In a Facebook conversation lately, Michael Huemer (author of The Problem of Political Authority, a great book) wrote:

I think punching someone is wrong, but I don’t think it’s a ‘private property’ violation. I bet most other libertarians agree with me.

He might be right that most libertarians agree, and I’m sure that almost all non-libertarians agree. Common use aside, I think it makes good sense to see punching someone as a property rights violation.

Here are some premises I hope we can agree on:

If we say person A has a private property right in thing X, we mean that A has the exclusive right to determine how X may be used (at least as long as A is not violating the rights of others). Whether we choose to use the language of ownership or not, we (people in general) do seem to believe we have the exclusive right to determine who may use the various parts of our bodies and how. When one assaults another, it’s specifically the non-consensual use of a person’s body we object to. It’s not the pain or the bodily damage as such that are the problem. To illustrate; We don’t object to cosmetic surgery being carried out that, in one sense, damages the body, and often involves pain. And we do object to someone spitting in the face of another, even though it’s usually neither painful or damaging to the victim’s body.

One objection I’ve seen brought up on this topic is that a person’s body is inalienable, which isn’t usually a characteristic of property. And that this difference somehow prevents us from considering our bodies to be our property. But we do, in fact, consider the various parts of our bodies (at least those not very closely tied to our sense of self identity) to be alienable, even if they are rarely transferred to a new owner in practice. A kidney can be donated, for instance.

I believe the complaint You don’t own your body, you are your body! gets it half right. We are our bodies, and we own them.

Given these considerations, I don’t see a good case for resisting the conclusion that assault is properly considered a matter of property rights and their violation. To claim otherwise seems like it would introduce extra complexity where it isn’t necessary.