Notes on Volition and Property

I am a behaviorist when it comes to volition. The act and the will are undifferentiated. I do not know what you intend except by what you do.
When we lack a significant commonality with another human being and, in consequence, treat them in a cavalier fashion we are said to be alienated in the vulgar if not the clinical sense of the word. I would offer a closer descriptive term. I would say that without the relational threads that compose social existence, we 'objectify' other human beings. Which is to say, we treat them as though they lack significant volition, as a stone, as a tree, as an object. And we do so as a more capable being, as a human to a dog. The dynamic resembles a behavioral hypothesis to be proved or disproved.
While I am willing to leave the why of humans doing this to psychology, I am concerned about the philosophical consequences. 'Object', as it comes into the English language from the Greek, means to present to the mind. Apparently, by so doing, it also means to include in one's social sphere with all the categories of social hierarchy. We seem to have a prejudice wired into our brains, perhaps related to fight or flight, that anything not immediately identifiable with ourselves in reliable relationships, my dog, my neighbor, your wall, is an object lacking volition until it proves otherwise, a sort of analytical xenophobia.
Thus the human need to 'know' their universe resolves as a need to establish reliable relationships with everything in that universe and that ordering inclination resolves in terms of greater and lesser volition, both cognitive horsepower and physical capability. Property then resolves as a reliable relationship, not 'possession ' as the concept has evolved, but 'keeping' as the Ancient Greeks had it.
If one removes possession from the lexicon of property, robots present an interesting problem. Soon to have the cognitive horsepower of a smart dog and the capability of significant physical action, they resolve in a complex 'keeping' relationship such as one has with a dog. In such a relationship they are eligible for licensing as a means of establishing legal liabilities and responsibilities. And if subject to licensing, they are subject to licensing fees, a new rational and valuable revenue stream.
Do Well and Be Well

Property, Economic Goods, and Capital Goods: A Reflection

The taxonomy is classic, property, economic good, Capital Good. The importance of that categorical derivation is essential to economics. So, noticing a certain vague confusion concerning the nature of property, I decided, presumptuous I know, to reason into the subject a decent definition of it.
In what manner do we own anything in the philosophical sense, excluding custom or psychology and convention or law? To own something in the philosophical sense is, first, to possess more volition than it does and, second, to direct it in a reasonable fashion. I mean by volition, rational will composed of logical reflection and a consequent action. This is not the current sense of the word which is more tuned to the pragmatic, small 't', truth and consequent action, but it is the sense of the concept of property as it has come into being.
Philosophically, then, volition or the lack of it defines the category of property or what may be considered property. Law and psychology have placed serious constraints on that definition to the end of humane social existence. A stone has no volition. It must be directed if it is to 'do' anything. If I am directing the stone, say placing it into a wall, it is in my 'keeping' in the Ancient Greek sense of ownership by legitimate use. Past that 'keeping' as a philosophically sound position, property is all custom and convention. It is a dynamic concept changing from society to society and time to time.
Given this flux of meaning, how do we ascertain property in the economic sense? It is, in short, a matter of picking nits through specific custom and convention to variable conclusions. This is intolerable philosophically. So, let me continue to be cheeky and rethink the very idea of economic good.
First, significantly diverging from Marshall, the proper subject of economics is material existence, the art of being in time and space and all the objects and services that that entails but not the ideas and beliefs motivating the keeping of objects and the contracting of services, which I term custom or psychology. Psychology is psychology. Law is law. Economics is economics. Whatever valuable constructs psychology brings to the table of economic discussion, it is not germane to the subject of property,  beings with volition 'keeping' 'objects' with less volition. Law is only a constraint upon the possible in economic analysis.
The concept of property as stated above is cut and dried and clear. Even as custom and convention muddy those waters so does technology. If I deploy a robot possessed of machine learning, reason, and significant mechanical movement, action, do I, in fact, own that robot or an I contracting with it for labor services? The AI currently in development creates a serious exception to robots as Capital Goods in the philosophical sense.
The question on the table of economics is not easy to answer. It is to define the point at which robots move from object to contractor, from Capital Good to Labor Good. Society waits for the answer.
Do Well and Be Well.