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I agree with Gewirth that
freedom and well-being are necessary for
agents to act in purposive ways. And I agree
that IF an agent were to claim that he or she
had certain rights to freedom and well-being
THEN he or she would have to ascribe the same
rights to others. The only way to avoid
ascribing those rights to others would be to
show a morally relevant difference between
himself and other people, and I don't think
that is possible.
The problem is that I do not
agree that the agent MUST claim rights to
freedom and well-being for himself. I see no
contradiction between (a) saying that I need
freedom and well-being in order to do X, and
(b) saying that I do not have rights to
freedom and well-being and that others may
have a right to deny them to me (or that they
are not wrong to deny them to me).
That's why my argument
doesn't claim to PROVE that people have rights
to the conditions required to carry out their
projects or fulfill their capacities. It
claims instead that the fact that they need
such rights to do those things is a good
reason to establish a system of moral and
legal rights that guarantees those rights.
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