 There is a further question whether self-ownership affords a basis for thinking about property in external objects other than my body? John Locke thought that it did (Locke 1988 [1689], II, para. 27). He suggested that when I work on an object or cultivate a piece of land, I project something of my self-owned self into the thing. That something I have worked on embodies a part of me is a common enough sentiment, but it is difficult to give it a analytically precise sense. That an object is shaped the way it is may be an effect of my actions; but actions don’t seem to have the trans-temporal endurance to enable us to say that they remain present in the object after the time of their performance. The idea of mixing one’s labor seems to be a piece of rhetoric which enhances other arguments for private property rather than an argument in its own right.