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7 - Property, Natural Law, and Nozick

from Part II - The Natural Right to Property

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 April 2025

Eric R. Claeys
Eric R. Claeys
Affiliation:
George Mason University, Virginia
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Summary

In law and scholarship, natural rights are associated more often with libertarian theories than theories of natural law. This chapter contrasts the two models of natural rights. Natural law-based natural rights rely on the interest theory of rights, not will theories. In natural law theories, autonomy is subordinate to rational flourishing and not a good on its own. Natural law theories make relevant the consequences on people of structuring rights in different ways. And in natural law theories political communities may accord broader rights to their members than to outsiders. The chapter illustrates the jus abutendi or right to destroy, the trespass case State v. Shack, doctrines about the acquisition of captured wild animals and whales, and the Native American property case Johnson v. M’Intosh.

Keywords

Nozicklibertarianautonomywill-based rightsright to destroyjus abutendicaptureJohnson v. M’IntoshState v. Shack
Type
Chapter
Information
Natural Property Rights , pp. 128 - 142
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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