Monday, June 23, 2014

Right and Property

There are strong indications in chapter II of Political Treatise that by 'Right', Spinoza means, more precisely 'Property Right'.  For example, in 2, he asserts that "God has a right to everything", and in 4, 13, and 16, he uses the phrase "right over nature".  Eventually, in 23, he contrasts "nature offers nothing that can be called this man's rather than another's, . . . under nature everything belongs to all", with "it is by common law determined what belongs to this man, and what to that".  So, to organize his concept of Right more methodically: 1. Every action alters some part of Nature; 2.  Every part of Nature has a Right to act on any part of Nature; 3. The correlation of Action-Object is the basis of that of Power-Right; 4. Every human has a Right to act on any part of Nature; 5. It is only on the basis of some political distribution that a Right is exclusive to a specific human.  In other words, the contrast between a-political Right and political Right is one of a heuristic, because essentially uncontestable, general concept, and an Individual one. 

No comments:

Post a Comment