The property right in one’s own body must be said to be justified a priori, for anyone who would try to justify any norm whatsoever would already have to presuppose the exclusive right to control over his body as a valid norm simply in order to say “I propose such in such.”
Hans-Hermann Hoppe, The Economics and Ethics of Private Property (1993).
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Hans-Hermann Hoppe
One reply on “Hans-Hermann Hoppe”
This claim does not withstand examination.
Hoppe treats a lack of prohibition as a right, and thence begs the question. In an absence altogether of ethics, neither rights nor prohibitions would obtain. Granted that, in the absence of rights, one might be forceably prevented from performing any action; but in the presence of rights one might still be forceably prevented from performing that same action. The difference is in the ethical status of the prevention.
Moreover, just as one may have limited property claims of other sorts — such as time-shares — one might have painfully limited claims of self ownership, permitting presenting propositions but not other actions, or permitting only presenting some propositions and not others.