Essay On Self Ownership

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Recommended: Equality and fairness

Robert Nozick’s principle of self-ownership states that individuals have ownership over their body. Owning one’s own self is a natural right that each individual has. A person has the exclusive right to make decisions regarding what their body does and does not do. The self is the body itself but also the labor and talents of an individual and by extension, the results of it. Because a person has rights over the self they at are full liberty to choose what happens with the body and the elements that the body possesses. This places constraints on the way others can treat and interact with each person. Since you are the only one with rights to yourself, another person cannot make you do anything against your will, even if it is for a good purpose. This means you cannot be made a slave or be forced to give up any part of your self without your consent. Under Nozick’s principle of self-ownership things such as taxation, social services and various government regulations are immoral.
John Rawls’ idea of fairness means that every thing that each individual contributes to society will be divided amongst everyone. The basic structure of society will not work unless everyone cooperates. Rawls’ principle of justice as fairness has both a negative and positive side. The negative part of this is that some people are born disadvantage or do not have a choice in the disadvantages that they have within society. But these negative disadvantages should not mean that a person be disadvantaged in society for life or be excluded from the benefits of social institutions. Rawls idea of justice does not specifically say how things should be distributed amongst people but it does say that there should be equal distribution.
There are two principles of j...

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...refers to as the veil of ignorance. This veil is essentially a metaphor for pulling a veil over people and society’s eyes. He applies it in the way that the individual person would not know their place in society and make decisions based upon this ignorance. It also helps determine if this action or decision is moral. It does this by not giving each person the knowledge of their social or political standing, forcing them to make a decision in favor of the group or people it would benefit positively the most. They would make this choice because hypothetically it could be them in the less ideal situation. Therefore a rational society would select policies and arrangements that benefitted the lower parts of society. This veil of ignorance almost ensures that the needs and demands of the minorities in society are represented and there is political order and fairness.

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