Philosophical Foundations of Property Law

Henry Smith is the Fessenden Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he directs the Project on the Foundations of Private Law. He teaches in the areas of property, intellectual property, natural resources, remedies, and taxation. He has written primarily on the law and economics of property and intellectual property.James Penner is Professor of Law at the National University of Singapore, He teaches and writes in the areas of the law and philosophy of property, the law of trusts and fiduciaries law, and generally in the philosophy of law.

This book presents the state of the art philosophical thinking about property law and is required reading for anyone with interests in the field.

• Introduction ; 1. To Bestow Stability upon Possession': Hume's Alternative to Locke ; 2. Productive Use in Acquisition, Accession, and Labour Theory ; 3. Property and Necessity ; 4. Private Property and Public Welfare ; 5. Average Reciprocity of Advantage ; 6. Some Strings Attached: The Morality of Proprietary Estoppel ; 7. Possession and Use ; 8. Possession and the Distractions of Philosophy ; 9. The Relativity of Title and Causa Possessionis ; 10. Defining Property Rights ; 11. On the Very Idea of Transmissible Rights ; 12. Psychologies of Property (and Why Property is not a Hawk-Dove Game) ; 13. Property and Disagreement ; 14. Emergent Property