Private Property: Hume

According to both Locke and Hume, private property is a stabilizing concept that governments should protect.

They differ in how they think private property arises and how they justify the ownership of private property.

Locke

Locke’s view begins with the state of nature.

On Locke’s view:

The state of nature is characterized as one with ample unappropriated resources.
Individuals mix their labor with these resources.
These resources then belong to the individual.
Government is meant to protect individuals’ property rights.
Private property is a moral fact about persons and their labor.
The state’s job is to protect private property.

For Locke, property rights exist before the state.

Government does not create property rights. Government protects them.

Hume’s view begins from a different picture of the state of nature.

On Hume’s view:

The state of nature is characterized by limited resources, limited generosity, and limited power.
Individuals are constantly fighting over stuff.
We are all better off if we agree to stop fighting over one another’s resources and grant property “rights” to individuals.
Government arises to maintain this stability.
Property is a collectively sustained practice justified because it is useful and stabilizing, not because labor magically creates a moral title.

For Hume, property rights are not pre-political moral facts in the same way Locke thinks they are.

They are social practices that help stabilize human life.

For Locke, private property is grounded in labor.

For Hume, private property is grounded in usefulness.

Locke thinks property rights are moral facts that government should protect.

Hume thinks property rights are useful conventions that help us avoid conflict and live together.

Which story do you think is more likely to be true? What is the state of nature? What difference does it make?
Do we have property rights? Where do those rights come from? Are they moral facts or useful practices?
Hume suggests that the rules of property can be flexible. How flexible can they be? What is the breaking point?
How generous do you think people really are? Can we force generosity?
Both of these stories are what are called philosophical genealogies. What happens if a genealogy of private property turns out to be false? Can the moral points made by a genealogy be true even if the genealogy itself is false?
The United States was famously founded along Lockean ideas. When we use the term “rights,” such as in the Bill of Rights, do you think we are talking about rights in the same way Locke was using the term?