Join us for an engaging talk by Freedom Center Visiting Fellow, Bas Van der Vossen. This event will take place in Social Sciences 224 from 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM. Don’t miss this opportunity to gain valuable insights and participate in a stimulating discussion!

Bio

Bas van der Vossen is a Professor of Philosophy and Associate Director of the Smith Institute of Political Economy and Philosophy at Chapman University. He’s the co-author of In Defense of Openness, with Jason Brennan (Oxford University Press, 2018), Political Philosophy: the Basics (Routledge, 2024), and Debating Humanitarian Intervention, with Fernando Tesón (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is also the co-editor of Economic Liberties as Human Rights (Routledge, 2019) and The Routledge Handbook of Libertarianism (Routledge, 2017). His articles have appeared in journals such as the Journal of Political Philosophy, Legal Theory, the Philosophical Quarterly, Law and Philosophy, and others. He is Associate Editor of Social Philosophy and Policy. Bas earned his DPhil from the University of Oxford.

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Abstract

Property, the Lockean claims, is the product of labor. Intuitively, what we make through our work seems to belong to us rather than others. Explaining this intuition, however, has proven elusive. This paper argues that the Lockean view sees property rights arising at the intersection of two values. The first is the value of the outwardly extending self. The second, which I call “domain-specific values,” identify considerations relevant to a certain moral domain. In the case of property, these are reasonably protected uses of external things. Appropriation, then, happens where the self extends outwardly in ways that reasonably merit protection. Laboring on things to put them to more productive use is a prime example but, pace Locke, not the only such example.