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You have
made some good distinctions. Let me add one
more.
Political philosophers commonly distinguish
between non-interference rights and welfare
rights.
Non-interference rights are rights not to be
restrained or not to be prevented from doing
what we want to do by institutions or other
people. For example, if I have a
non-interference right to go to California, no
one has the right to physically prevent me from
doing so. In some cases, a non-interference
right specifies that a specific party cannot
interfere with my doing a certain thing. For
example, the first amendment indicates that
"Congress" shall make no law "abridging the
freedom of speech." It is specifically congress
that is restricted by this right. (One of the
best schemas for thinking about rights is that a
right is a freedom from X to do Y. In my
example, X is congress. It might be something
else.)
Notice that my non-interference right to go to
California does not guarantee me the money I
need to go to California. Likewise, my
non-interference right to publish a book does
not guarantee me a publisher or a printing
press. My right to speak does not guarantee me a
forum at Carnegie Hall. All those rights to
various resources go beyond a right to
non-interference.
Welfare rights are usually thought of as rights
to specific goods and services such as food,
medical care, or housing. A welfare right could
be thought of as a natural right or a statutory
right. We can prove that a person has a
statutory right to housing by pointing to
certain provisions in the law. To establish a
natural right to housing would require a
completely different approach. In some cases,
people argue that everyone should have
a statutory right to Z because they have a
natural right to Z.
In the United States, we have a fairly strong
tradition of recognizing certain statutory
non-interference rights, but welfare rights are
a more recent phenomenon and remain
controversial. Does everyone have a natural
right to basic medical care? Should everyone
have a statutory right to basic medical care? We
are still arguing about this sort of issue.
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