Abstract In the third chapter of his book, Reciprocal Freedom , Ernest Weinrib lucidly lays out a Kantian conception of ownership, and deftly lays to rest a series of questions to which that conception might be thought to give rise. Here I explore two issues lying at the root of the Kantian account of ownership as elaborated by Weinrib: The first is how it is that acquired rights to external things are possible in the first place; the second is why, once the possibility of acquired rights is established, the form that they take should be that of a traditional right of ownership, rather than, for instance, a more limited right to use. Ultimately, Weinrib’s discussion leaves me more favorably disposed toward the Kantian view of the possibility of acquired rights, but it seems to leave some important questions about the form of those rights unanswered.
Stephen Bero (Tue,) studied this question.