Argumentation Ethics Entails Self Ownership From the Beginning of Life

An AI narration of the article 'Argumentation Ethics Entails Self Ownership From the Beginning of Life' by Jake Desyllas.

A reply to Stephan Kinsella's comments on an earlier critique, this episode argues that the Hoppean rights theory already settles a question Kinsella leaves open: when does an individual come to own their own body? Jake's contention is that self ownership cannot be something acquired, recognised, or granted at some unspecified later point. A body cannot be homesteaded by the being who needs it to do the homesteading, and any rule that lets others confer self ownership by fiat is, by the theory's own standard, non-objective and conflict-promoting. The only rule that does the job is self ownership from the very beginning of life. Along the way the piece presses a harder consequence: if you try to ground rights in rationality, you have to follow Singer and Tooley all the way to the legitimacy of infanticide.

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction
3:37 Rationality and Infanticide
6:28 Are Rights Inherent?

First published at https://www.jakedesyllas.com/blog/2025/12/19/argumentation-ethics-entails-self-ownership-from-the-beginning-of-life on 19 December 2025.