Philosophical Foundations of Property Law

James Penner, Professor of Property Law, University College London,Henry Smith, Fessenden Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

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 Property Law at University College London. He was the deputy chief examiner of the Law of Trusts for the University of London External LL.B, and now serves the programme in the capacity of Chief Examiner in Jurisprudence. Professor Penner writes on trusts law, the law and philosophy of property, and generally in the philosophy of law.

Introduction, James Penner & Henry E. Smith
1. To Bestow Stability upon Possession': Hume's Alternative to Locke, Jeremy Waldron
2. Productive Use in Acquisition, Accession, and Labour Theory, Eric R. Claeys
3. Property and Necessity, Dennis Klimchuk
4. Private Property and Public Welfare, Alan Brudner
5. Average Reciprocity of Advantage, Brian Angelo Lee
6. Some Strings Attached: The Morality of Proprietary Estoppel, Irit Samet
7. Possession and Use, Arthur Ripstein
8. Possession and the Distractions of Philosophy, Lisa M. Austin
9. The Relativity of Title and Causa Possessionis, Larissa Katz
10. Defining Property Rights, Simon Douglas & Ben McFarlane
11. On the Very Idea of Transmissible Rights, James Penner
12. Psychologies of Property (and Why Property is not a Hawk-Dove Game), Carol M. Rose
13. Property and Disagreement, Stephen R. Munzer
14. Emergent Property, Henry E. Smith