Tag Archives: metaphysics

“My Body = My Property”?

Is this property?

I recently saw some Libertarian women carrying a sign which said “My Body = My Property”. I suppose they were doing this as a sort of alternative permutation of “My Body, My Choice” to lend themselves an explicitly Libertarian flare to their pro-abortion rights advocacy. This is also a common sentiment and justification for abortion rights which I have heard from many Libertarians. However then I thought…. “Is it really property though?” This actually seems somewhat contentious. Let me go over some perspectives in order from least to most persuasive to me. Unlike a lot of what I post here, this will just be a few spur of the moment thoughts rather than something deeply researched and considered. This shouldn’t be construed as implying any particular stance on abortion.

The sign in question

On one hand, on a Marxist critique, for instance, one might argue that by viewing the body as “property,” we’re objectifying it, treating it as an object subject to public decision over ownership and control, a thing to be utilized and exploited, an form of alienation splitting the integrated self upon itself. You can also see how this would flow into a feminist critique where the body is now becoming an object or a commodity to be controlled, purchased or exchanged.

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Hegel on India and Hinduism

I was reading Hegel a while back and I thought my dear readers might want to see some of his content. At the end of this introductory bit I have just excerpted in total “Section II: India” and “Section II: (Continued) India Buddhism”  from “Part 1: The Oriental World” of G.W.F Hegel’s The Philosophy of History. So if you’d like to skip my blather, go down to the section “On India” right below the winged Zoroastrian symbol.

Introduction and preliminary analysis: 

Everyone seems to dislike that Hegel is overly obtuse and abstract, but when he discusses history he is actually taking in very concrete terms most of the time. This is not exactly a reliable source for specific information about Indian history or philosophy. In some ways it is a better study of how Europeans see India than it is a study of India. It suffers from a caricatured view of India as a land of contradiction, chaos, and conflict. For the most part his characterizations of India aren’t totally baseless though, as stereotypes often have a basis in reality. They are just stereotypical exaggerations or generalizations which lack any sort of nuance or qualification. He also seems to uncritically accept very early orientalist insights in Sanskritic culture as fact, and as reflective of the Indian society of the 1800s. To some degree this is excusable because Sanskrit translations and real detailed historical knowledge of India were still undergoing development in Europe. He had to have been over reliant on early translations of the Vedas, the Dharmashastras (particularly Manu), the Pali canon perhaps, and the writings of some few high-philosophers. Given his time period, his knowledge of Indian philosophy is actually impressive. He writes some rather detailed information here about the Samkhya, Nyaya, and Vaisheshika schools, so he at least knew that much. Yet perhaps I am being too generous to Hegel here. It is somewhat baffling to me how he derives an extreme idealist worldview from these three schools, Vaisheshika in particular. It was reading those philosophical schools which persuaded me that India has a sublimated tradition of naturalism. I feel that if he was also familiar with them it should have occurred to him that Hindu idealism is at least alloyed with a rationalistic form of naturalism.

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