Why is it Okay and Morally Justified to Own other people?

You make a good point, but ultimately fail.

Yes, love/ownership is Exclusivity. It is the bond between Two, to the detriment and exclusion of Several Billion. Thus it is dangerous to ‘Own’ others, to form intimate bonds, or further, to bear the progeny of such bonds, which is the relationship between Mother and Child. The fact that, on this forum, common sense is denied, and “you don’t own your own body”, is very telling as to the casual, average psyche, this representing a microcosm to the macrocosm. Do average people, also, not own themselves, and not own their own children? Maybe not. In that case, maybe you have a point, Ecmandu. However, I personally believe that people lie, often. People say one thing, but think a second, and act a third. So you say you have “love for humanity”, but I doubt it.

Ownership is primal and primary. Animals have it. It is instinct. Just as you ‘Own’ the food you eat and swallow, so too do you ‘Own’ your body, so too do you ‘Own’ your progeny, which is direct, biological, genetic extension of self.

Continue with your Denials. This has been a very, very informative thread thus far. Let’s keep it going.

I misspoke about love. I meant to say that there are mutual loved ones in my life.

The Bible and bagivad Gita make it very clear that we don’t own ourselves (only god owns).

I’d like to think we own ourselves.

Custodianship may be a fancy legal term for a possession, however, implicit in custodianship is the concept also of individual rights for the person under custody.

That’s a strange use of the words “own” and “property”. I should hope that’s not how we would describe a healthy family, where parents raise and nurture their children to be healthy, independent people. This is quite unlike a person’s relationship to, say, a book that they own. Is the difference in relationship not apparent?

How can a country be yours if you don’t own it?
How can a street be yours if you don’t own it?
How can a favorite color be yours if you don’t own it?
How can my valentine “be mine” if I don’t own people?
If you don’t take ownership of your problems, how can they still be yours?

Perhaps the key to all these questions, is that there are senses of “having” something, or such strong identification with it, that we call it “ours” (it is related to us) in a sense quite unlike physical property. Perhaps we shouldn’t reduce all sense of “my/own/ours” etc. to property ownership.

This is the thread that keeps on giving and giving.

No, you’re right Fuse. If somebody kidnaps your child, then it’s okay, and it’s not really “kidnapping”, because you never owned them in the first place.

You got me…?

Also I learned, in this thread, that you don’t “own” something, or somebody, unless you can sell it.

That means you own one of your kidneys, which you can sell, on the black market, but not the other?

Very enlightening thread.

I didn’t realize that so few humans in this world, actually own-themselves. You are not your own property? Whaaaaaaaaat???

Equivocation is critical thinking 101. There many senses in which feeling that something is yours, has nothing to do with property ownership.

Care to respond to this?

A country and street (neighborhood) is a collection of people and individuals. People can own a society, as they own themselves. You are beholden to your own kind. This is simple biology, shouldn’t have to explain it to a bunch of grown adult “philosophers” on a philosophy forum. Even insects, ants for example, feel kinship and are beholden/loyal to one-another and “their own” colony. If you accept this fact, and you do, then how are you even making an argument or disagreement? How are you not contradicting yourself immediately? As-if ants follow one biological-rule, and humans are some kind of exception? Why and how?

Owning colors is not the same as owning objects, property, self, etc. That’s more metaphorical. Do you own the money in your bank account? Who knows, maybe not, according to this thread?

Give me all your money. It’s mine, not yours. Disagree?? Then I guess you’re not acting or speaking on principle?

Mating and copulation is an act of ownership, domination, and subjugation, yes. Woman submits to man, sexually, is dominated by him (penetrated).

What is the symbolism of poking your pecker into somebody and making babies??? Seriously, tell me.

Welcome to Justice, Law, Order, Morality. This is the basic question. People blame and assign (ownership) of problems upon each other daily. Democrats vs Republics, Left vs Right, Liberal vs Conservative, everyday.

As-if there is some alternative? You tell me.

As far as people are concerned (which was the OP of this thread)

People have costodianship. Guardianship.

These definitions imply that there are innate rights to those who are custodied and guarded.

That’s not ownership in the sense of slavery, actually, it’s not ownership at all.

Thus you are refuted.

Make a new thread that deals with objects (like a lamp) and then we can have a slightly interesting discussion.

But in fact, you don’t own the country you live in in the same sense as owning a house, yet you still call it yours.

This means what exactly in a country of millions or billions of people? That you own them all as your property?

Ah, yes… why explain your thinking to someone in a discussion.

Great. So we agree that there are different senses of the word ownership.

It’s not worth my time to explain how being parent to a child is a substantially and qualitatively different relationship than being owner of a book, but if we at least agree that there are different senses of ownership then I’ll leave you to sort out what the difference could be. If your prefer to think it impossible that there could be any difference, so be it.

Incorrect, building a country is the same as building a house.

Are you implying, here, that there is less ownership between mother and child, than there is person and book?

Very interesting! Explain more!

I love this thread!

Um, that would be me… :smiley:

One’s kidney is indeed their’s, and so is the other… I wouldn’t recommend selling both though…

I do think it hot (for want of a better word) that a couple desire to own each other, indicating exclusivity… I did say as much in the Comedy thread here, in relation to an online game called Pets, where members can buy each other and pay to set themselves free. I still prefer the word ‘belonging‘ though.

I think Ownership has more to do with what you are completely unwilling to sell. Things which are priceless.

Like your own children.

Nature and Life is not absolute. Many children are ‘sold’, down the river.

Consider how many children are ‘given’ over to political agendas… Abortion, these new riots, protests, anti-life and anti-american movements.

Think of how many children are ‘given’ over to God, to religion, to Islam, Judaism, Christianity, etc.

How can children be ‘given’ over, unless they are somebody else’s to give?

“Westerners” want to make-believe, Pretend, childish-fantasy-land, that “people don’t own each-other”, but they do. And because they do, it’s causing a misconception, a Grand Lie, where even adults on this forum, here, philosophically, cannot answer, or claim not to understand, basic concepts of Ownership, specifically, that a person does not own Him/Herself.

How can you own your book, your kidney, your things which you “can sell”, if you don’t own yourself first?

Maybe, in order to be a Perfect Victim, completely Non-responsible for anything or anybody, you have to “give yourself up”. Maybe people do not own themselves.

Maybe people have already been ‘sacrificed’ to some other cause? Like a soldier in war, your life is not “your own”?

That’s one way of looking at it, from that perspective, of an unwillingness to depart with that which is dearest to the heart… there are plenty who misuse the ownership of their children though, and place them in the most precarious of situations, so humans always naturally owning their children doesn’t always work out, for the child.

You ever seen when a female, attempts to bond with another female’s baby? that’s really crossing a line… unless you’re family, and even then, there are limits.

Giving children over to the negative and harmful aspects of society is never great nor good, but the aspect of study and worship is… as opposed to ignorance and inquisitions.

Perhaps having never felt owned, “Westerners” and some other “Nations” do not harbour the concept and feeling of ownership, making it alien to us, as a notion… unless we individually want it to be so, towards those that we are enamoured of and by.

We do give ourselves up… to nature, to our whims, to our ideals… they are ours, without having to say so, just as children are to their parents.

Yes but we didn’t create ourselves entirely by ourselves - lets say the mother owns a portion of you originally because of the labour she did.
Self-ownership is thus generally approached as an ideal rather than as a given, and as such it works to inspire capitalism.
Interesting combination is capitalism and monotheism; self-ownership and giving oneself away to god under one umbrella. Protestantism is a natural result.
Beyond that, Liberty was invented as self-ownership including experience in the spiritual domain. Under the god Liberty, magic can be practiced without master; and I think it requires actual magic to truly possess oneself.

I believe that few people truly want Independence, which is the path to self-ownership.

Most people enjoy to be coddled, and adult-children, from birth to gravestone.

What does an Independent self-owned individual look like, on paper, to you? I’m thinking… nomadic, Berber-esque types, but I don’t think you mean that type at all.

How do you go about owning yourself Urwrong? Do you say/think to yourself ‘own you baby, own you’? as opposed to ‘own it’? :slight_smile:

It is morally justified to pwn someone, but not, certainly not, to own someone.

Ownership is directly linked to sense-of-self, self-identity, morality, responsibility, and causality. If you do not, cannot, or will not think of yourself as an “agent of causality”, then you cannot “own” yourself either. And, as it appears, many people do not in fact “own” themselves. Rather, as I mentioned, people are Owned, not Owners. Race doesn’t matter, although it is part of the equation. Nor does gender. People are ‘owed’ to forces, or people, ‘higher’ than themselves. You can use God and religion as primary examples.

“Your life is not your own.” Is it? Yes? No? How do you go about ‘gaining’ ownership of yourself, except, to liberate yourself from those you are owned by? Owed to?

Obligated to.

Do you not owe your life to your biological parents?

As to “gaining ownership via independence”, Independence means something different for everybody, and with accordance to time, culture, setting, society, etc. Independence refers to Freedom. Can you live “outside” the system? Can you live within it? Some people can do both, some can do neither.