ABSTRACT
This chapter develops an alternative approach to Hegel's justification of private property, one which restores to a central place the two important themes that are marginalized by Waldron. In all of the mature versions of Hegel's social philosophy, the main discussion of property can be found in the section entitled 'Abstract Right'. The central assumption of 'Abstract Right' is that the agents, or wills, who make up the social world are persons or possess personality. Both Fichte and Hegel discuss property in the context of the same basic problematic. The two thinkers assume a conception of agents as individual persons and think that a central problem of social and political philosophy is to identify the social conditions of the possibility of personality. The argument is most clearly made as part of Fichte's deduction of the relationship of right in general.
