Do we really have self-ownership?

Do we really have self-ownership, or only the right to exclude others from our person?

The right to self-ownership means that we have the right to do anything we want with, and control our own bodies. It means that we do not have the right to tell someone else what they should do with their person...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-ownership
Self-ownership (or sovereignty of the individual, individual sovereignty or individual autonomy) is the concept of property in one's own person, expressed as the moral or natural right of a person to be the exclusive controller of his or her own body and life. According to G. Cohen, the concept of self-ownership "says that each person enjoys, over herself and her powers, full and exclusive rights of control and use, and therefore owes no service or product to anyone else that she has not contracted to supply." (as at 18th April'09)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-ownership#Origin_of_the_concept
Some have traced the concept of self-ownership to certain individuals such as John Locke, who said, the individual "has a right to decide what would become of himself and what he would do, and as having a right to reap the benefits of what he did." Or, as stated more succinctly by Locke, "every man has a Property in his own Person." (as at 18th April'09)

If we have self-ownership (we have the right to control our own person) this denies positive rights (which rely on the ability to be able to tell other people what to do...) and we have only negative rights. Positive rights defined in this way are denied by self-ownership when it is defined to mean the right to control ourselves, but it is also denied when self-ownership is defined to mean the ability to prevent anyone from controlling ourselves and our bodies...

Just because we may have the right to prevent others from controlling our bodies does not strictly imply that we ourselves have the right to control our (own) bodies.


But what are the implications, from a "rights" perspective of this distinction? The semantic difference lends itself to the consideration of issues concerning (elected) self-harm and suicide... We certainly have the right to control ourselves in what might be described as a constructive act, but do we have the right to be (self) destructive?

If we disagree that our actions are harmful, then it is a matter of opinion that we are causing harm to ourselves... But if we agree (with other people) that our actions are (or will) cause harm to our own person (our own body), do we have the right to engage in that act?

Do we only have the right to self-ownership to the extent that our actions are (considered by ourselves to be) helpful? Do we not have the right to hurt our own person, just as we do not have the right to hurt others? So we might then not have the right to (deliberately) hurt ourselves?

Do we only have the right to do that which promotes life, which means to live according to our (positive) evolutionary instinct?


Saturday 18 April 2009