Freedom Argument
Freedom Argument
In this paper, I will argue that the institution of property must be defended. I will show that freedom depends on the ability to support oneself. Then, I will show that it follows that property is needed for one to support oneself.
Freedom is having independence, according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary. Independence is generally defined by the ability to live without anyone elses influence or control. For example, most teenagers loathe their parents rules and look forward to having independence from living on their own, and thus being out of their parents control. So to have freedom is to have the ability to live without anyone elses influence or control. Those teenagers want freedom from their parents.
To live without someone elses influence or control is to be able for a person to provide for themselves. Without anyone else to influence or control ones life, they must provide for themselves. A person supports themselves by providing themselves with their necessities. It is a common know fact that necessities are food, shelter, and clothing and that these necessities are all tangible objects.
Property is something owned by someone according to Princeton Universitys WordNet. Food, shelter, and clothes are all property because they need to be owned by someone in order for them to be used. This argument was stated by John Locke in his The Second Treatise of Government and supported by many college political science professors, like .
Thus, food must be in someones possession to be eaten, a house must have a shelter to live in it (they dont necessarily need to own it to live in it, but they do have to achieve the house) and a person must have clothes to wear them. Food, water, and shelter cannot be anything but property, because they need to be possessed to be used.
Sharing is not a primal instinct for animals. For example, it is common knowledge that you cannot be around a dog when it eats. The reason according to veterinarians is that the dog is very protective of its food, because the food is its property, and it is not its instinct to share it.
It does not make sense for everyone to share, because it is simply impossible to ask every person in the world if it is alright to pick an apple, for example. Nothing is actually shared, because the giver must have achieved it in some way. John Locke says that something becomes property because we work to use it. To eat an apple from a tree, you must pick it. You do not ask every other person in the world if it is okay to do this, you just do it.
To reiterate, to have freedom is to have independence. One cannot have independence without being able to fulfill needs. To fulfill needs, one needs property. Thus, to have freedom one needs property. Freedom is not possible without property, because you cannot have independence without property.
If we did not protect private property, then survival would be sacrificed. Without protection for private property like food, humans resort to things