First, let me say that I
think we are all agreed that we are talking
about individual rights. We are not
concerned with the rights of groups except in so
far as they may be derived from the rights of
individuals.
Second, let me try to lay out a short, simple
definition of an individual right.Not all
philosophers agree about just how rights should
be defined, but I think this definition will
serve our purposes. Here it is:
An individual A has a
right to do or to have X if and only
if others have a duty not to prevent
A from doing or having X. In some
cases we can also say that an
individual has a right to have X if
and only if someone or some
institution has a duty to provide A
with X.
Here are a few more useful terms:
- Moral rights are
established by moral arguments and
are not created by law.
- Legal rights or positive
rights are created by law. In
the United States, legal rights
include both constitutional and
statutory rights. Of course, we
might establish a legal right to do
X because we believe that people
have a moral right to do X (e.g., to
get married).
- Natural rights are not
created by law. They exist outside
or prior to political society. For
example, some philosophers have said
that in the "state of nature" people
have a natural right to defend
themselves or to acquire property.
In that case, we need to ask what
happens to natural rights after a
political society is formed. Do
people continue to have the same
right to defend themselves or to
acquire property? Natural rights can
also be thought of as general rights
that we have against all other
people in contrast to special rights
that arise in specific situations
such as the making of a contract.
- Human rights are rights
that all people possess because of
some feature or features of human
beings (e.g., because they are
intelligent, sentient beings or
because they have interests to
defend).
- Absolute rights can never
be justifiably abridged or
overridden.
- Inalienable rights can
never be lost, taken away, or
alienated.
- Prima Facie rights are
rights that we acknowledge under
normal circumstances, but they can
be overridden in some cases. We
might, for example, acknowledge that
a property owner has the right to
keep people off his land but also
hold that this right can be
overridden in cases of life and
death. In this case, the property
right is a prima facie
right. Prima facie rights
may be balanced against each other
or with other moral concerns.
I think the most difficult questions are these:
- What is the foundation or
justification for individual rights?
- What rights, if any, do people
have?
- What sorts of limitations are
there on our rights?
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