Common use of Questions arising Clause in Contracts

Questions arising. For my purposes, the key questions arising from this summary of Lockean property theory, beyond those about its internal coherence, regard how well it fits the core tenets of Lockean liberalism. I shall discuss Lockean liberalism in full in Chapter 2. But as above, it is an approach on which right and wrong are a matter of objective truth, discoverable through perception and reflection. It is an approach on which key fundamental values, including freedom and equality, are baked into conceptions of justified action and authority. In Lockean political society, therefore, objective moral truths govern not only the justified actions of those holding justified political authority, but also the ways in which all societal members should behave towards one another — not only as human beings alike in basic status, but also as equal members of a shared political society. An obvious question arising regarding ▇▇▇▇▇’▇ approach to property, therefore, relates as above to what amounts to a satisfactory justification, in political society, for the kind of property rights that allow individuals to have demanding exclusive and exclusionary relations with external things. Again, at the most simplistic level, this query arises because the ideas of exclusivity and exclusion seem inherently in tension with central Lockean commitments to (equally-held) freedom and equality. ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ observes this tension: ‘Private property’ refers to a kind of system that allocates particular objects like pieces of land to particular individuals to use and manage as they please, to the exclusion of others (even others who have a greater need for the resources) and to the exclusion also of any detailed control by society. Though these exclusions make the idea of private property seem problematic, philosophers have often argued that it is necessary for the ethical development 28 e.g., ▇▇▇▇▇, Second Treatise, 23-24 (§37). of the individual, or for the creation of a social environment in which people can prosper as free and responsible agents.29 This basic question about the Lockean justification for exclusive and exclusionary ownerships can be extended in various morally potent relevant ways, therefore. Not least: what is the justification for exclusive and exclusionary relationships with finite resources of the kinds required to meet basic human need? And what is the justification for such relationships with resources that are, naturally, seemingly ‘fair game’ for all? These considerations seem particularly crucial on a Lockean-liberal account. A key reason for interest in the strength of the moral justification offered for these kinds of ownerships relates, therefore, to the deleterious effect that such ownerships can have on those outside the owner/owned thing relation. This is both in terms of restricting those people’s otherwise potential claims over the particular things that have become individually owned, and also in terms of restricting their otherwise potential claims over any other similar things. When some thing is a finite thing, or a member of a finite set of a kind of thing, then everyone who takes even a small quantity of it, on a ‘first come first served’ account, is restricting everyone who consequently no longer has the potential to make such claims. If there are only ten family-sized plots of land available, and 100 families urgently need land for sustenance and shelter, then it is not just the family who acquires the tenth plot whose actions have served to disadvantage many others. Beyond this are further questions related to the status of being a property owner: what becoming a property owner means in terms of one’s standing and relations with others, particularly, as I shall discuss below, in a democratic society. Indeed, all these questions gain new potency in political society, as it is no longer that each person has, as in the state of nature, at most a small set of relatives, friends, and neighbours with whom one has special proximal obligations. In Lockean political society, each member stands in special new relation with every other member. What I am particularly interested in, therefore, are the