Topic: Political Ideas in Conflict: If we provided places where the homeless could carry out essential bodily functions, would this be enough for them to be considered ‘free’?
Length: 1385 Words


Before we look at how to answer the question, it is highly important to define the key terms to identify what the issue is and who it affects. Firstly the term homeless is simply defined as literally ‘homeless – adjective - without a home’ (Dignen, 2000, p201) and interestingly gives a range of synonyms including ‘abandoned’ and ‘down and out’. Since this definition is undoubtedly vague (what is a home?) I shall give a clearer cut definition. In this essay when I mention ‘homeless’ I mean the person forced to sleep on the street against his will or desire, they have no place of safety to go to when they chose but are only able to obtain shelter at the mercy of the state or private charity. For the purposes of this essay travellers or gypsies with caravans or mobile homes have just that ‘mobile homes’ and are not, for all intents and purposes, considered to be homeless. Nor is the long term traveller with no permanent base homeless per se, he has the means be it capital or physical, to procure shelter at will. The fact that such a traveller made it his direct intention to become homeless essentially means he is already ‘free’. In ‘Homelessness and the Issue of Freedom’ Waldron defines the homeless as “those who are condemned by poverty to walk the streets and sleep in the open” (Waldron, 1977, p446).

While I was not able to find a formal definition for ‘essential bodily functions’ I came up with the following description. An essential bodily function is an action that we are forced to take (by our own body) in order to keep ourselves alive without coercion from others, someone can hold a gun to your head and force you to make an action but that is obviously not an essential bodily function. With that definition in mind we are talking about eating, drinking, sleeping, the relief of bodily waste and essential cleaning.

The term ‘free’ is one of the most ambiguous terms in political philosophy. The term is interchangeable with ‘liberty’; I have found no academic source to suggest otherwise. ‘MacMillan Foundations – Politics’ defines freedom as such,

“Freedom (or liberty) The ability to think or act as one wishes; freedom implies either non-interference (negative freedom) or personal self-development (positive freedom).”

The difference between negative and positive liberties is often cited as important, it is terrible to be told by someone what or what not to do, against that being given the room to ‘self-develop’ is often viewed as secondary. N. Barry’s ‘Modern Political Theory’ raises some interesting points in his chapter on ‘liberty’, one highly applicable to homelessness is that “people not actually in chains, or directly caused to act in a physical sense, are still un-free if the environment is so arranged that they will be likely, to respond to the will of another” (Barry, 1995, p206). What we can understand from this is simple, even by providing shelters for the homeless you are not guaranteeing their freedom as they are not at liberty to act as they desire, for example ‘you may not enter the shelter before 7pm’ would be an acceptable rule but since you are obstructing the homeless person it can be viewed as a contravention of negative freedom.

Throughout the essay Waldron places a lot of emphasis on how the balance between private and common property offers barriers to the freedoms of the homeless. Since the very definition of freedom as being able to perform actions without constraint from others the fact that “no one is free to perform an action unless there is somewhere he is free to perform it” (Waldron, 1977, p446). Since the homeless are not legally allowed to enter private property without permission from the owner (and even if they are do, they are at their mercy) the only place the homeless can exercise his actions are areas of common property, such as streets, sidewalks, subways, city parks, national parks and wilderness areas (Waldron, 1977, p447). There are two easily identifiable problems with this state of affairs, firstly the balance of private property and common property in society is in most Liberal Democracies increasingly skewed towards the private sector. Waldron identifies that as societies move towards the privatisation of public property problems arise for the homeless, “the homeless person might discover in such a libertarian paradise that there was literally nowhere he was allowed to be” (Waldron, 1977, p448). This raises the point that in a communist society the homeless are more free than they would be in a capitalist one if only be virtue of the ratio of public against private ground, “the homeless have freedom in our society only to the extent that our society is communist” (Waldron, 1977, p449).

The further problems with the homeless being restricted to only exist within the world of common property is the laws that govern what is acceptable behaviour in public zones. “A person is not allowed to do just whatever he likes in a public place. There are at least three types of prohibition that one faces in a place governed by rules of common property” (Waldron, 1977, p453). The first are general prohibitions, which rule over actions regardless of ownership which of course apply to common property. Secondly there are special prohibitions which only apply to the common areas such as curfews; of course these have very little effect on most users, but to the homeless they present walls to their freedom. Waldron quotes A. France (translated) “The law in its majestic equality forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges”; this applies perfectly and shows how this type of prohibition directly undermines the liberties of the homeless. The third type of prohibition is similar to the second but applies to behaviour that is socially acceptable and a necessary part of existence in private yet against the law in public despite being as necessary, the issue here is those essential bodily functions we listed in the introduction. If the homeless are banned from urination in public areas, and are refrained by the law to enter private property without permission for any reason then a question is raised, where are the homeless allowed to urinate? “We refrain from the inference: ‘so he is un-free to urinate (anywhere)’ ” (Waldron, 1977, p455), and this is where the problem is with the argument that the homeless still have their negative liberties intact, when you pass or accept a series of mutually exclusive laws that together prevent a human from not being able to act (let alone a necessary function to live!). You are stamping on this mans freedom.

To surmise, the homeless are not allowed access to private property, the have no private property of their own so are confined, by law, to the public realm. Once in the public realm they are bound by more law not to perform actions perfectly acceptable in public. The question, ‘is providing places where the homeless can carry out essential bodily functions enough?’ can be answered yes as long as we set down a criteria based on the definition of freedom and what we have learned of the plight of the homeless. Obviously there is some problem in legalising urination in public as there would be no defence against anyone urinating in the streets. Providing public areas where these functions may be carried out is an improvement but I would go so far as to say this is not enough, the homeless are still at the mercy of the providers of these services. Even if the intentions of the providers are fundamentally good the homeless still have no power over their own actions. Since a society is not free if some people are ‘freer’ than others I believe the only condition under which the question can be answered yes is if the homeless is given his own room or area that is his own private property. It doesn’t have to be much, a student accommodation like room is easily sufficient so long as the person has access to cooking, cleaning and toilet facilities. By owning their own private space the homeless is at liberty to do whatever he likes, only then can he truly be considered free by the definition of the word.


Bibliography

Barry, N.
Modern Political Theory
London, Macmillan Press, 1995

Dignen, S.
Dictionary Thesaurus
London, Covent Garden Books, 2000

Goodin, R.E and Pettit, P.
Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology
Oxford, Blackwell Publishers, 1977

Heywood, A.
Macmillan Foundations, Politics
London, Macmillan Press, 1997

McLean, I. and McMillan, A.
Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics
Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003 (Used for Reference)


(c)2005 Dave Randall