The normative foundations of property: Digital property

However, this analytical link between property and individual freedom is neither conceptually imperative nor necessarily valid a priori. Within this perspective, norms related to the common good and sustainability inevitably appear as external constraints that regulate property only ex post facto: individual property rights are initially upheld and later constrained by moral norms of the common good and sustainability. In contrast, the project proposes that property inherently contains internal normative constraints that regulate it at its core. These intrinsic norms reside within property itself. Thus, the justification of property includes not only the reasons that justify freedom of property, but also those that allow for intrinsic normative limits.

During the first funding phase, these intrinsic property norms were elaborated through conceptual reflections and concrete examples related to ecological sustainability, demonstrating the inherent norm of sustainability of property. In the second funding phase, the project will explore whether an inherent norm can also be demonstrated in the context of digitalization. Guided by the hypothesis that digital property - or digital ownership - embodies an inherent norm of the common good, the research will first argue that digital infrastructures constitute the objects of digital property. Then, it will explain why the normative foundations of property in digital infrastructures inherently include a norm of the common good. Finally, the project aims to clarify if and how this inherent norm of the common good manifests itself in concrete forms of communal and public ownership of digital infrastructures.

The structural transformation of property is thus examined from a dual research perspective: First, the project seeks to reconstruct existing, often implicit, notions of property underlying digitalization that predominantly emphasize individual private property. From this perspective, digitalization does not create an entirely new type of property that is fundamentally different from classical understandings, but rather represents a structural transformation that extends classical notions of individual private property to its digital form.

Second, the project develops an alternative understanding of property based on normative foundations, proposing that digital property is inherently limited by a norm of the common good. It aims to highlight the internal dynamics driving the structural transformation of property: by deriving alternative conceptions of property from the normative foundations of existing property rights themselves, these conceptions inherently possess the potential to shift towards communal and public ownership of digital infrastructures. This intrinsic dynamic of transformation will be detailed through concrete proposals for organizing social media platforms, artificial intelligence, and news portals as forms of public property.