David Hume, John Locke and John Rawls on Property

All the three philosophers, whose work I am going to scrutinize on, have very specific, yet in most cases common views on property. First of all, let me define what the term property means. Property, as I see it, is an object of legal rights that is possessed by an individual or a group of individuals who are directly responsible for this it. In his work Of Justice, David Hume puts great emphasis on distribution of property in society. Hume believes that only the conception of property gives society such social virtue as justice. Justice, according to Hume, is an important social virtue the sole purpose of which is public utility. To prove his point of view about how property distribution defines the existence of justice in society, David†¦show more content†¦Locke thinks the same that in such cases, the inhabitant do value the land until there is no room enough for them in that space Ââ€" problems with this sentence. Only in this case, people start, all in consent, distinguishing the property. So Locke says that one should not possess more than he can afford to possess, i.e. conveniences that will be enough for his comfort. And he says that if a person gains more, and as a consequence, some part of property perishes, then it is a crime towards others. It is very interesting that Locke says perishes or spoils. If it does not perish or spoil, then it is not a crime, as ‘the exceeding of bounds of his just property not lying in the largeness of his possession, but the perishing of any thing uselessly in it. And then comes money, being the only mean by which a person can exceed property without spoiling it. Locke thinks that only money made it possible to a person to enlarge his/her possessions without hurting others. And only existence of money make people lust for more, as it was said, it never perishes. Locke makes a reader imagine of a place, where one has a big fertile land with a lot of conveniences. It is so big that it may perish as it is more than he/she needs. If there is no chance to sell it for money, this person goes back to the common law of nature that is using of conveniences what is enough for one.Show MoreRelatedAnalysis Of David Hume s Theory Of Justice2868 Words   |  12 Pagessimple concept: Property ownership. David Hume defined property as nothing but a stable possession under the mutually respected understanding of society. Basically, Man creates society to enforce justice which allows man to own and use property as he desires. A grand idea but is it so simple? If Man creates society to protect this arbitrary concept, does society have the right to take this right away? 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