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Like many behaviours that<br />
fall into a moral regulation,<br />
hoarding can be questioned<br />
with regards to personal<br />
freedom. As long as society<br />
is promoted as a ‘free state’,<br />
its members should be able<br />
to retain a certain amount<br />
of autonomy with regards to<br />
how they lead their lives.<br />
Like many behaviours that fall into a moral regulation, hoarding<br />
can be questioned with regards to personal freedom. As<br />
long as society is promoted as a ‘free state’, its members should<br />
be able to retain a certain amount of autonomy with regards to<br />
how they lead their lives. Whether or not we consider hoarding<br />
behaviour problematic, there may be room for an analysis that<br />
emphasizes ones own free will to lead their lives in a way they<br />
see fit, which may include accumulating a lot of material goods<br />
and infrequent discarding items. If an individual chooses to<br />
live a life they determine is in accordance with their own tastes<br />
and style, and if they are not directly harming another person,<br />
perhaps they should be left alone to continue in a manner that<br />
makes them happy. This type of argument may be made for<br />
those hoarders who are being forced by outside groups, whether<br />
family or the state, to clean up a house when they do not want<br />
to. This would also include those people who do not identify<br />
themselves as ‘hoarders’, just as people who have a lot of ‘stuff’.<br />
There would need to be an account for other forms of inherent<br />
harm however, which makes the argument slightly more<br />
complex but still valid enough to investigate. Harm to other<br />
people or animals would force removal from the home, but<br />
situations wherein the hoarder is living without electricity or<br />
running water, orin a structurally unsafe home requires other<br />
kinds of rules about when a hoarded home is unsafe enough to<br />
warrant intervention. Likely this approach would have to come<br />
from legislating bodies who have the legal right to intervene.<br />
Personal Freedom<br />
Private<br />
Property<br />
This type of inquiry highlights<br />
the complexities of private<br />
property that may need<br />
to be addressed. Owners of<br />
their own property are often<br />
supportive of a lack of intervention<br />
on the part of others<br />
because they have paid for<br />
land to live on in any way<br />
they choose. There do exist<br />
municipal laws in some areas<br />
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