Are Patents and Copyrights Morally Justified? - Tom G. Palmer

No. 3] Are Patents and Copyrights Morally Justi/led? 857
be ownedby another; each of us could be common property, in
the sense that a social decision would be made to determine
every use of our bodies (participatory collectivism); or we could
each be the owners of ourselves, Each of. these possible solutions
has been tried at one time or another. Modern society has
tended to converge on the last, on self-ownership.’ 46
What is it that might lead “players” in coordination “games”
to converge on self-ownership? In coordination problems there
is a natural tendency for players to converge on “obvious” solutions.
The pioneering work of Thomas Schelling has shown
that players in games with monetary payoffs for successful coordination
tend to converge on certain ~ As Schelling
remarks, “A prime characteristic of these ‘solutions’ to the
problems, that is, ofthe clues or coordinators or focal points, is
some kind of prominence or conspicuousness.” 48 These conspicuous
“clues” have come to be known as “Schelling points.”
We can find Schelling points in “property games” as well. In
the case of ownership of our bodies, what can be more natural—more
prominent—than the allocation of personal ownership
rights to each person?’ 49 As de Tracy affirms,
[I]f it be certain that the idea ofproperty can arise only in a
being endowed with will, it is equally certain that in such a
being it arises necessarily and inevitably in all its plenitude;
for, as soon as this individual knows accurately itself, or its
146. Fora contrast in this respect between the ancient world and modernity, see B.
CONSTANT, The Liberty ofthe Ancients Contrastedwith that oft/is Moderns, in POLITICAL. WRIT-
INGs 308-28 (1988).
147. See T. SCHEI.LING, THE STRATEGY OF CONFLICT 53-58 (1960).
148. Id. at 57.
149. See T. HODGSKIN, THE NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL RIGHT OF PRoPERTY CON.
TRASTED 28-29 (Kelley ed. 1973) (1st ed 1832).
Mr. Locke says, that every man has a property in his own person; in fact,
individuality—which is signified by the word own—cannot be disjoined from
the person. Each individual learns his own shape and form, and even the existence
of his limbs and body, from seeing and feeling them. These constitute his
notion ofpersonal identity, both for himselfandothers; and it is impossible to
conceive—it is in fact a contradiction to say—that a man’s limbs and body do
not belong to himself: for the words him, self, and his body, signify the same
material thing. As we learn theexistence ofour own bodies from seeingand
feeling them, and as we see and feel the bodies of others, we have precisely
similar grounds for believing in the individuality or identity of other persons,
as for believing in our own identity. The ideas expressed by the words mine
and thine, as applied to the produce of labour, are simply then an extended
form of the ideas of personal identity and individuality.
On the appreciation of the individuality and special status of other humans, see E.
HUSSERL, CARTEsIAN MEDITATIONS 129 (1960) (arguing that the reason we do not simply
consider others as things or as meat is that we apprehend that we exist in acommunity,
with an “[oJbjectivating equalization of my existence with that of all others ).