
Natural Property Rights
Eric R. Claeys(Author)
Cambridge University Press
Published on 24. April 2025
Book
Hardback
350 pages
978-1-108-84449-9 (ISBN)
Description
Natural Property Rights presents a novel theory of property based on individual, pre-political rights. The book argues that a just system of property protects people's rights to use resources and also orders those rights consistent with natural law and the public welfare. Drawing on influential property theorists such as Grotius, Locke, Blackstone, and early American statesmen and judges, as well as recent work in in normative and analytical philosophy, the book shows how natural rights guide political and legal reasoning about property law. It examines how natural rights justify the most familiar institutions in property, including public property, ownership, the system of estates and future interests, leases, servitudes, mortgages, police regulation, and eminent domain. Thought-provoking and comprehensive, the book challenges leading contemporary justifications for property and shows how property both secures individual freedom and serves the common good.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
661 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-108-84449-9 (9781108844499)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Eric R. Claeys is Professor of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. He has written more than twenty-five articles and book chapters on property, natural rights, and Lockean labor theory.
Content
Acknowledgments; Table of Legislative Materials; Table of Cases; Table of Multiple Edition Works; Part I. Foundations: 1. Introduction; 2. Natural law and rights; 3. Practical reason; Part II. The Natural Right to Property: 4. Property's subject matter and interest; 5. Property's element and scope; 6. Property's conceptual structure; 7. Property, natural law, and Nozick; Part III. Property Law: 8. Justifying ownership; 9. Limiting ownership; 10. Designing property rights; 11. Subdividing ownership rights; Part IV. Property in Common Law and Public Law: 12. Common law, duties, and harms; 13. Police regulation; 14. Eminent Domain; 15. Conclusion; Index.