Theory Of Ownership

Objects. Material things that can be seen and touched: tangible sources that play a key role in everyday life, and have the power to alter a person’s character and blur their morals. Ownership of things has been viewed as helpful and detrimental to a person’s moral character and development of self. Philosophers have taken this concept into considerations and argued their thoughts on the theory of ownership. Greek philosopher Plato, defends his view of ownership as being harmful to the development of self, and with further examination and insight, this seemingly complex concept can be explained in great detail to justify his theory. A person’s character is affected when the desire of maintaining objects grows intensely as that person continues …show more content…
Children and teenagers have an extensive amount of exposure to pop culture and trending articles of their modern era. These additions to fashion and technology are attractive, fun ways for children and teenagers to express themselves, which is one of the reasons why they persistently try to obtain these objects. When a great majority of society has these new objects, it is that person’s main goal to fit in with the rest of their peers. This action of wanting to fit in is called conformity. Herbert Kelman, a professor of Social Ethics at Harvard University, identified this action and created three distinguishing categories inside conformity: compliance, identification, and internalization. The category most prominent in children and teenagers is identification. Since, the model society, or the people surrounding them with the new objects, is very attractive to them, those people will try to mirror their appearance to identify with that model society by getting those same objects to “fit in”. People adopt those behaviors in order to satisfy the model society and feel rewarded for the ability to conform to their appearance. Similarly, a study conducted by Solomon Asch revealed equally supporting results that explain society’s role in conformity. He conducted an experiment that would investigate how social pressure would compel a person to conform. He started off by giving a group of people two cards, the …show more content…
Whether the real answer reveals differing evidence from Plato’s theory, at this moment in time, his theory is very much plausible. From conformity to materialism, and eventually greed, the effects are astounding and exceedingly present in society. They have the ability to overrule a person’s decisions and morals in a short amount of time and change the person's entire way of thinking and acting. Whether or not the person realizes the effects that ownership may have on them, material things will continue to be a strong part that person’s life and will decide how their moral character and development of self will be established in the