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Professor Sidgwick has asked me to try to summarize what has been said so far. In think he wants to bring the discussion to a close. Here goes.

• Dee believes that people have natural rights that are prior to government. In other words, people have these rights because of something about them as people and not because a government decrees that they have them. These rights extend to property in natural resources and the things that people make. Natural resources are essentially there to be occupied or taken and owned. Government exists to protect people's basic rights -- and not to abridge them or fundamentally define them. As far as property goes, it is not fundamentally the creation of government (although I think she might agree that it is OK for governments to work out the details). Dee doesn't think that there are any special obligations that go along with property -- for example, a special obligation to the common good or to the majority or to those who have little or no property.
  
  Dee isn't sure how best to justify the original acquisition of property (for example, land). She offered two different justifications, one from Roger Pilon and the other from the contractarian Loren Lomasky.
  
  
• John accepted what Dee said about original acquisition up to a point. He agreed that people in the state of nature would have a USE right to land and other natural resources. Without it, they would have to stand by and starve, which seems absurd. But he took issue with Dee's stronger version of property rights. He believes that if some people took over more and more natural resources in the state of nature, others would eventually lose access to similar resources. In other words, the USE rights of non-owners are gradually nibbled away by the strong (i.e., exclusive) ownership claims of owners. Because of that loss, John believes that owners owe some sort of compensation to non-owners. For that reason, he believes that owners of property have obligations to the common good that are built into the justification of their ownership. If they don't fulfill those obligations, their right to ownership collapses.
  
  
• John also put forward a description of an ideal society in which every individual has the freedom and resources to develop their capacities and carry out their personal plans and projects. He has also brought up the concept of legitimate government several times. He believes that the extensive, complicated cluster of property rights that we have in the modern world can only be justified as the creation of legitimate government. In other words, he denies that there are strong natural property rights that continue to exist within political society (i.e., society with government).
  
  
• I more or less agree with John. I see private property as a kind of stewardship that includes obligations to the common good. My view has been influenced a lot by some of the Papal encyclicals.
  
  
• Ann rejects natural rights completely. Like the philosopher Jeremy Bentham, she sees all rights, including property rights, as the creations of government. Some sort of system of private property can be justified (just as some sort of collective property might be justified) if it produces the greatest good for the greatest number under current conditions. In this, property is no different from any other social institution. Furthermore, property rights can be modified by government in order to maximize their utility.
  
  
• Vera caused trouble as usual. She rejects natural rights as nonsense. She also rejected theistic arguments and contractarian attempts to provide a foundation for morals and property. Instead, she sees property as a system that reflects the power struggles that occur in all societies. Moral foundations are based on human choices that we must fight to defend or oppose. She also introduced us to some of the ideas of Virginia Held and used them to criticize contractarianism. But most importantly, she introduced the concept of a property owning democracy, borrowed from John Rawls. She believes that a property-owning democracy could serve as the basis for John's ideal society.
  
  
• We could also include John Rawls here for contrast. We read Rawls for our last dialogue. He believes that his theory is compatible with private property; but he also insists that his second principle of justice be observed. That principle states that inequality is only justified if it helps the least well off group in society. I think that Rawls would leave it to the state to determine what rights of property would satisfy his second principle, but he favored the idea of a property-owning democracy. In effect, this would impose moral obligations on those with property to help the least well off and enforce them through state action.