<< Can you also acknowledge that popular/common-societal-views are also distinct from morality? >>

Yuyutsu, they are not distinct from morality. They are an approximation. I’d say that there is a pretty good correlation.

I think it would be fair to say that most of us have a reasonably strong moral compass and develop our views on all manner of things with that as a basis.

<< Nobody needs a license to own a car - only to take a car on public roads. If you do have such license, the car need not even be owned by you. However, in most cases where little old ladies are run over by cars, the car is found to be stolen and the driver unlicensed. >>

Fair enough. But if the fellow who ran over the li’’tle ol’ lady owned the car he was driving, had driven in a dangerous manner thus causing the mishap, had a history of bad driving, etc, then she could rightly have questioned the morality of him owning a car.

Yuyutsu

“Jardine's has no substance because while it would be nice to have such ownership, it doesn't exist in reality since nothing on earth can confer that kind of ownership on a person. In heaven perhaps, but not on earth.”

Why not? You haven’t given any reason.

All it would take is for the government to repeal statutes which restrict the right of owners to use their land as they wish, subject only to the personal or property rights of others.

Don’t confuse possession, which is a physical fact, with ownership, which is a claim of right. The fact that we can’t physically take possession of Earth’s centre, or other planets, means that no claim of ownership arises. But if it did, there is no reason why the courts could, should or would not adjudicate them on the ordinary principles of ownership.

Ludwig

The issue is not morality in the abstract, it's morality enforced by government.

On the one hand you say that government should not have unlimited power. But you give no reason or principle by which to know what the legitimate limits of that power should be, other than that it harms the person or property of others. This does not support your contention that the principle of liberty cannot be the limiting factor.

The one other criterion you give just refers off to what third parties may think fair or reasonable, but the only way you give for knowing what that is, is that the government decides so! So although you say government power should be limited, in principle you support unlimited government power without having any reason for it.

What would be a specific example of a reason to limit the landowner’s freedom to use his land as he wants, other than that it harms the person or property of someone else?

If people thought it “fair and reasonable” that consenting private homosexual acts, or witchcraft, or the practice of X religion, should not be permitted on someone’s land, would that justify government interference?

Dear Jardine,

Earlier you wrote: "ownership denotes a right to use something to the exclusion of others, using force if necessary to exclude them."

Now you weaken that definition by implying that it is subject to government-consent: if statutes can be repealed, then they can also be re-legislated; or another state may take over, conquer your land and your ownership goes down the drain; or a revolution could occur, etc.

"to the exclusion of others" includes to the exclusion of the government of the day, to the exclusion of all other governments in the world and to the exclusion of rebels. I may even add to the exclusion of beasts, snakes and spiders - they too are 'others' after all!

While governments may give you all kinds of promises and assurances and (for the right fee) hand you nicely-engraved documents with beautiful curly fonts and ribbons all over, granting you 'exclusive ownership' over heaven and earth, which they themselves never had a right over in the first place, you may be left in the end with just a piece of paper.

In other words, while your original definition of "owner" was perfect, it was not achievable because no earthly power could ever confer that on a person. That is what I meant by having "meaning, but no substance", that there is no actual example or instance of such ownership in this world.

Dear Ludwig,

<<Even though we may own the surface of the land, we certainly don’t own the right to do whatever we like with it. Far from it.>>

That's because no genuine ownership actually exists on earth, but as I explained to Jardine above, only mock ownership.

But then, what good is ownership? why even bother having it?
Such ownership which doesn't bring with it the ability to live your life as you wish, is meaningless!

Perhaps then, the solution for the farmer's or hermit's painful problem is not the ownership of land.
Perhaps something different is needed...

(continued...)

(...continued)

And that's why I don't place much value on 'rights', why I don't plead with the government to give me more rights, not even a bill of rights.
All I ask is simply: "Don't take away my freedom, then you don't need to return me bits and pieces of its remains as 'rights'"!

<<But that never happens! Landowners are always consulted or at least warned well in advance of the miners’ intentions. Maybe the level of consultation and compensation is inadequate sometimes, but it is not as if miners and the state just steam-roll over the top of landowners in the middle of the night.>>

So our farmer or hermit got a short reprieve - days or weeks, what then?

Perhaps the hermit is a monk who took a vow of silence, then consultation is not going to help a lot; or perhaps he does speak and says: "I worked hard for 50 years, then bought this plot in the outback for all I had so I can retire peacefully, spending my whole time praying and meditating here under these fruit and nut trees which I planted myself and not have to meet another person ever again."

Now suppose the mining-company says: "The earth here is full of diamonds, gold and oil, it's worth billions, so why can't you take $100M and go away?" - but it so happens that the monk took a vow never to touch money again...

... or it so happens that the farmer buried his wife on his plot.

<<Yuyutsu, they are not distinct from morality. They are an approximation.>>

If you heard about Darwin, people developed by a genetic process to survive, not to find the truth. Seeking to go beyond survival and discover morality, is the exception, not the rule.

<<I think it would be fair to say that most of us have a reasonably strong moral compass and develop our views on all manner of things with that as a basis.>>

Having a moral compass is one thing, being moral is another. Many moral compasses do not point to the north.

That's just perverse, Ludwig.

>>But if the fellow who ran over the li’’tle ol’ lady owned the car he was driving, had driven in a dangerous manner thus causing the mishap, had a history of bad driving, etc, then she could rightly have questioned the morality of him owning a car.<<

I was discussing the "morality" of car ownership, not the morality of allowing a homicidal maniac to own a car. They are surely two entirely separate concepts.

There is no morality inherent in the ownership of a car. There is no morality inherent in the ownership of land.

<< There is no morality inherent in the ownership of a car [or] …land. >>

I don’t understand why you insist that this be the case, Pericles.

<< I was discussing the "morality" of car ownership, not the morality of allowing a homicidal maniac to own a car. They are surely two entirely separate concepts. >>

No they aren’t! The immorality of a homicidal maniac owning a car is obvious, I would think. So therefore, the ownership of a car by some people at least is a moral issue. Therefore, there is a moral aspect to car ownership overall.

Obviously it is morally corrupt for the state or society to allow homicidal maniacs to own and/or drive a car. And extending from that, it is morally questionable to allow people who have inadequate training or who have demonstrated poor driving skills to own / drive a car.

In short, there is indeed a very strong moral aspect to car ownership and operation.