Abstract
This paper presents a new challenge for libertarianism. (Or rather: for any version of libertarianism committed to absolute, indefeasible self-ownership rights). The problem, in a nutshell, is that libertarianism appears to self-destruct in cases where conjoined twins—who share body parts—disagree over what to do with them. The problem is explored, and some solutions are proposed. The verdict is that accepting any of them will make libertarianism harder to defend.
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Notes
Not all libertarians. The flavour of libertarianism I’m challenging here is only the pure, strictly deontological version; the sort that’s committed to absolute, indefeasible self-ownership rights. Other varieties of libertarianism will be left untouched. This argument is not for them.
Not everyone agrees with this. Some libertarians think there are positive obligations that can be permissibly enforced. However, since it’s not clear to me how libertarians who accept positive obligations would respond to this dilemma (partly because which positive obligations are accepted varies from theorist to theorist), I won’t explore that rabbit hole here.
For this to work, the legal system might need to change its current practices. In the context of a different ownership dispute, law professors Heller and Salzman write: “Flipping a coin may seem fairest. But oddly that’s the one solution in the list above judges and juries are explicitly forbidden to from using. Coin flips work on the playground and to start football games, but not in the law. As a judge, you need to give a reason for choosing one party—even if you believe both sides have equal merit” (Heller and Salzman 2021, 19).
For context, some libertarians think that the security functions of the state should be disbanded and replaced by private security guard companies, or ‘protection agencies’ (see Friedman [1989], Rothbard [1978; 1998], and Huemer [2013; 2021]). (Caveat: of these authors, only Rothbard is committed to the strong view of self-ownership I’m challenging here. The other two are fine.)
Cf. Christmas (2018).
This position is exemplified by Locke, who declares that human beings are “…the workmanship of one omnipotent and infinitely wise Maker; all the servants of one sovereign Master, sent into the world by His order and about His business; they are His property, whose workmanship they are made to last during His, not one another’s pleasure” (Locke [1689] 1884, 194).
Bonus thought: if, after considering all these options and more, the libertarian judged that a theistic account of self-ownership was more plausible than its rivals, they could always take the datum of self-ownership as a small piece of inductive evidence favouring theism over atheism. If they did, the theoretical cost of adopting theism as an auxiliary hypothesis might go down a bit.
Example inspired by Nozick (1974, 287–288).
Interestingly, Nozick thought this response was so legless that he refused to even consider it, writing: “[a] moral view which must take that route to avoid being overthrown by facts that look accidental are very shaky indeed” (Nozick 1974, 288).
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Roses are red / hands are for gelling / I thank Reviewer One for correcting my spelling.
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Wollen, A. Libertarianism and Conjoined Twins. Philosophia 50, 2183–2192 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-022-00512-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-022-00512-0