Dominion Over All the Earth, by Michael Pakaluk

By Michael Pakaluk, The Catholic Thing, Feb. 2, 2022

Michael Pakaluk, an Aristotle scholar and Ordinarius of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, is a professor in the Busch School of Business at the Catholic University of America. …

Blackstone, in his Commentaries, speculates that people avoid thinking about the basis for private property, because they are afraid that, if their claim to own something were examined closely, flaws would come to light.  Better not to upset a settled presumption.

He had in mind not simply mundane worries about liens, of the sort handled today by title agents.  He was concerned, conceptually, with how claims of ownership are ultimately anchored.

For there’s a regress problem.  Consider an asset, say, my smartphone, which I say I own “by right” on the grounds that it is part of something, which I acquired free and clear by a legal process from another entity (Verizon), which owned it “by right.” …

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