Law Commons^™

Pride and property are mutually reinforcing, symbiotic concepts through which individuals express their identity in a biologically, economically, and psychologically driven manner that generates evolutionarily advantageous conditions. This Article is the first to extensively examine the correlative components of pride and property ownership. It is an interdisciplinary treatment of pride and property — engaging with law, economics, psychology, evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, and philosophy. The grossly under-studied “authentic”, achievement-oriented, and motivational variety of pride (as contrasted with the much-vilified “hubristic” kind) has recently been heralded as perhaps the most important human emotion for evolutionary purposes. The Article explains that authentic …

Individuals usually prefer to keep what they own; property law develops around that assumption. Alternatively stated, we prefer to choose whether and how to part with what we own. Just as we hold affection and attachment for our memories, captured in the lyrics of the George Gershwin classic, so too do most individuals adopt a “they can’t take that away from me” approach to property ownership.

We often focus on the means of acquisition or transfer in property law. We look less often at the legal rules that support one’s ability to keep what one owns. Yet, it is precisely …