G. A. Cohen on Self-Ownership, Property, and ... - Tom G. Palmer

3238 Critical Review VoL 12, No. 3quires close scrutiny.’’ I shall set to the side questions about whether<strong>Cohen</strong> has fairly characterized Nozick’s proviso as constituting hisprinciple of appropriation: and will merely reproduce the conclusionof his treatment, as prolegomenon to his central argument that“self-ownership” can be so construed or integrated with otherarrangements as to necessitate completely equal distribution of wealthandincome. .<strong>Cohen</strong> (1995,90) insists that any appropriation will make someoneworse off,for no other reason than that someone will no longer beable to appropriate the now-appropriated item: “It is clear beyonddoubt that an appropriation of private property can contradict an individual’swill just as much as levying a tax on him can.” If contradictingone’s will is the criterion for a theory that is supposed to bebased on liberty, then, according to <strong>Cohen</strong>, no private appropriationcould meet the requirements of a suitably formulated Nozickian proviso,for, even if a latecomer finding no unappropriated resources lefrto appropriate were to be compensated by greater material wealth,this compensation could not undo the fact that the latecomer’s willhas been overruled. As <strong>Cohen</strong> (ibid., 89) argues, “Nozick disallowsobjectively paternalist use of people’s private property. But he permitsobjectively paternalist treatment of people in ocher ways. For, sincehe permits appropriations that satisfy nothing but his proviso, he allowsA to appropriate against B’s will when B benefits as a result, or,rather, as long as B does not lose.” If someone were to chop off myarm, even if he later made me better off, we would still say that myrights had been violated.In the process of making this move, allegedly showing that Nozick’sapproach cannot justifi appropriation by individuals (or groups)&om an unowned commons, <strong>Cohen</strong> suggests that Nozick‘s baselineof comparison-what one could get in a condition of no appropriationor ownership at all-is arbitrary, and that a variety of collectiveownership arrangements should be considered as candidates for thebaseline, as well.6 There are, according to <strong>Cohen</strong> (1995, 78), “otherintuitively relevant counterfactuals, and . . . they show that Nozick’sproviso is too lax, that he has arbitrarily narrowed the class of alternativeswith which we are to compare what happens when an appropriationoccurs with a view to determining whether anyone. is harmedby it.” The alternative rhat he singles out as “intuitively relevant” isthat ofjoint ownership, according to which a resource