Self-Ownership and the Categorical Imperative

DOI: 10.5922/0207-6918-2025-3-3
Pages: 81-109

categorical imperative self-ownership libertarianism natural rights autonomy human dignity paternalism instrumentalization

Abstract

This article examines the attempts of many libertarian philosophers to justify the self-ownership principle using the second formulation of the categorical imperative. It begins by reconstructing the self-ownership principle, according to which each person has a natural property right over her body and person. There are many versions of this principle, each recognizing a different set of such property rights; but what all formulations have in common is their radical anti-paternalism and, consequently, the permissibility of self-destructive behaviour. The paper then reconstructs and analyses two Kantian arguments for self-ownership. According to the first, persons have intrinsic value and should therefore never be used as mere means for someone else’s ends, which forbids ownership of other people. According to the second, persons must own their own bodies and persons in order to realise the personal and moral autonomy needed to uphold the moral law. Next, the article describes two ways in which self-ownership can be reconciled with different theories of personal identity: internalist and externalist. Internalism holds that the body is either identical with the person or part of the person. Externalism holds that the body is external to the person, which is a nonphysical mental substance. For Kantian libertarians, these two approaches present a dilemma. If they accept internalism, then self-ownership is incompatible with the categorical imperative because it involves self-instrumentalization. Since all persons are of equal value, instrumentalizing oneself is just as impermissible as instrumentalizing other persons. However, if Kantian libertarians accept externalism, then self-ownership simply does not follow from the categorical imperative because violating property rights to external resources is not itself an instrumentalization of their owner. Thus, the categorical imperative and self-ownership are incompatible.

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