Against Self‐Ownership: There Are No Fact‐Insensitive Ownership Rights over One's Body

Abstract

Libertarians endorse:The Self-Ownership Thesis: Each person enjoys moral ownership of himself or herself (his/her body and mind).On this view, persons own themselves in the same way that they have (legal or moral) private ownership of things and in the same way that a slaveholder can have (legal) private ownership of a complete chattel slave. 1 At the core of the self-ownership thesis is the moral control-right a person has over the use of his or her body and mind.Other rights included in full ownership over oneself include the right to compensation if someone uses one's body or mind without permission, the right to prevent violation of one's self-ownership, the right to recover compensation if someone uses one in a way that violates one's self-ownership, the right to transfer one's rights over oneself to others (e.g., by way of sale), and immunity from nonconsensual loss of one's self-ownership.2 Clearly, self-ownership places moral constraints on what can be done permissibly to individuals.Warren Quinn puts it thus: "A person is

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