Libertarianism is a worldview. That is, a certain way of looking at the world. It relies on a small number of principles, and the first of these is the so-called principle of self-ownership.

A libertarian starts from the conviction that every person belongs to themselves. Some even claim that self-ownership is an axiom, a truth that cannot be refuted without encountering logical contradictions.

Of course, there is no way to prove that another person is not under complete external control, or that the entire world is not an induced hallucination. But this is not important. A libertarian will simply proceed from the assumption that the person they are interacting with belongs to themselves. If such a premise turns out to be erroneous, libertarian prescriptions regarding such a person will function incorrectly, and we will examine this in section 2.3.1.

If someone demonstrates signs of self-ownership, a libertarian treats them as a person. Therefore, it is worth clarifying how this self-ownership manifests purely externally.

1.1.1.1. External signs of self-ownership:

1. Agency – the ability to set goals for oneself and choose the means to achieve them.
2. Concept of property – manifestation of interest in certain objects, a desire to interact with them, and a desire to limit others’ interaction with these objects.
3. Capacity to contract – the ability to agree on mutual concessions, the capacity to perceive the idea of exchange.

The greater the extent to which these external signs are manifested, and the more abstract the subject’s motivations appear, the more this subject can be considered to possess self-ownership, in other words, to be a person.

By the way, these signs can be used to distinguish a human from a network bot.

1.1.1.2. Concept of rights

Any subject uses objects of the external world in some way. Several subjects may have different claims regarding how they would like to use the same object. Therefore, they must somehow determine whose opinion will prevail. When others stop actively preventing someone from using an object, we can state that they have recognized that person’s right to use the object. In other words, rights are claims that have been acquiesced to.

Thus, the principle of self-ownership is a presumption that everyone has the right to dispose of themselves. Libertarians recognize this right. But it does not automatically follow that there is a right to dispose of something else.

Furthermore, the right to dispose of oneself also turns out to be limited. Under certain conditions, a libertarian will nonetheless begin to actively prevent a self-owning subject from how they use themselves.

Thus, we come to the consideration of the second basic principle of libertarianism.

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