Editing Business ethics (section)

====Modern history of property rights====
Modern discourse on property emerged by the turn of the 17th century within theological discussions of that time. For instance, [[John Locke]] justified [[property rights]] saying that God had made "the earth, and all inferior creatures, [in] common to all men".<ref>Harris, J.W. (1996), "Who owns My Body", Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 16: 55–84. Harris finds this argument a 'spectacular non sequitur,' '[f]rom the fact that nobody owns me if I am not a slave, it simply does not follow that I must own myself'(p. 71)</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|doi=10.2307/2218464|author=Day, P. J.|year=1966|title=Locke on Property|journal=The Philosophical Quarterly|volume=16|issue=64|pages=207–220|jstor=2218464}}</ref>

In 1802 [[utilitarian]] [[Jeremy Bentham]] stated, "property and law are born together and die together".<ref>Bentham, J. (1931), Theory of Legislation, London: Kegan Paul, p. 113 {{ISBN|978-1-103-20150-1}}</ref>

One argument for property ownership is that it enhances individual liberty by extending the line of non-interference by the state or others around the person.<ref>{{harvnb|Davies|2007 |p=27}}</ref> Seen from this perspective, property right is absolute and property has a special and distinctive character that precedes its legal protection. Blackstone conceptualized property as the "sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe".<ref>Blackstone, W. (1766), [http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/blackstone/bla-201.htm Commentaries on the Laws of England, Volume II, Of the Rights of Things] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100203220233/http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/blackstone/bla-201.htm |date=2010-02-03 }}, Oxford: Clarendon Press.</ref>

=====Slaves as property=====
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, slavery spread to European colonies including America, where colonial legislatures defined the legal status of slaves as a form of property.

Combined with theological justification, the property was taken to be essentially natural ordained by God. Property, which later gained meaning as ownership and appeared natural to Locke, Jefferson and to many of the 18th and 19th century intellectuals as land, labor or idea, and property right over slaves had the same [[Christianity and slavery|theological]] and [[essentialism|essentialized]] justification<ref>{{cite journal|last=Daykin|first=Jeffer B.|title="They Themselves Contribute to Their Misery by Their Sloth": The Justification of Slavery in Eighteenth-Century French Travel Narratives|journal=The European Legacy|volume=11|page=623|year=2006|doi=10.1080/10848770600918117|issue=6|s2cid=143484245}}</ref><ref>Gordon, D. (2009). [http://ssrn.com/abstract=1350522 Gender, Race and Limiting the Constitutional Privilege of Religion as a Haven for Bias: The Bridge Back to the Twentieth Century]. Women's Rights Law Reporter, p. 30.</ref><ref>Sandoval, Alonso De. (2008). [https://books.google.com/books?id=eIHte1t-BKsC&pg=PA17 Treatise on Slavery: Selections from De instauranda Aethiopum salute]. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. pp. 17, 20.</ref><ref>Bay, M. (2008). Polygenesis Versus Monogenesis In Black and White. In J. H. Moore (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Race and Racism (Vol. 1, pp. 90–93). Detroit: Macmillan Reference:91</ref><ref>Baum, B. (2006). [https://books.google.com/books?id=TnVgKpqCxzQC&pg=PA35 The Rise and Fall of the Caucasian Race: A Political History of Racial Identity]. New York: New York University Press, {{ISBN|0-8147-9892-6}} p. 35.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|doi=10.1177/0306312706054859|author=Skinner, D|year=2006|title=Racialized Futures: Biologism and the Changing Politics of Identity|journal=Social Studies of Science|volume=36|issue=3|pages=459–488|jstor=25474453|s2cid=62895742}}</ref>  It was even held{{By whom?|date=September 2024}} that the property in slaves was a sacred right.<ref>Jensen, E. M. (1991). The Good Old Cause': The Ratification of the Constitution and Bill of Rights in South Carolina. In R. J. Haws (Ed.), The South's Role in the Creation of the Bill of Rights. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.</ref><ref>Following a bitter debate over the importation of slaves, Congress was denied, by the 1787 [[Philadelphia Convention]], the authority to prohibit the slave trade to the US until 1808. The rendition of escaped slaves was also a priority for southerners. Accordingly, the fugitive slave clause declared that people held to service or labor under state law "shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due." (Ely, 2008:46)</ref> Wiecek says, "Yet slavery was more clearly and explicitly established under the Constitution than it had been under the Articles".<ref>Wiecek, W. M. (1977). The Sources of Antislavery Constitutionalism in America, 1760–1848. New York: Cornell University Press:63</ref> In an 1857 judgment, [[Supreme Court of the United States|US Supreme Court]] Chief Justice [[Roger B. Taney]] said, "The right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution."