> Self-ownership seems different. I own me because I alone control
> me. Or, more precisely, I control me more effectively than can
> any other person.
IAN: Plato@upx.net argues, and I disagree, that parents own the child
until they surrender their claim, which could be when the child is 70
years old. The argumentation for this is quite solid. The mother owns
the egg the father the sperm. The father basically abandons his property,
unless stated otherwise in contract. The mother at no time surrenders
her claim to her egg, even as it grows into a child, is born and grows up.
The only counter is that a sentient, or self-animated, being is a self-
owner ipso facto. At the point of birth and childhood it's a fuzzy owner-
ship, under which the mother can exert force, such as to pull the child's
hand away from an electric socket. However, this "self-owner upon being a
self-animated being" invokes another standard than pure property ownership,
although even pure property ownership assumes a self-animated being is
doing the owning, and has a right to ownership because it is such.
>From an Extropian angle, the self-animated theory of ownership may
be problematic because it invokes a kind of spiritual basis for rights.
But since rights are a mental construct, and so is, perhaps, the soul,
no big deal. ? Any ideas?
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IAN GODDARD <igoddard@erols.com> Q U E S T I O N A U T H O R I T Y
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