ABSTRACT
Liberal feminists have an ambivalent attraction to libertarianism. Libertarians assert the thesis of self-ownership as both a moral and political ideal. This chapter reviews the libertarian self of the self-ownership thesis, and offers a feminist understanding of the metaphysics of the self that recognizes the dependence on and connection with others. It evaluates that self-ownership, as a basic concept, need not reject unchosen obligations to others. The chapter then proposes a version of self-ownership that accepts these obligations and also clarifies the ability to consciously reject attributed identities that one wish to abjure. This version of self-ownership, which might be called 'connected self-ownership', a version that could ground a libertarianism. Work on libertarian understandings of self-ownership has focused on clarifying the ownership rights that an individual must be granted. A libertarianism of connected selves needs further consideration to decide whether this could be a form of libertarianism at all or whether it is better viewed as a negation of libertarianism.
