Politics Notes Issues in Political Theory Notes
Robert Nozick; John Rawls; self-ownership; private property; end-state theory; historical entitlement theory; just distribution of holdings; Wilt Chamberlain example; Locke's Proviso The right to parent one's biological baby; fiduciary model of parental rights; baby redistribution; comprehensive enrollment; the right to raise one's child in a religion; future autonomy Property rights; negative/positive liberty; non-domination; Jeremy Waldron; Christopher Essert; shared housing; freedom of intimat...
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Justice, Homelessness & Housing
QUESTIONS
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INTRODUCTION
According to housing charity Shelter, 320,000 people were recorded as homeless in the UK in 2018. This is an increase of 13,000 or 4% on last year’s figures, and equivalent to 36 new individuals becoming homeless every day.
For van Leeuwen, the fact that homeless still occurs in the world’s richest welfare states highlights a puzzling contradiction; namely, that ‘liberal-democratic states contain citizens without the defining characteristic of liberalism itself – a private sphere’.
TYPES OF PROPERTY
Public property
‘A place is common property if the point of placing it under collective control is partially to allow anyone in society to use it without having to secure the permission of anyone else’ [Waldron]
Prohibitions specific to public places provide the basis for their commonality; ensuring fair access for all in such a way that prevents people from precluding their use by others (user equality).
Benefits include: the provision of space for activism, socializing & religious worship; a resource for those without private property.
Private property
Rules of property are organized such that particular contested resources are assigned to the decisional authority or ‘normative control’ [Essert] of particular individuals.
If I privately own a piece of land, I possess certain exclusionary rights over it: [Wells]
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Private property rights & negative liberty
Consequently, ‘others have a duty not to use it (without my consent) and there is a battery of legal remedies at my disposal which I can use to enforce this duty. The right correlative to this duty is an essential incident of ownership, and any enforcement of the duty necessarily amounts to a deliberate interference with someone else’s action’ [Waldon, 1991]
Benefits include:
Stability & security – protection against the elements/danger, a place to store one’s valuable possessions, etc.
Addresses are required to register to vote, give appropriate information on medical forms, and receive benefits.
Non-domination (see: ‘ESSERT’)
‘Constitutes a unique domain/’bastion’ of personal autonomy’ [Schrader]
Privacy
Identity formation
Frank claims that privacy facilitates the kind of reflection required for developing an intact sense of self away from the demands/pressures of public life – ‘The way I understand myself is related to the place where I live, the place that I have invested my time and resources in, a place that offers a sense of intimacy and privacy, a place to receive visitors’ [van Leeuwen]
Self-respect & dignity
For Rawls, the capacity for private housing is normally essential for self-respect which, in turn, is inextricably tied to the capacity for a conception of the good* for ‘when we feel our plans are of little value, we cannot pursue them with pleasure or take delight in their execution’.
WHAT IS THE WRONG OF HOMELESSNESS?
Waldron |
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Robert Nozick; John Rawls; self-ownership; private property; end-state theory; historical entitlement theory; just distribution of holdings; Wilt Chamberlain example; Locke's Proviso The right to parent one's biological baby; fiduciary model of parental rights; baby redistribution; comprehensive enrollment; the right to raise one's child in a religion; future autonomy Property rights; negative/positive liberty; non-domination; Jeremy Waldron; Christopher Essert; shared housing; freedom of intimat...
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