Self-ownership and world-ownership: an egalitarian-independent argument for left-libertarianism

This dissertation is a contribution to the contemporary left-libertarian debate. Instead of arguing for left-libertarianism in a traditional way, which would mean combining the intuitively attractive ideas of self-ownership and some kind of egalitarian distribution, I primarily focus on the concept of Nozickean self-ownership as an independent moral value. Contrary to what is commonly believed, I argue that a theory of ownership rights over worldly resources can be derived from self-ownership. Although the concept as such does not tell us much, its underlying reasoning and argumentation clearly does imply a specific theory of world-ownership. I argue that, to be in line with self-ownership, a theory of world-ownership has to justify full private property rights that are unilaterally claimable, equal and impermanent. Compatibility with the arguments for self-ownership demands a theory of world-ownership in which every human being has a right to an equal share of the competitive value of the worldly resources. By engaging with the left-libertarian theories of Philippe Van Parijs, Michael Otsuka and Hillel Steiner it becomes clear that self-ownership can only guide a theory of justice if it is treated as an independent moral value. Also, the underlying argument for self-ownership that every person ought to be seen as an equal moral agent is only respected if the redistributable resources do only consist of natural resources that are exterior to human beings