This Species Of Property

Owens' fascinating study explores the personality and behavior of the slave within the context of what it meant to be a slave. Based on a variety of plantation records, diaries, slave narratives, travelers' accounts, and other items bearing on the slave's experiences in his relationships to slaveholders, it concentrates on the years between 1770 and 1865.

What is property, and why does our species have it? In The Property Species, Bart J. Wilson explores how humans acquire, perceive, and know the custom of property, and why this might be relevant to understanding how property works in the twenty-first century. Arguing that neither the sciences nor the humanities synthesizes a full account of property, the book offers a cross-disciplinary compromise that is sure to be controversial: Property is a universal and uniquely human custom. Integrating cognitive linguistics with philosophy of property and a fresh look at property disputes in the common law, the book makes the case that symbolic-thinking humans locate the meaning of property within a thing. That is, all human beings and only human beings have property in things, and at its core, property rests on custom, not rights. Such an alternative to conventional thinking contends that the origins of property lie not in food, mates, territory, or land, but in the very human act of creating, with symbolic thought, something new that did not previously exist. Written by an economist who marvels at the natural history of humankind, the book is essential reading for experts and any reader who has wondered why people claim things as "Mine!", and what that means for our humanity.

What is property, and why does our species have it? In The Property Species, Bart J. Wilson explores how humans acquire, perceive, and know the custom of property, and why this might be relevant to understanding how property works in the twenty-first century. Arguing that neither the sciences nor the humanities synthesizes a full account of property, the book offers a cross-disciplinary compromise that is sure to be controversial: Property is a universal and uniquely human custom. Integrating cognitive linguistics with philosophy of property and a fresh look at property disputes in the common law, the book makes the case that symbolic-thinking humans locate the meaning of property within a thing. That is, all human beings and only human beings have property in things, and at its core, property rests on custom, not rights. Such an alternative to conventional thinking contends that the origins of property lie not in food, mates, territory, or land, but in the very human act of creating, with symbolic thought, something new that did not previously exist. Written by an economist who marvels at the natural history of humankind, the book is essential reading for experts and any reader who has wondered why people claim things as "Mine!", and what that means for our humanity.

Humankind coexists with every other living thing. People drink the same water, breathe the same air, and share the same land as other animals. Yet, property law reflects a general assumption that only people can own land. The effects of this presumption are disastrous for wildlife and humans alike. The alarm bells ringing about biodiversity loss are growing louder, and the possibility of mass extinction is real. Anthropocentric property is a key driver of biodiversity loss, a silent killer of species worldwide. But as law and sustainability scholar Karen Bradshaw shows, if excluding animals from a legal right to own land is causing their destruction, extending the legal right to own property to wildlife may prove its salvation. Wildlife as Property Owners advocates for folding animals into our existing system of property law, giving them the opportunity to own land just as humans do—to the betterment of all.

In this provocative work, David N. Stamos tackles the problem of determining exactly what a biological species is: in short, whether species are real and the nature of their reality. Although many have written on this topic, The Species Problem is the only comprehensive single-authored book on this central concern of biology. Stamos critically considers the evolution of the three major contemporary views of species: species nominalism, species as classes, and species as individuals. Finally, he develops his own solution to the species problem, a solution aimed at providing a universal species concept worthy of the Modern Synthesis. This book will be of interest to philosophers of biology and of science in general, to historians of biology, and to biologists concerned with one of the most significant (and practical) conceptual issues in their field.

Our whole nation benefits from the preservation of natural habitats and their diversity of animal and plant species—yet small groups of private landowners often bear most of the costs of setting land aside for conservation purposes. This imbalance has generated many conflicts since the passage of the Endangered Species Act in 1973 and remains one of the most controversial issues to be resolved as the ESA makes its way through Congress for reauthorization. To provide policy makers, landowners, and other stakeholders in the ESA debates with impartial baseline information, this book offers multidisciplinary perspectives on the role that private property plays in protecting endangered species in the United States. The opening chapter traces the evolution of the ESA and set forth the parameters of the debate over regulation of private property. Four subsequent chapters explore the judicial and economic implications of ESA and suggest how issues of scale and diversity affect the implementation of the ESA on private property. The volume concludes with eight principles to help frame the ongoing ESA reauthorization debate, developed by the University of Wyoming's Institute for Environment and Natural Resources Policy Board, the sponsor of the research presented in this book.