BF190 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Civil Society, Puritans
Document Summary
Nature introduces private property: natural reason: men have the right to self-preservation and therefore resources. And in order to be useful to us, resources have to be appropriated (e. g. food): something becomes yours when you labour or work with a particular thing. Picking an apple is an example of this: criticism: he sees the world as forever abundance. You own your body and the things you make with it: human beings have property over their own person. Their body, their labour, and the products of their labour (provided they don"t deprive anyone else of access to the common): because your body labours you own it, the labour of making an object useful makes it yours. Objection: couldn"t you just take everything: solution: the purpose of appropriation is enjoyment. Take only those resources that you can enjoy: if you take too much it will spoil and you are depriving everyone.
