It is my belief that the average American of less than 40 years is utterly philosophically bankrupt. I’m convinced that this is the result of a concerted effort by American media and education, but this suspicion of mine is beside the point, really; that’s for another time. That said bankruptcy exists is the problem that I am seeking to address here with this series of short treatises optimistically (I tend to be windy) called “Succinctly.”
I seek to address this bankruptcy because philosophy is a vitally important thing for any thinking ape to possess, yet few do.
I argue that my philosophy is true and correct because it all flows from one single objectively true fact; and, that fact is the topic of the first of my Succinctly treatises which will be posted here each Wednesday morning for the next several weeks.
Enjoy!
Kyle A. Lohmeier
Treatise I: Individual Self-Ownership
Every human being owns his or her own body outright.
The above stands alone, unmolested by a semicolon or joined by another sentence within the same paragraph. It does so because it is the first and most basic objective truth on planet Earth and therefore needs no qualification.
It is also the wellspring of a handful of other objective truths.
The first of these is that, since every human owns his or her own body, they then must also own all of the labor their body performs. This is, of course, true. How can anyone else own the labor my body is physically performing? It’s not possible.
If all humans own their own bodies outright and therefore all of the labor their body performs, they too must also own outright, and have sole claim to, all the fruits of that labor.
Suppose I planted a tomato seed in a container on my stoop and over the spring a tomato plant began to grow. I care for and tend to the plant all summer long, mixing with the plant itself my labor and my property in the form of water, fertilizer, etc. Who then owns the nice, ripe tomatoes at the end of the summer? I do, of course. Who else could possibly have any claim to them if no one else helped me grow them?
Using the same hypothetical, suppose half-way through the season I decide I’ve got better things to do than tend to a tomato plant and so offer a neighbor half the tomatoes if he tends to the plant for me. My neighbor agrees to these terms and mixes his labor with the plant for the rest of the summer, at the end of which, I pay him the half of the crop as per our agreement. Who owns my neighbor’s tomatoes? My neighbor does, of course. They were paid to him as compensation for a job I offered him that he voluntarily accepted, no one else has any claim to them.
At no point is anyone else entitled to the fruit of my neighbor’s labor – the basket of tomatoes – the tomatoes were my rightful property that I then voluntarily traded to my neighbor in exchange for a few hours of his labor over the summer. He earned the tomatoes by performing labor with his body, which he owns and is solely his property; as every human being owns their own body outright.
This objective truth has other implications as well. Given that every person owns their own body, it is no one else’s business how they treat it. Every individual is free to dye their hair whatever color they want, shave it all off, or style it however they like; to cover their skin with tattoos, or leave it blank; to carry the fetus inside to term, or to abort it; to fill their bodies with all manner of drugs and alcohol, or be a straightedge teetotaler.
This objective truth also means that there can be no “moral” restriction on what labor a person agrees to perform. If a person wants to sell the body they own as a prostitute, such is obviously their right just as it is the right of a person to sell the body they own as a coal miner, dish washer, or accountant – such is just what follows logically from the objective truth that every human being owns their own body.
And again – the fact every human owns their own body is a universal, objective truth and the basis of all true philosophy.
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