-ownership
I. Introduction
The libertarian view of freedom has gained significant currency during the
past three decades in both philosophical and lay circles. This is the notion,
roughly, that people are free when they may act without interference in
accordance with their rights. They are unfree when they are constrained
by others or institutions, e.g., the government, to do anything which they
have not explicitly and specifically agreed to do, e.g., pay redistributive
taxes. Further, since people start out with different levels of abilities,
talents, energy, and resources, libertarians assume that, inevitably, people
will accumulate different levels of wealth and resources. Though this may
be modified through charitable actions on the part of such individuals,
any coercive redistributive efforts would reduce their freedom. As such,
freedom and equality are incompatible.
The practical effects of this view have been significant. Extreme liber
tarians have armed themselves and formed militias to fight against govern
ment encroachment. More moderate libertarians have sought to "downsize"
the government, to return power to states or provinces and thence to local
ities and "the people." It has led to less acceptance of public agencies, and
greater insistence on the rights of individuals to approve the particular ways
in which their money is spent. It has resulted in less spending for envi
ronmental protection, reduced funding for social welfare programs, and
The Journal of Ethics 2: 27-55, 1998.

? 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
28 GEORGE G. BRENKERT
curtailed efforts to reform those who have committed crimes or become

addicted to drugs. Instead of these measures which help other citizens
and equalize the burdens and benefits of society, money flows to pro
tection agencies, both public and private. Larger and larger prisons are
constructed. Private protection agencies flourish. Indeed, in the United
States, private protection agencies have become a growth industry in the
past decade. Economic inequality has increased. The ranks of the homeless
have expanded at the same time sales of BMWs have swelled.1
Though many have supported the view of freedom which fosters these
results, many others have responded with considerable concern. They think
it is a dangerous view which misconstrues freedom, eats at communi
ties, promotes inequality, permits exploitation and encourages sharp class
divisions. G. A. Cohen is one of those who has raised concerns about
such issues as freedom, equality and exploitation. He seeks an egalitarian,
socialist society, in which both freedom and equality are realized. To pro
mote this end, Cohen attempts to undercut libertarian views on freedom,
to offer a counter view of freedom (or autonomy) and to establish the com
patibility of freedom with equality. This requires attacking libertarianism
at its basis. This foundation, Cohen contends, is not freedom, but self
ownership, the notion that people have property rights in themselves. His
latest book, Self Ownership, Freedom and Equality, relentlessly surveys
and criticizes the notion of self-ownership from the perspective of equality
and freedom.2
Cohen's rejection of self-ownership and libertarian freedom, however,
is conditioned by two considerations. First, libertarians are unlikely to
be moved by liberal or socialist criticisms of the inequality that self
ownership and libertarian freedom may lead to. Second, Cohen wishes to
criticize libertarianism in a manner which may move libertarians to alter
their views (p. 229f.). Thus, he trains his most essential arguments on
libertarian claims regarding freedom and their underlying view of self
ownership.3 In doing so, he argues that we must reject the full thesis
1 I don't claim that all these events are simply a reaction on libertarianism and its view
of freedom. They are also responses or reactions to various technological, financial, psy
chological, and demographic developments in modern society. Nevertheless, the libertarian
view contributes to these responses.
2 Because I wish to refer frequently to Cohen's text, I will simply insert the relevant
pages numbers from Cohen's book in my text. Cf. G. A. Cohen, Self-Ownership. Freedom,
and Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
3 I do not mean to imply that these are the arguments on which he spends most of
his time in his book. In fact, he spends considerable time discussing the relations of self
ownership and equality. Nevertheless, in the end, given the two considerations I note here,
SELF-OWNERSHIP, FREEDOM, AND AUTONOMY 29
of self-ownership that libertarians hold and its supposed relations with

freedom.
In general, I agree with these conclusions of Cohen, though I think
that his arguments require some modification as well as further support.
In addition, though Cohen continues to support a partial thesis of self
ownership (p. 119), I think that we should reject even this restricted view.
Self-ownership, I shall argue, is much less attractive or appealing than
Cohen (let alone libertarians) allows. Instead of seeking to modify it, we
should simply reject it outright. Accordingly, the central focus of the fol
lowing paper is an exploration of the nature and relations of self-ownership,
freedom and autonomy. Cohen's discussion of these concepts is scattered
throughout the book. Part of the aim of this paper is to bring these argu
ments together so that they may more easily be considered. Though these
relations constitute only a part of Cohen's book, they form a crucial part.
Their examination is important to understanding Cohen's views.
II. Self-Ownership and Freedom
Though libertarianism is generally characterized as placing liberty first in

its pantheon of values, Cohen claims that, at least in Nozick's version,
it is not liberty, but self-ownership which has pride of place. "[T]he pri
mary commitment of his philosophy is not to liberty but to the thesis
of self-ownership, which says that each person is the morally rightful
owner of his own person and powers, and, consequently, that each is free
(morally speaking) to use those powers as he wishes, provided that he
does not deploy them aggressively against others" (p. 67). On this view,
"the scope and nature of the freedom that we should enjoy is a function of
our self-ownership" (p. 67). To reject libertarian views of freedom, Cohen
believes we must not only attack those views themselves, but we must
also undermine the underlying views of self-ownership. We must, then,
consider libertarian views on the nature and relation of self-ownership and
freedom.4
it would seem that his discussions of freedom and self-ownership are the most crucial for
his rejection of libertarianism.
4 Cohen's analysis of libertarianism is done in the guise of an examination of Nozick's
work, particularly that in R. Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York: Basic Books,
1974). Though he distinguishes right from left wing libertarianism, when Cohen refers
simply to libertarianism he has Nozick (whom Cohen calls a right wing libertarian) in
mind. For simplification, I will follow Cohen in this, even though the reader should be
aware that other right wing libertarians do not share all of Nozick's views.
Cohen's account of self-ownership involves distinguishing between the

concept and the thesis of self-ownership.5 The former is the notion that
people own themselves, that is, that they have property rights in themselves.
This does not presuppose, Cohen claims, that one has two selves, one of
which owns the other, but merely specifies a reflexive relation in which
one owns one's person and powers (pp. 69,211). As such, Cohen believes
that the concept of self-ownership is a coherent concept. One can accept
and use this concept, as Cohen does, without being further committed to
the (libertarian) thesis or principle of self-ownership.6
The libertarian thesis of self-ownership uses the same-named concept
to maintain that"... each person enjoys, over herself and her powers, full
and exclusive rights of control and use, and therefore owes no service or
product to anyone else that she has not contracted to supply" (p. 12; cf.
pp. 67-69, 116-117).7 The full thesis of self-ownership is a complex of
views which Cohen articulates in various places. It is not clear in some
instances whether various items are parts of the full thesis, implications or
consequences. Further, it is unclear which rights are at stake. Of course,
Nozick himself was unclear as to which and how many rights were involved
in his account. Cohen's account retains this unfortunate vagueness.
In any case, the following items appear to be among the main features
of the full thesis of self-ownership: (a) "Each person is the morally rightful
owner of his own person and powers" (pp. 67, 116-117); (b) A person
has "a right to private ownership of the fruits of [his or her] ... talents
exchanged as commodities in an open market" (p. 238); thus, one may
buy, sell, rent one's talents and powers; (c) Each person has "the right not
to be forced to place what [he or she owns] ... at the disposal of anyone
else" (p. 117). Instead, all obligations to serve other people are contractual
(cf. p. 230). Accordingly, one need not devote oneself to anyone else's
benefit (p. 228). Indeed, self-ownership excludes a duty to help others
(p. 228); (d) Except insofar as one uses one's property aggressively against
others to deny them their similar rights, one's right to one's property and
one's self is absolute. Thus, a person with full self-ownership rights in
herself may sell herself into slavery (p. 118) or sell her labor power to
5 In fact, Cohen speaks of a concept, thesis and principle of self-ownership. Cohen

appears to use the term "principle" sometimes to refer to the thesis and at other times to the
concept of self-ownership.
6 Cohen claims that because some of his critics have not made this distinction they have
criticized him mistakenly for views he does not hold, viz., support of the (full) thesis of
self-ownership.
7 I will speak interchangeably of "the libertarian thesis (or principle) of self-ownership"
and the "full thesis (or principle) of self-ownership." This view is to be distinguished from
a "partial thesis (or principle) of self-ownership" such as Cohen seems to retain.
self-ownership, freedom, and autonomy 31
a capitalist. Cohen compares this set of self-ownership rights both with

those which constitute "one's unrestricted private ownership of a piece
of physical property" (pp. 116-117), and those rights that a slaveholder
would possess over a complete chattel (p. 68).
Even though Cohen tells us that self-ownership involves "an extensive
set of moral rights" (p. 117), we are told little specific, beyond the preced
ing, about self-ownership or the rights involved.8 For the purposes of his
discussion, Cohen focuses on the above two rights (cf. "b" and "c"). Other
rights remain unidentified. Cohen does, however, further characterize this
set of rights by indicating that these rights are held universally by all
people, they are essentially rights of control (p. 210) and they constitute
a maximal set of rights. Cohen says that he discusses "a maximal concept
because, as the informed reader will, I am sure, agree, that is the concept
to which libertarians are attached" (p. 213fn.).
Two brief comments are appropriate. First, this formulation of self
ownership differs from that which others have suggested. For example,
Richard Arneson has characterized self-ownership, in Cohen's name, as
the principle that "people should be left free to do whatever they choose
unless their actions cause (or threaten to cause) harm, in specified ways, to
non-consenting others."9 On the above account, this appears to be part of,
or an entailment of, the self-ownership thesis, rather than the whole of self
ownership. For Cohen self-ownership relates to the rights of ownership or
property one has in oneself and one's powers. One's freedom is derivative
from these property rights. Yet another sense of "self-ownership" is used
by Peter Vallentyne. He considers the view that autonomous agents are
"... self-owning in the sense of having moral authority to decide how to
live their lives (within the constraints of the rights of others)."10 Rather
than try to sort through the different understandings of self-ownership, I
will simply focus on Cohen's interpretation.
Second, since the rights involved in self-ownership are essentially rights
of control, people who are self-owning in the maximal sense are said to
8 Gorr has complained that "the main problem with this principle is that it is largely
indeterminate in the absence of an account of what precisely are the legal rights of a
slaveholder with respect to his slave" [Cf. M. Gorr, "Justice, Self-Ownership, and Natural
Assets," Social Philosophy & Policy 12 (1995), p. 268]. I think Gorr is correct on the
problem, but mistates it in terms of legal rights alone. Cohen is more interested in moral
rights. In any case, Cohen only mentions the two moral rights I have noted in the text.
9 R. J. Arneson, "Lockean Self-Ownership: Towards a Demolition," Political Studies
39 (1991), p. 36. Note this is a form of negative freedom - people are left to do whatever
they choose insofar as it does not harm others.
10 P. Vallentyne, "Self-Ownership and Equality: Brute Luck, Gifts, Universal Dominance,
and Leximin," Ethics 107 (1997), p. 321.
control their own powers and products (p. 165), and, indeed, their lives
(p. 101). They are "entirely sovereign" over themselves (p. 13). Nozick
is said to advocate the view that "each person should be free to live his
own life, a desideratum which is supposed to be secured by the rights
constituting Nozickian self-ownership" (p. 100). Thus, self-ownership is
supposed to bring freedom from others and governments, except insofar
as we agree to associate with them. Each of us lives in a castle of oneself,
constructed out of a pile of rights. Entry to this protected ground is only
through our explicit permission. Obligations and responsibilities to those
beyond our walls arise only through contract with them. It is obvious how
such views underlie, at least partially, the practical consequences which
were noted at the outset of this paper. Since a person has no obligations
to people other than those with whom he or she has made a contract or
agreement, governments overstep their bounds when they tax people with
out their express and specific consent. Thus, when a government imposes
demands on those within its area of control without their consent, liber
tarians argue that it renders them slaves, reduces their autonomy, and treats
them merely as means to its ends. It is these views and their connection
with self-ownership which need to be examined.
We may begin by asking what kind of freedom is connected with
self-ownership. There are several possibilities. Cohen discusses libertarian
self-ownership in light of negative freedom, a rights definition of freedom
and freedom as autonomy. In fact, he claims that libertarians subscribe to
all three views of freedom, though in some instances he claims they do
this inconsistently and in others mistakenly. For example, Cohen attributes
to Nozick and libertarians a rights definition of freedom. On this view, "I
am unfree only when someone prevents me from doing what I have a right
to do, so that he, consequently, has no right to prevent me from doing it"
(p. 59). This is not a surprising view to attribute to Nozick. Others (e.g.,
John Gray) attribute such a view to Nozick and Nozick himself works with
such a view.11
However, Cohen rejects this view of freedom as mistaken. He argues
that if freedom is defined in terms of one's rights, then in order to know
whether or not a person is acting freely we must determine what rights
people have in the particular case. This is not, however, what in fact
we have to do. Cohen claims that, in the ordinary (or negative) sense of
freedom, we can know whether or not a person is free simply by looking
to whether someone or institution interferes with a person acting on his or
11 Cf., J. Gray, "Marxian Freedom, Individual Liberty, and the End of Alienation," in E.
F. Paul, F. D. Miller, Jr., J. Paul, and J. Ahrens (eds), Marxism and Liberalism (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1986). Nozick, p. 262.
her desires. Thus he maintains that we do not have to look to a person's

rights in order to know whether his or her freedom of action has been
restricted. Even those who have violated the rights of others and who are
being justly punished for their acts are rendered unfree when they are
imprisoned. Accordingly, Cohen notes, "a properly convicted murderer is
rendered unfree when he is justly imprisoned" (p. 60). The reason we know
this is that in ordinary usage, freedom is the lack of interferences to doing
what one wants. And we may safely assume that a convicted murdered
does not want to be imprisoned.
However, this argument is subject to two important limitations. First,
it depends upon a plausible account of the ordinary meaning of freedom.
Second, such appeals to ordinary use may have limited persuasive power.
If other compelling reasons can be found to revise ordinary language, that
is something we should do. Thus, Cohen doesn't want to rest his view
on the preceding basis. He feels obliged to offer philosophical arguments
against the libertarian rights view of freedom. Cohen's discussion here
records his own changed understanding of libertarianism. It is a record of
gained insight, and inadequate arguments.
For example, Cohen's first philosophical argument draws on a premise
which, Cohen now recognizes, is undercut by his own claims about self
ownership. Cohen originally argued that libertarians themselves should
reject the rights definition of freedom since they could not defend their
views of private property by using it. His reason was that if they used this
definition, they could not, without further argument, say that interferences
with private property were wrong because they limit freedom. Since he had
not yet identified the libertarian self-ownership thesis with its view that
people had moral rights to their property, Cohen thought that libertarians
could say that interferences with property limited freedom only if they
appealed to a negative view of freedom. Thus, they could not use the
rights definition of freedom in order to defend their position regarding
private property but had to, inconsistently, shift to using the negative sense
of freedom. However, this had the unsavory implication (for libertarians)
that protection of private property limited the freedom of others, since
such protection interfered with what others might want to do, e.g., pitch
a tent on a property owner's land. Because libertarians wanted to be for
the liberty of all, they would then switch back to their rights definition of
freedom, according to which protection of private property did not limit
others' freedom since private property owners were following their rights.
Thus, Cohen charged libertarians with speaking inconsistently and using a
sense of freedom that does not give them what they sought (p. 60).
The problem with this argument, as Cohen now recognizes, is that

libertarians can escape it if they maintain that a person has moral rights to
his or her property, which is exactly what self-ownership provides (pp. 65
66). Because people have moral rights to their property, libertarians can
say that interferences with themselves and private property are wrong
because they limit freedom. As such, libertarians would not have to draw
on the negative concept of freedom and would not, accordingly, be using
two different concepts of freedom inconsistently. But if this is the case,
Cohen's argument against the rights definition collapses, and he is left with
his ordinary language argument.
Accordingly, Cohen launches another attack on the rights definition.
This time he objects that it does not accord better than negative freedom
with our intuitions about restricting people's liberties. Here he takes on the
views of those such as Gray, who has argued that, contrary to the negative
view of freedom, laws forbidding sexual assault do not imply that a rapist
charged under them has lost a freedom. The rapist never had a "freedom to
rape." Further, Gray claims that if we think in terms of negative freedom
when we formulate such laws, "the rapists's liberty [must] be 'weighed in
the scales' against his victim's" (p. 64). However, once again, Gray thinks
that this is simply mistaken.
Cohen contends that it is Gray who is in error. Gray has confused
conceptual and moral issues. According to Cohen, "on what Gray calls
the liberal [i.e., ordinary] view, whether or not the rapist loses a freedom
requires no judgement about moral rights nor any value judgement what
soever, and not, in particular, the judgement that Gray here groundlessly
foists, that there is some value in the rapist's freedom to rape" (p. 64).
These are not (good) reasons, Cohen claims, to adopt the rights definition
of freedom over what he identifies as the ordinary view of freedom.
However, even in this case, Cohen's argument will be successful only
if he is correct about the ordinary view of freedom, e.g., that it can be
explicated simply in terms of one's wants and its loss requires no value
judgments. Cohen's argument presupposes such a view, rather than defends
it. If Cohen's view of negative freedom were correct, he could then use this
account to undermine libertarian claims that protection of private property
does not restrict people's freedom, whereas restrictions on private property,
such as socialists and liberals might impose, do (p. 56). In so arguing,
he would be able to challenge the libertarian view of themselves as the
opponents of all restrictions on individual freedom (p. 55). What, then,
does Cohen say affirmatively about negative freedom? Unfortunately, he
says very little on this score.
Cohen could be more straightforward if he would offer an account

of the ordinary view of freedom as lack of interference. However, his
account here is very problematic, as others have pointed out before.12
Cohen portrays negative freedom as the lack of interference to a person
doing what he or she wants to do. This concept is a purely descriptive one.
However, so characterized, this view is inadequate and can hardly be used,
as such, against the rights definition.
For example, on Cohen's negative view of freedom, to say that someone
interferes with my actions means that I have a desire or an intention to do
something, but that someone else in some manner blocks or inhibits my
execution of that action (pp. 55-56). It would seem to follow that if I did
not have a desire or intention to do Y, then even if someone else is blocking
the path to Y, that person is not restricting my freedom. Further, if the path
to Y were protected by certain rights, but I had no interest or desire to
act upon those rights, then again my freedom would not be reduced by
restriction or elimination of those rights. Thus, suppose that I do not care
at all about speaking out on public matters or selling my labor power to
those who might want it. The rights to free speech or to sell my labor mean
nothing to me. If the state eliminated these rights, then I would still remain
just as free as before since it was not interfering with my actions. I had
no desire or intention to speak out, or to sell my labor. Even further, if the
rulers managed to eliminate people's desires to do such things, then their
freedom would remain untouched, since they could still do exactly what
they wanted to do.
Surely this is an unacceptable account of freedom. It reduces freedom
to interferences with actual desires or wants that people have and thereby
shrinks their freedom. On this view, limitations on self-ownership would
not necessarily be limitations on one's (negative) freedom, just as limita
tions on anything else one did not want or have some interest in would
not restrict one's freedom. Clearly, some more elaborate and acceptable
account of freedom and interferences is called for if Cohen is going to
undercut the libertarian view of freedom.
Since Cohen says so little to answer the above difficulties, one is forced
to cast about to seek clues from other discussions Cohen does offer. Some
further indication of Cohen's views on interferences and (negative) free
dom may be suggested by his comments on laws and penalties in a socialist
society (pp. 129-131). In this discussion he maintains that in certain cir
cumstances, people may not be limited or restricted by laws under which
they live. Under a condition of limited abundance and voluntary equality
12 For example, see A. Reeve, Property (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press
International, 1986), pp. 109-110.
Cohen maintains that there might be laws and penalties which do not coerce
the members of that society, leaving them wholly free, since they freely
chose to follow those laws or rules (pp. 129-131). These "... citizens dis
believe in [the full thesis of] self-ownership and willingly follow a law
(or practice) which reflects that disbelief (p. 129)," viz., "they believe that
those who cannot produce as much as others can are nevertheless entitled
to comparable provision ..." (p. 130).
On the initial statement of negative freedom Cohen seemed to hold
that I was unfree only if a person, organization or the law prevented me
from doing what I wanted to do. This view is seemingly modified in the
present case by the assertion that, if people do not want to do x, a law
saying not to do x does not restrict their freedom if they recognize the
justice of the claims on them that the law prescribes and "they therefore
agree that they should be forced to respect those claims of justice if, what
is false, it is necessary to force them to do so" (p. 131). This suggests two
things. On the one hand, people may be (negatively) free when they are not
interfered with or coerced due to the fact that they voluntarily do not act
in opposition to given laws or rules because they believe that those laws
or rules are the correct ones. On the other hand, laws that prevent people
from doing things they do not want to do may nevertheless restrict their
freedom when they do not agree with the laws. Specifically, people may
think that a law telling them not to do something they do not want to do
may still restrict their freedom if they think that what they do should be
wholly up to them (p. 131).
Accordingly, freedom is restricted, on this view, when there are inter
ferences or constraints placed upon oneself by laws or rules with which one
does not agree or think rationally justified. Interferences on such a view
must be understood in some richer and different sense than the narrow
view of negative freedom noted above. They are defined in terms of one's
agreements as well as one's wants. More specifically, freedom limiting
interferences seem defined by one's agreements with what one thinks
morally justified. But if this is the case, then such a view is much closer
to the libertarian rights definition of freedom. It does not define freedom
in terms of rights as such, but it does define freedom in terms of what one
thinks morally justified, and this may include various rights. On this view,
not all rules limit freedom; only some do. In short, it seems that if people
accept certain moral views (and the corresponding laws) then the impo
sition of various coercive laws upon them would not limit their freedom.
This is to take a dramatic step away from the neutral, descriptive view
of negative freedom. It may not amount to a rights definition of freedom,
but the two would share a normative nature which Cohen had previously
rejected.
Thus, Cohen seems to face a dilemma. If the preceding is correct, then
Cohen himself seems willing to embed normative elements in the freedom
he uses to counter the libertarian rights definition of freedom. Whether
or not this normative view of freedom yields a more plausible account
of freedom, it would do so at the cost of undercutting the strict notion
of negative freedom which he uses in his argument against the libertarian
rights definition.
On the other hand, if Cohen really wants to retain the Spartan, negative
view of freedom noted above, but has no other arguments against the rights
definition of freedom, then we are left with simply an ordinary language
argument that uses a very questionable sense of negative freedom. It may be
that Cohen is reluctant to develop this concept of freedom further because
of his methodological view which urges him to find a neutral stance from
which he can criticize other views. For years he resisted a move into
normative philosophy (cf. pp. 1-8). His predilection for seeking to hoist
others on their own petards is part of these methodological commitments.
However, in the process he seems to rise on his own petard.
One of the striking features of Cohen's preceding attacks on libertarian
freedom is that they proceed with little regard for self-ownership, even
though we have been told that self-ownership is the basic value of liber
tarianism and underlies its views on freedom. This disregard is complete
in the second argument above. Cohen himself notes that the first argument
comes up short due to his prior disregard of self-ownership. It is important,
accordingly, to ask about the relation of self-ownership and freedom and
how Cohen can avoid raising this question in these arguments.
When Cohen introduces the notion of self-ownership he tell us that
freedom is a function of self-ownership and that it is conceived indepen
dently of self-ownership (pp. 67-68). If this were the case, then clearly
one could examine libertarian freedom independently of self-ownership.
However, we have also been told that libertarian freedom is a rights view
of freedom, i.e., freedom is defined in terms of certain rights (p. 59). On
this view, the self-ownership view seems to be a specification of which
rights were in question, viz., rights to one's own body and powers. But
then freedom and self-ownership would not be independently conceived.
Instead, freedom would be a function of self-ownership only in the sense
in which its nature was specified by the rights characteristic of personal
property. However, this is not a normal sense of "X being a function of K."
Still, such a view would explain why others, such as Fowler, characterize
self-ownership simply in terms of a statement of the nature of freedom.
3 8 GEORGE G. BRENKERT
Consequently, it seems as if there are two conflicting movements in

Cohen's discussion of freedom. He wants self-ownership to be the basis
of an independently conceived sense of libertarian freedom. Such freedom
could either be negative freedom or autonomous freedom. On the other
hand, he wishes to recognize and reject the standard libertarian view of
freedom as defined in terms of rights. However, such freedom cannot
be conceived independently from self-ownership. It would seem that he
cannot have it both ways.
Accordingly, I suggest that when Cohen speaks of self-ownership as the
basis of libertarian freedom, he intends not the rights view of freedom, but
either negative freedom or autonomous freedom.13 However, this omits the
rights definition of freedom against which he has not given a conclusive
argument by offering a convincing account of his view of negative freedom.
Further, given his arguments later in the book, it appears that it is really
the autonomous conception of freedom he has in mind when he says that
self-ownership is the basis of libertarian freedom. But this, then, means
that the libertarian rights view of freedom is not successfully rejected by
Cohen independently of his rejection of self-ownership.
Consequently, Cohen's argument against the libertarian rights view of
freedom ultimately appears to take the form of a normative argument
against the thesis of self-ownership. In effect, he invokes his argument that
the libertarian rights definition of freedom as linked with self-ownership
provides for a very bare or formal kind of freedom, one that is rather
uninteresting or unimportant with regard to what people are able to do.
This argument is that people who have full self-ownership of themselves,
i.e., a full panel of rights in themselves, may yet have little else. This is
exactly the situation of the proletarians, for example, who are self-owning
and thus free, yet have little to show for it. In short, if people promote self
ownership in defending the rights view of freedom, we need to recognize
that one might be free qua self-owning and be an otherwise propertyless
proletarian with little prospect in the world. But this situation does not
capture what Cohen suggests is the inherently appealing nature of the thesis
of self-ownership, viz., "the more substantive circumstance of control over
one's life" (p. 101). Accordingly, even if Cohen had not defeated the rights
definition of freedom, he could show that self-ownership is compatible
with a state of freedom that is not particularly desirable or that fails to
capture what is appealing in the thesis of self-ownership. This is, in effect,
the course of argument Cohen takes when he appeals to autonomy in order
13 There are a variety of different accounts of autonomous freedom. Cohen understands

such freedom to refer to the substantive control a person enjoys over his or her life (p. 237).
Autonomy is discussed in the next section.
to reject self-ownership. It is to switch to a normative argument, rather

than a conceptual argument, against libertarian freedom.
HI. Self-Ownership, Autonomy and Slavery
Cohen's main attack on the libertarian connection of self-ownership and

freedom comes in the form of a number of arguments against the liber
tarian view that any limitation on self-ownership is a limitation of people's
autonomy and the imposition of a form of slavery on them.14 With regard
to autonomy, Cohen's contention is that "we can all benefit in terms of
autonomy if none of us has the right to do certain things" (p. 237). With
regard to slavery, Cohen argues that the recognition of non-contractual
obligations does not necessarily impose slavery. Hence, non-contractual
obligations imposed on self-owners need not render them slaves, or not
free.
The bare bones of Cohen's autonomy argument is this. The relation
between self-ownership and autonomy that libertarians proclaim cannot
imply that any restrictions on self-ownership result in a person losing all
autonomy or freedom. That would be preposterous since autonomy is a
matter of degree, not an all-or-nothing matter. Accordingly, the relevant
claim that the libertarian should make is that there is more autonomy under
universal complete self-ownership than under any alternative dispensation.
But against this claim, Cohen argues that self-ownership is hostile to
autonomy both in a world of people with different measures of talent and in
a world with people who are equally talented. In the former world, "the self
seeking authorized by self-ownership generates propertyless proletarians
whose life prospects are too confined for them to enjoy the control of a sub
stantial kind over their lives that answers to the idea of autonomy" (pp. 237,
102). Thus, if everyone is to enjoy a reasonable degree of autonomy, it is
necessary, at least in some circumstances, to impose restrictions on self
ownership (p. 237). In the latter world of equally talented people, "there are
many scenarios where some, or even all, have less autonomy than some,
or all, would have with certain restrictions on self-ownership" (p. 237).
Accordingly, "we can all benefit in terms of autonomy if none of us has
the right to do certain things" (p. 237).
Consequently, Cohen holds that in order to promote the autonomy or real
freedom of anyone, we must restrict self-ownership in some circumstances
(pp. 102, 236-238). This means limiting certain rights of self-ownership
14 Cohen also argues mat limitations on self-ownership do not violate Kantian views on
treating people simply as means rather than ends. I discuss these views of Cohen's below.
that libertarians typically advance. "Less self-ownership, more autonomy"

might be Cohen's motto, at least within certain limitations, since he does not
wish to wholly eliminate self-ownership. The point is that (real) freedom
or autonomy requires imposing certain restrictions on people's rights of
self-control. In this way we will all have greater measures of self-control.
Hence, in opposition to libertarian claims, restriction of self-ownership
need not have the undesirable result of restricting human autonomy or
freedom. Indeed, self-ownership neither implies autonomy nor is implied
by it (p. 238). In this way, Cohen thinks that a seemingly persuasive aspect
of libertarianism can be removed and the theory undercut, even if it cannot
be refuted (pp. 18,230).
But Cohen's argument is ambiguous. Clearly, Cohen means that, in the
first instance, we must withdraw from each person individually his or her
rights to certain forms of self-ownership. That is, Cohen treats this with
drawal of rights individually. How then does he treat the greater production
of autonomy or self-control, individually or collectively? Here it seems that
he must be thinking collectively. We will all, together, have greater amounts
of autonomy if certain individual rights of self-ownership are given up.
For surely, it is false that we will each, individually, have greater autonomy
or self-control. Some capitalists, for example, will experience a decline in
autonomy, while many proletarians will experience an increase. In short,
by withdrawing certain individual rights of self-ownership from capitalists,
there will be greater resources and opportunities for self-control which will
then be redistributed to proletarians. Of course, proletarians will also have
to give up similar individual rights of self-ownership, but these are, as
Cohen argues, ineffectual. The autonomy of the proletarians, i.e., the vast
majority of society, will benefit at the expense of that of the capitalists
(p. 237).
Now though this may be a persuasive argument to many people, I
suspect that libertarians will be little moved by it. They would be moved
only if they sought either the greatest amount of effective autonomy (or
self-control) for everyone, or greater equality in the distribution of such
effective autonomy. It is not my impression that either aim is sought
by libertarians. Accordingly, the present argument seems to run afoul
of Cohen's own methodological directives which have him restricting his
attack on self-ownership to arguments which he believes might move
believers in self-ownership to give up their ground (cf. p. 229). Thus,
appeals to the inequality between people, that arises from the fortunate
(or unfortunate) situation of one's birth and flows through one's self
ownership, will not, he holds, "move a moderately sophisticated believer
in self-ownership. The conflict between the relevant principles is too basic,
and too evident, for her not already to have countenanced it and ... stood
her ground" (p. 229). But then I don't think that there is reason to believe
that this withdrawal of individual rights of self-ownership for an increase
of collective, effective autonomy will impress libertarians.
Further, I worry that there is a more fundamental problem here. Cohen
takes the argument he is challenging to involve the claim that under uni
versal complete self-ownership there is more autonomy (control of one's
life), than under any other alternative dispensation (p. 237); thus, this
greater autonomy (control of one's life) provides an argument for self
ownership (cf. p. 236fn.). He maintains that Nozick holds such a view when
he notes that "Nozick associates self-ownership rights with the ability to
lead one's own life9' (p. 236fn.).
Nozick sees things differently, I believe. Nozick asks: In virtue of what
characteristics of persons are there moral constraints on how they treat each
other or are to be treated?15 He answers by referring to the ability of a person
"to regulate and guide its life in accordance with some overall conception
it chooses to accept."16 Accordingly, Nozick seems to be saying that we
have these rights because we are beings who have these characteristics and
hence who can have or strive for a meaningful life.17 Now even though
Nozick does not argue for this connection, it is clear that, on his view, it is
these features of humans which justifies applying side constraints to them.
Thus, Nozick sees the relationship between autonomy and self
ownership rights differently than Cohen does. Nozick says that because
people have the ability to plan, regulate and guide their lives, and thereby
to give meaning to their lives, they have rights (side-constraints) which
dictate what others can do to them.18 As such, he is talking about an ability
that all humans have. Nozick is not talking here about how successful
people might be in exercising that ability or in realizing the plans which
they make (though Cohen is); instead, he is talking about the ability to
come up with plans which might then under various circumstances be
realized.
Accordingly, Nozick's example of a situation in which this ability is
lacking or jeopardized is the situation in which we were all amnesiacs,
forgetting each evening as we slept the happenings of the preceding day.19
This is a situation in which this ability simply does not exist. It is not a
15 Nozick, p. 48.
16 Nozick, p. 49.
17 Nozick, p. 50.
18 Nozick, pp. 49-50.
19 Nozick, p. 49.
question of its being diminished, let alone not fully realized in some state
of affairs which corresponds to a plan the person had.
Consequently, Nozick is not saying that to enhance one's ability to plan
one's life, a person needs more (or less) rights. He is not saying that we
have the rights we do in order to have this ability. And he would not say
that if this ability could be better realized thereby, we should limit one's
rights. Instead, he says that it is by virtue of one's ability to meaningfully
shape his or her life that a person has rights. He is not talking about how
successfully one realizes this ability, or linking the extent of rights we have
with the realization of this ability.
Thus, it seems that Cohen uses a different sense of "autonomy" than the
one to which Nozick would appeal. Nozick argues that limitation of self
ownership implies (results in) a limitation of autonomy or freedom. But
by "autonomy" he means one's self-control as captured in various rights
of self-control. Cohen replies that in fact limitation of one's rights of self
ownership may promote autonomy. But by "autonomy" Cohen means that
individuals have self-control in the sense of an effective (and acceptable)
range of choices. But these senses of "autonomy" are importantly different.
It should not be surprising, then, that in the section of Nozick's Anarchy,
State and Utopia, to which Cohen refers to support his interpretation of
Nozick, the term "autonomy" is used only once and then in the instance
of a person choosing autonomously "between flavors of ice cream on
a particular occasion."20 This reflects the very different approaches that
Nozick and Cohen take to the discussion of autonomy. Consequently,
Cohen's argument against libertarian self-ownership does not fulfill his
own criterion for an argument which appeals to libertarians' own views.
Though I am sympathetic to Cohen's view of autonomous freedom, it needs
defense on its own grounds, not simply as something which self-ownership
cannot provide, since libertarians may not be concerned to provide this kind
of freedom through self-ownership.
Consider then Cohen's argument against libertarian claims that limita
tions on one's self-ownership, or their rights, make them, in effect, slaves.
This is a claim Nozick (and other libertarians) have made. The crux of their
claim, as represented by Cohen, is that when self-ownership is limited by
non-contractual obligations, such as is exemplified by redistributive taxa
tion, one is forced in effect to give up part of one's labor to the person(s)
who is (are) the object of the obligation. This renders one (at least partly)
a slave. As Cohen says, "if X is non-contractually obliged to do A for Y,
then Y has a right of disposal over X's labour of the sort that a slave-owner
20 Nozick, p. 48.
self-ownership, freedom, AND autonomy 43
has" (p. 230). Both the strengths and weaknesses of Cohen's approach can
be seen in this argument.
Cohen's response here is twofold. First, he affirms that non-contractual
obligations do exist, but denies that these are slavery-inducing. Second,
he notes that Nozick allows for slavery in different contexts but does not
take this to undercut his own self-ownership thesis. Hence, the libertarian
slavery objection is hoist on its own petard. I will not consider this second
argument because even if Cohen's response to Nozick is successful, there
are other libertarians who do not believe themselves to be attached to this
part of Nozick's argument. A more general, external argument against this
position is needed. The first argument has this more general nature.
For the first argument Cohen draws on Joseph Raz's example that
a child might have a non-contractual obligation to help his or her sick
mother. Further, to head off possible libertarian objections that this is not
the appropriate kind of non-contractual obligation, Cohen supposes that
this obligation is enforced by the state (pp. 233-234). It is then a state
enforced non-contractual obligation. Nevertheless, this obligation is not a
slavery-inducing one inasmuch as it does not fulfill two conditions that
Cohen identifies for a state or person (Cohen's example of the sick mother)
to have a slave-holder like right: a) The absolvability condition: the holder
of the right can absolve the slave or holder of the obligation of having to
carry out the obligation (p. 232); and b) The specifiability condition: the
holder of the right can tell the slave to do whatever he or she chooses (and
however precisely he or she chooses) with whatever resource the slave
would use to carry out the stated obligation (pp. 232, 235). Accordingly,
since the mother or state might not be able to absolve the child of the
obligation, a slavery-inducing obligation is not at stake. Further, even if
the mother could absolve her child of the obligation, it need not be that she
had the right to tell her child exactly what to do. As such non-contractual
obligations need not be slavery-inducing.
Surely Cohen is right that we have non-contractual obligations. One
has non-contractual obligations to one's parents. M. Fowler and others
have argued that we may have non-contractual duties of mutual aid and to
warn.21 In addition, I agree that such non-contractual obligations do not
create a form of slavery for those subject to them. Nevertheless, Cohen's
argument is unsatisfying for several reasons.
21 See M. Fowler's comments on saving a child's life and a duty to warn; M. Fowler,
"Self-Ownership, Mutual Aid, and Mutual Respect: Some Counterexamples to Nozick's
Libertarianism," Social Theory and Practice 6 (1980), pp. 231-234. G. Cupit has even
argued that we have non-contractual obligations arising out of requests; cf. G. Cupit, "How
Requests (and Promises) Create Obligations," The Philosophical Quarterly 44 (1994),
pp. 439-455.
First, Cohen heavily relies on the absolvability condition to refute the

implication of slavery which libertarians attach to non-contractual oblig
ations. But why should we accept this condition as essential to a slave
holding right? Perhaps a slave holder lives in a society in which his or
her ownership of a slave cannot be renounced because slaves are inferior
beings. He has a non-renounceable duty to maintain them under his control.
Or perhaps, the holder of the right cannot by himself or herself absolve the
slave. Such absolution could only come from society, the state or God. In
such cases, there would still be slavery even though the absolvability con
dition was not met. Thus, an individual could be subject to non-contractual
obligations from which the person, to whom one owed the obligation, could
not absolve one and still be a slave. As such, Cohen's argument would not
accomplish its ends.
But perhaps it will be objected that these examples are cases in which
the person was not the "full" owner of the slave. They simply show that
there can be slavery without full (libertarian) ownership. Full ownership
requires absolvability because without it an owner would not be fully
in control of what he or she owned. Further, it may be said that if the
right holder cannot absolve the person (slave) of the obligation, then the
right holder has no more right than the slave (person) to decide whether
the slave's capacity to do something is or is not exercised (cf. p. 232).
Such limitations on one's ownership are the point of the slavery inducing
complaint of libertarians.
Now Cohen does consider such a situation in which someone has a
duty to perform a task which is precisely specified and which no one has
the right to absolve him from performing. Since this does not meet the
absolvability condition he claims that this means that the person is not a
slave. Nevertheless, Cohen points out that the person's condition is "not
in every important way different from that of a short-term or partial slave"
(p. 235). Such a person is not subject to his own will and, hence, does
not have full ownership rights in himself (p. 235). Cohen then uses this
to point out that Nozick's own commitments lead him to place people in
similar situations, e.g., obliging citizens of the minimal state "to pay taxes
which support that state's coercive apparatus whether or not they want
the protection they get in exchange" (p. 235). Hence, Nozick cannot use
the principle of self-ownership to show that other cases of non-contractual
obligations involve slavery, but his does not. Now though this may, again,
raise Nozick on his own petard, it does not give us any more general
response to similar libertarian views which do not subscribe to Nozick's
particular commitments. In particular, this leaves us with a situation which
has been described as not importantly different from slavery, but which is,
nevertheless, not a case of slavery. The libertarian claim that limitations on

self-ownership are slavery inducing has been met, if at all, in form only.
Opponents of libertarianism need a stronger response.
Second, as I have noted, Cohen's preceding argument allows that a
person may not be a slave, though his or her situation is not importantly
different from that of a slave. Accordingly, Cohen redirects his complaint
to charge that such a person lacks the sovereignty of his or her own will,
which is what the agent seeks. "What matters to an agent is not only whether
he is subject to the comprehensive concentrated control of a single alien
will but whether what he does is subject to his own will" (p. 235). Here
Cohen gives expression to his own views concerning the importance of
individual sovereignty. Thus, with seeming approval, he earlier maintained
that "one way of picturing life under communism, as Marx conceived it,
is to imagine a jazz band each player in which seeks his own fulfillment as
a musician. Though basically interested in his own fulfilment, and not in
that of the band as a whole, or of his fellow musicians taken severally, he
nevertheless fulfils himself only to the extent that each of the others also
does so, and the same holds for each of them" (p. 122).
Consequently, Cohen claims that "mere absence of self-ownership turns
out... to be a more robust objection to enforced obligation than the own
ership by another that was supposed to point up the awfulness of absence
of self-ownership" (p. 235). What is troubling about this move, however,
is that it seems to accept the narrow libertarian view of self-sovereignty.
Indeed, it seems as if one can hear Adam Smith playing in Cohen's com
munist jazz band. If this is the case, then even if it were granted that Cohen
had successfully responded to libertarians by use of the absolvability con
dition (which I have not granted), when he adopts the view he does of
individual sovereignty in his discussion of the specifiability condition, he
has taken a step with which one can only imagine that libertarians will be
pleased.
Finally, in his analysis of the libertarian view of slavery and non
contractual obligations, Cohen attributes to Nozick the view that "it is
morally intolerable for anyone to be, in any degree, another's slave"
(p. 231). He briefly objects that "a limited dose of forced labour is massively
different, normatively, from the life-long forced labour that characterizes
a slave" (p. 231). I suggest that he might also object more generally that
the use of "slave" and "slavery" by libertarians to refer to non-contractual
obligations is both morally offensive and conceptually questionable. It
abstracts from the historical context and meaning of this term, using it in a
morally cavalier manner. To be a slave is not to have some of one's income
taken for the purposes of the general welfare, but to be subject (among other
things) to being beaten, kicked, lynched, raped, dehumanized, degraded,

arbitrarily punished, ordered about without reasons given, not listened to,
bought, sold, killed, exploited, and shamed. In short, libertarians' casual
use of the term, "slavery," reveals a disturbing moral insensitivity to con
ceptual and moral nuances. A similar situation arises when people refer
to the horrible mistreatment and deaths of hundreds of people as another
holocaust. Whether or not those who make such claims can be reached by
neutral argument is not the point. It is others who might hear such claims
and who might be persuaded that need to be reached and reminded of the
moral hyperbole being used for other purposes.
The preceding two major arguments are central to Cohen's rejection
of libertarianism and its claims regarding freedom. There is one final
matter of some concern here. Though Cohen rejects the full thesis of self
ownership, it is difficult to know exactly how much he has rejected or
what he has kept. On the one hand, Cohen strips certain rights and tenets
from the model. For example, the right to sell oneself into slavery must
go. So too must any right to capitalist acts (even cleanly generated ones).
Cohen rejects the libertarian or self-ownership view that we only have
contractual obligations; so this part of the full thesis must also go. Further,
he rejects the right not to supply service or product to,others. It is unclear,
then, how much of self-ownership is retained in Cohen's view. This is
important since he continues to think that autonomy requires certain rights
of self-ownership (p. 119).
On the other hand, Cohen does not try to show that this model is
itself problematic, only that some of its implications are, viz., those which
permit capitalists greater effective self-control or range of choices than
proletarians. Thus, for example, he continues to accept the model of self
ownership inasmuch as he accepts the importance of various rights of self
ownership (though he does not specify these). Similarly, as noted above,
Cohen compares his view of a voluntary egalitarian society of autonomous
people with that of a jazz band in which each person is interested in his own
fulfillment (pp. 122, 137). At least with Adam Smith such individual self
seeking was limited to the economy. With Cohen it seems to have spread
to the entire society. Finally, Cohen holds that a person should ultimately
be subject only to his own will - he should be sovereign with respect
to what he will do with his energies (p. 147). These aspects of Cohen's
views suggest the continued influence of the self-ownership model on his
account. In short he appears to accept a restricted view of self-ownership.
However, as long as Cohen retains the model of self-ownership and
related individual self-ownership rights, there will be problems. It is finally
to exorcize this demon of self-ownership that I turn in the next section.
IV. Exorcizing the Demon of Self-Ownership
It is striking that so many speak so strongly of the appeal of self-ownership.

Cohen says that "the thesis of self-ownership has, after all, plenty of appeal
quite apart from anything that Nozick urges on its behalf (p. 70).22 J.
Christman speaks of "the force of this principle" and "the undeniable
intuitive force of this principle."23 D. A. Lloyd Thomas says that "the idea
that people have such rights [of self-ownership] is intuitively attractive to
us."24
I suggest that the idea of self-ownership - at least in the form that liber
tarians and Cohen understand it - is not attractive, forceful or appealing.
Indeed, it is profoundly troubling for several reasons. First, self-ownership
defines a realm, viz., one's body and powers, over which one has a full set
of rights which exclude others except insofar as one is prepared to permit
them access. How one acquired this realm is part of a story whose history
is not told. Instead, one's ownership is abstracted from this history. Thus,
even though the state of one's powers, the development of one's body, and
the keenness of one's intellect are all the product (to varying degrees) of
the many people who have played a role in one's development, one has
sole dominion over this realm. The labor of others, their care and concern,
their expenses and time spent in bringing one to a stage of development
where one might exercise various individual rights apparently leaves no
trace or basis upon which they can assert any claims against one. Like a
godless Adam who suddenly appeared in Eden with a full complement of
rights, we find ourselves fully formed sovereigns over a kingdom with no
ties to anyone, other than those we choose to accept. The implication is that
either we were not subject to any duties of gratitude, honor or support for
those who have formed us, or these duties have been simply erased from
our account. This is, however, an implausibly abstract view of humans
and their moral relations. At the least, it would be interesting to be given
an explanation of why the roles that others played in the development of
one's body and powers leave no grounds for moral claims which they can
make upon one, independently of one's own agreements. Without this,
self-ownership might still be the dream of a theoretical economist, but not
part of a realistic moral or political account.
22 Later Cohen says that "it is a strength in Nozick's position that the thesis of self
ownership is inherently appealing" (p. 101).
23 J. Christman, "Self-Ownership, Equality, and The Structure of Property Rights," Polit
ical Theory 19 (1991), p. 28.
24 D. A. Lloyd Thomas, In Defense of Liberalism (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1988),
p. 9.
Second, on the self-ownership view our relations with other people,

including friends, lovers and parents, are transformed into contractual
relations. Our relations with even these people must be specified in terms
of various agreements that we are prepared to make with them. It seems
mistaken, however, that these parts of our moral life can be explicated pri
marily in terms of such contracts, with their duties and rights. On this view,
talk of love, care, concern, and various virtues becomes secondary to our
prior agreements. A parent's moral relationship with its child surely does
involve various duties. But these duties are not all the result of a contract or
agreement with the child. In addition, a moral account of this relationship
would be essentially incomplete which omitted reference to love, affection
and caring. There are good reasons, then, to believe that these are not
simply contractual relations, in which the terms must be negotiated on the
basis of promoting the best self-interests of each negotiating partner. And
if they would best be reconstrued in this manner, then the burden of proof
should be on the libertarian to provide arguments why we should reject
other non-ownership relations between such individuals.
Further, the point of property, self-ownership theorists seem to agree,
is one of control, dominance and sovereignty (cf. p. 210). Self-ownership
makes these values the core of one's relations with oneself and with others.
Others are to respect one's domination and control over oneself, just as
one is to respect their domination and control over themselves. We may
contract with other people and thereby undertake obligations with them. We
may give things to other people. However, these actions and relations arise
out of our core values. This characterization of our relations with others
renders secondary that other constellation of values noted in the preceding
paragraph. But, on the contrary, this set of values involving moral relations
of trust, care, friendship, love, etc. seems primary, rather than secondary, in
many of these relationships. Accordingly, self-ownership skews our moral
understanding of ourselves.
Third, talk of self-ownership imports undesirable market considerations
into the idea of one's self or person. "Self-ownership," Cohen says, "goes
with market freedom" (p. 211). Inasmuch as each individual has property
rights over his or her body, skills, and labor, each part of himself or
herself is potentially exchangeable or saleable, and has its price within
the market. Further, as Cohen phrases it, "... market competition is the
social soul of self-ownership" (p. 227). Accordingly, the "exploitation"
or efficient use of oneself is bound up with one's self-ownership. Each
person's body, physical powers and skills amount to natural resources
which one may rightfully harvest and whose energy and properties are to
be used to promote the success of their own person.
Thus, the self becomes an entrepreneur and one's body and mind a real
estate office. Depending on one's views, self-ownership may be compatible
with women selling their bodies in prostitution, "renting" their wombs
when they bear another couple's child, selling their kidneys or eyes to a
wealthy person who can afford them, or even, in Nozick's case, slavery.
And even if these practices are repudiated, these condemnations remain as
constraints or limitations upon one's actions and freedom. Self-ownership
encourages people to ask about the best deal they can get for the sale of
their powers and persons, rather that to ask whether one's body and powers
ought to be considered marketable goods at all. With self-ownership, our
powers, persons and body parts become marketable goods whether or not
we wish to sell them. The actions of others who do treat themselves,
qua self-owners, as marketable goods unavoidably affects even those who
wish to withhold themselves, in various ways, from the market. If, as
Cohen says, the model here is that of the ownership of a physical thing,
then, we too, like physical things, may become replaceable commodities.
Depending upon the features and the price, one can be replaced by the
other. Such a market view of oneself should be profoundly disturbing. It
transforms questions of the pricelessness and irreplaceability of humans
into questions of their exchangeability.
The above criticisms can be extended further. There seems to be little
reason why we should think of self-ownership simply in terms of one's
physical parts or powers. Certainly one's mental powers may also be sold
when a person engages in intellectual labor for another. And why stop
there? On such a view, one's beliefs, attitudes, opinions should also be
open for rent or sale. If one owns oneself, then it should be legitimate to
sell one's beliefs, opinions, values, attitudes, etc. to someone who pays
the right price. Supposing that it is possible, perhaps through extensive
conditioning and "reprogramming," there should be little objection, that
is, if someone else buys one's views or opinions. So long as the price is
right, intellectual integrity would be compatible with selling one's views
or buying the views of others. In short, if self-ownership connotes the
rightful sovereignty that each person has over himself or herself, then it
is a poor sovereign who lacks full rightful control over these "mental"
properties. Faustian bargains are simply a legitimate extension of one's
self-ownership.
Fourth, the preceding has argued that for a person to view oneself as
self-owning is to treat oneself as a product or an instrument, something
ultimately alienable, something available for monetary exchanges. I take it
that this is the object of Immanuel Kant's complaint against self-ownership.
Cohen gives a rather unsympathetic interpretation of an argument of Kant's
to be found in Kant's Lectures on Ethics. As Cohen formulates it, Kant's

argument is that since "Man is a person" and "Nothing can be both a person
and a thing," therefore "Man is not a thing." If this is conjoined with the
premise that "Only things can be owned" it follows that therefore "Man
cannot own himself" (p. 212). Cohen is clearly correct that this argument
begs the question by assuming that only things can be owned (p. 211).
However, another more sympathetic interpretation of Kant is possible.
On this interpretation, to own something is to have a purely instrumental
relation with it. It is to have the rights to sell, use, control, manage or
even destroy what one owns. One need not ask for permission from that
which is owned to handle it in these ways, although one may be limited
by others or society in one's uses of one's property. For example, one may
not use what one owns (at least in certain ways) to harm others. Further,
other restrictions may be imposed upon one's ownership which may limit
the ways one treats one's property. Finally, people may form emotional
attachments to their property which lead them to treat their property in
special, honorific ways. However, all these limitations are qualifications of
such ownership; they do not stem from one's ownership itself. Instead, to
own something is to have various rights such that one may treat it (within
such limitations) as wholly a means to one's own ends as one might a
physical object. "The ownership of material things ... is [Cohen tells us]
the proper model for the concept of self-ownership" (p. 215). Accordingly,
to own oneself is to be in a position to treat one's powers and person simply
as means to one's ends. But then to treat oneself as self-owned means that
one treats oneself both as an end and, at the same time, purely a means.
That is, this requires that one treat oneself both as having various qualities
of personhood, qua owner, and not to have those qualities, qua owned.
I don't think that this argument begs the question, as Cohen maintains of
the Kantian argument which he formulated. Cohen and the libertarian focus
on the person qua owner; that person is said to have the right to control
whatever that person owns. This seems to make sense. But suppose we
also look at the person qua owned. In this role, the individual is no longer
treated as a person, but is something (a set of powers and properties) which
may be treated merely as a means to one's ends and, as such, wholly passive
in the relationship. It would seem that Kant could invoke this notion of
the "person" (in effect a slave), as owned without begging any questions.
And when this is conjoined with his view of a person as an end in itself,
a being with rights of control, then the concept of self-ownership involves
claiming that one and the same person is both wholly an end in himself
or herself, and merely a means to his or her own ends. Accordingly, Kant
concluded that the concept of self-ownership is contradictory.
Support for this argument may be found in Cohen's own argument

against Nozick's attempt to link his self-ownership views with those of
Kant. Cohen argues that Kant's principle that "Individuals are ends and
not merely means" "... does not entail the thesis of self-ownership, and
that this thesis does not entail Kant's principle" (p. 239). Though Cohen's
discussion surveys both of the entailments which would hold between
Kant's categorical imperative and Nozick's self-ownership principle, only
Cohen's discussion of the second entailment is useful here. This is the
claim that self-ownership entails Kant's principle. Cohen denies that the
self-ownership principle entails Kant's principle since, he plausibly holds,
a person might observe the rights of self-ownership of others and yet not
have any particular attitude towards them. That is, Cohen contends that
"treating others as ends implies... a particular form of regard for or attitude
to them" (p. 240). Accordingly, I may not violate the self-ownership rights
of a ticket-seller, to use Cohen's example, but do nothing for him if he
breaks down or is seized by a fit. In short, according to Cohen, though I
respect the ticket-seller's self-ownership rights, I may treat him simply as
a means to my ends (pp. 239-240).
This is helpful since it shows that self-ownership may involve treating
a person simply as a means to one's own ends without the proper attitude
towards the person owned. On one plausible interpretation of Kant, the
proper attitude one should take towards persons as ends involves not simply
acting "... in such a way that we not only do not thwart their permissible
ends but [acting] ..., so far as possible, to realize (or help them realize)
those permissible ends."25 But this is not part of the above characterization
of self-ownership, nor suggested by any of the rights that A.M. Honore
has listed for full liberal ownership.26 In short, liberal ownership or self
ownership merely involves instrumental views of that which is owned.
However, this is the premise I have used in the argument I have suggested
above on Kant's behalf. It would seem that if such a premise is good for
Cohen to use on Nozick, then it should be good for Kant to use against
Cohen.
Now whether the claim of self-ownership is strictly contradictory, I'm
not sure. If it is, then discussion of self-ownership would be revealed as
incoherent. Cohen and others would have to dramatically rework their
views. However, given the history of the discussion of self-ownership, it is
hard to believe that the preceding argument would show it to be cognitively
bankrupt. If the claim of self-ownership is not strictly contradictory, then
Cohen (and others) can continue to speak intelligibly of self-ownership.
25 B. Aune, Kant's Theory of Morals (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), p. 78.
26 Cf. L. Becker, Property Rights (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977).
Instead, the preceding may "simply" show that self-ownership runs afoul
of an important and basic moral principle that one ought not to treat others
or oneself simply as means to one's ends. The arguments offered in the
other parts of this section seek to elaborate on and support this view, and,
in the process, tie the overall argument of this section to Kant's views.
Though Cohen acknowledges a similar argument (cf. p. 212), he does not
use it to undercut self-ownership since he himself retains a partial self
ownership thesis. My contention here is that the preceding Kantian argu
ment interpreted as a moral one cuts against the thesis of self-ownership.
Self-ownership should be rejected.
Fifth, the preceding comments have been premised upon a form of self
ownership which libertarians and Cohen presuppose, i.e., some version of
the liberal view of property as represented in Honore's essay. It may be,
however, that the ownership or self-property views they defend are much
too narrow and have been eclipsed by more recent conceptualizations
of property. Thus, many claim that property cannot now be understood
to refer simply to the rights and interests of the owners, but must also
include the interests and rights of those who are significantly affected by
that property. For example, those who manage corporate property may no
longer simply look to the interests of the owners, but must also take into
account the interests of various stakeholders. Numerous court cases have
defended this "incorporation" of stakeholder interests in the management
of corporate property.27
If this modification of property rights is applied to self-ownership, then
this would take much of the sting out of the above complaints against self
ownership. For on this modified view of ownership, self-ownership would
be tied in with the interests and rights of others. Of course, libertarians
would be unprepared to accepted this extended view of self-ownership.
Further, to the extent that even such extended views of ownership remain
tied to the market, the above complaints would not be wholly dissolved.
Now it might be objected to the preceding that I am putting too much
emphasis on "self-ownership," since this concept can be equated simply
with a set of rights. We can talk about these rights without invoking the
notion of ownership or assuming that one seeks to relate to oneself as an
owner. In short, self-ownership is simply the view that a person has the
right to control his or her own powers (p. 210). We lose nothing if we
simply talk about the rights and immunities we have to pursue our own
27 Cf. T. Donaldson and L. Preston, "The Stakeholder Theory of the Corporation,"

Academy of Management Review 20 (1995), pp. 65-91.
SELF-OWNERSHIP, FREEDOM, AND AUTONOMY 5 3
plans rather than talk about one's ownership of oneself.28 I do not agree
for the following reasons.
First, rights to control and ownership are not the same thing. I can have
a right to control certain objects, processes, etc. without thereby being said
to own them. For example, I have the right to write whatever I please with
my computer software, but I do not own it. It is licensed to me. Managers of
corporations have the right to control them, but are usually not their owners
(at least not in the sense that Cohen considers). We might say that they
have a certain authority and power over the employees and property they
manage. But they are not the owners of either the employees or the property.
Similarly, I might have the right to control access to my body, or to use
my limbs without being said to have ownership of them. The reason would
be that I do not have other rights which are part of the collection of rights
which constitutes ownership. Simply because a right is a member of this
larger collection of rights that constitutes ownership does not mean that it is
itself a right of ownership. We may speak of a person having various rights
to control his or her body, powers, and abilities in various ways without
committing ourselves to the further claims of self-ownership. To suppose
otherwise is a form of the fallacy of division. Just because something is
a part of a whole, it does not follow that each of the parts has the same
characteristics of the whole. Hence, it does not necessarily follow that a
right to control my body is a form of self-ownership, even if it is included
among the rights which are part of self-ownership views.
Second, self-ownership includes various views or assumptions which
need not attend the recognition of particular rights of control. For example,
self-ownership implies that ownership rights of individuals (and indi
viduals themselves) are clearly and distinctly separable from other individ
uals and their rights, that individual rights carry primary moral significance,
and that society is a collection of individuals. Further, self-ownership sug
gests that certain rights are basic and others are derivative. For example,
ownership is commonly said to connote a number of rights including those
of selling, renting, leasing, permitting others to use, as well as rights to
income from the use of one's property. However, my rights of control with
respect to myself might be specified in terms of (social or political) rights
to speak freely, to move about without impediment, as well as rights not to
be mentally or physically coerced. These are straightforward rights to self
control or control of one's powers and abilities which do not invoke the
market relationships of buying, selling, leasing, renting, deriving income
from, or investing. Nevertheless, the self-ownership view holds that these
28 A. Ryan, "Self-Ownership, Autonomy, and Property Rights," Social Philosophy &

Policy \\ (1994), p. 241.
(social or political) rights are derivative from the former ownership rights
of control over one's body. Accordingly, the self-ownership thesis also
involves various assumptions about which rights are basic and which are
derivative. In this sense, the principle of self-ownership is more than simply
a collection of control rights. It is a thesis about those rights as embedded
in a set of assumptions, values and views about human beings and their
relations. Accordingly, it is important to focus on self-ownership, together
with its various assumptions and implications, and not simply treat it as
wholly a question of this or that right of control. Self-ownership carries
much richer, and troubling, implications, as I have argued. It is because of
those implications and assumptions I have maintained that Cohen should
overthrow this model of individual understanding, rather than try to main
tain bits and pieces of it.
Finally, though the preceding implications may not persuade the liber
tarian or the person who doggedly wishes to exploit his or her own resources
and views himself or herself simply as some owned good, they may per
suade others. We should ask in these cases what would lead people to
such a self-conceptualization. Does this occur in societies in which the
relations of individuals are becoming (or have become) less personal and
more contractual? Does self-ownership become appealing when the law
and economics become the primary models for self-understanding, rather
than religion, philosophy, poetry or psychology? Does self-ownership arise
as our primary mode of self-understanding in societies in which people see
themselves as individuals having to protect their own territories against
the encroachment of others? I think the answer to these questions is "yes"
and that the implicated form of society is quite different from, and at odds
with, the one which Cohen seeks to promote. Once again, he would do
better to reject self-ownership, than try to retain parts of it.
Cohen does not consider these questions or various arguments against
libertarianism and libertarian freedom because he wants arguments per
suasive to libertarians which would undercut their views on freedom and
self-ownership. However, there is a difference between persuasive argu
ments and sound arguments. It may be that libertarians cannot be persuaded
out of their views, for various reasons. That should not inhibit Cohen from
giving good or sound arguments which are available to him. Thus, he
should reconsider this aspect of his methodology.
On the other hand, it may be granted that it is extremely difficult
to resist this form of market thinking. The metaphors of the market so
pervade society and contemporary thinking that it may be impossible for
many to think themselves out of this frame of thought. Still, it is a frame
of thought which I would think that liberals and leftists would be eager
to resist. Cohen's book contains passages in which he eloquently speaks

of the importance of striving in spite of opposing forces towards certain
ideal ways of thinking about ourselves and society. He should invoke this
approach with regard to self-ownership as well.
V. Conclusion
Cohen struggles mightily, and in the main successfully, with self-ownership

in this book. Though he allows that self-ownership is a coherent concept,
he argues that the full self-ownership thesis should be rejected. At times I
was reminded of the Uncle Remus tale of Brer Rabbit and the Tar-Baby.
But in this version, Brer Cohen has become caught up by the Tar-Baby of
self-ownership. He hits it with a fistful of arguments, kicks it with some
good objections and butts it with a head full of theory. However much he
rejects it, he has been greatly captured by it.
Cohen takes the libertarian metaphor much too seriously in his attempt
to work out its inner weaknesses and problems. Admittedly he thinks that
leftists may be better placed to appreciate the force of the self-ownership
thesis than liberals (p. 163). Yet, I suppose that Brer Rabbit took the
Tar-Baby quite seriously and could well appreciate its force. The point,
however, should be to get unstuck (cf. p. 163f.). The image of human
beings that self-ownership fosters is one that we should oppose.
If Cohen believes that individuals have certain rights of self-control or
rights of self-determination, that is one thing. But to invoke these notions,
one need not invoke the notion of self-ownership. The clarity and force
fulness of thought that Cohen represents, and which we appreciate in his
work, would be fostered by his not doing so.29
School of Business Department of Philosophy

Georgetown University University of Tennessee
Washington, DC 20057-2076 Knoxville, TN 37996-0480
USA USA
29 I am greatly indebted for comments on earlier versions of this paper to John Hardwig,
Jim Nelson and Betsy Postow.

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Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Autonomy

Author(s): George G. Brenkert

SELF-OWNERSHIP, FREEDOM, AND AUTONOMY

(Received and accepted 1 May 1997)

KEY WORDS: autonomy, Cohen, freedom, libertarianism, Nozick, self-ownership

The Journal of Ethics 2: 27-55, 1998.

curtailed efforts to reform those who have committed crimes or become

of self-ownership that libertarians hold and its supposed relations with

II. Self-Ownership and Freedom

Though libertarianism is generally characterized as placing liberty first in

Cohen's account of self-ownership involves distinguishing between the

5 In fact, Cohen speaks of a concept, thesis and principle of self-ownership. Cohen

a capitalist. Cohen compares this set of self-ownership rights both with

her desires. Thus he maintains that we do not have to look to a person's

The problem with this argument, as Cohen now recognizes, is that

Cohen could be more straightforward if he would offer an account

Consequently, it seems as if there are two conflicting movements in

13 There are a variety of different accounts of autonomous freedom. Cohen understands

to reject self-ownership. It is to switch to a normative argument, rather

HI. Self-Ownership, Autonomy and Slavery

Cohen's main attack on the libertarian connection of self-ownership and

that libertarians typically advance. "Less self-ownership, more autonomy"

First, Cohen heavily relies on the absolvability condition to refute the

nevertheless, not a case of slavery. The libertarian claim that limitations on

things) to being beaten, kicked, lynched, raped, dehumanized, degraded,

IV. Exorcizing the Demon of Self-Ownership

It is striking that so many speak so strongly of the appeal of self-ownership.

Second, on the self-ownership view our relations with other people,

to be found in Kant's Lectures on Ethics. As Cohen formulates it, Kant's

Support for this argument may be found in Cohen's own argument

27 Cf. T. Donaldson and L. Preston, "The Stakeholder Theory of the Corporation,"

28 A. Ryan, "Self-Ownership, Autonomy, and Property Rights," Social Philosophy &

to resist. Cohen's book contains passages in which he eloquently speaks

Cohen struggles mightily, and in the main successfully, with self-ownership

School of Business Department of Philosophy

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