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It seems to me that most of us
would agree that individuals should be
protected by some sort of rights. But that
leaves open lots of questions. We have already
asked what those rights are and what are their
foundations? I want to raise more questions:
- How strong are rights?
- When, if ever, can they be
overridden?
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I like what Judith Thomson has said about
these questions. She argues that we should
distinguish between 'infringing' a right and
'violating' it. In her terms, we infringe a
right when it is not wrong for us to do X even
though someone has a right that we not do X.
There may be some overriding moral concern
that justifies our infringing a right. (For example, assume
that the only way for us to get a child to the
hospital and save her life is to cross
someone's property; but the owner has put up
"no trespassing" signs. In this case, we may
infringe his property rights.) These cases are
interesting for a lot of reasons. For one
thing, we may owe something to the person
whose right was infringed. (See p. 135 in
Reading Nozick.)
Perhaps a right can be infringed because of an
overriding moral good. Perhaps because of
another right that is more 'stringent.'
Thomson sees property rights as less stringent
than the right not to be killed, for example.
In any case, Thomson argues that rights are
not "absolute" (p. 135, Reading Nozick). Some
can be infringed, and she tries to say when we
can do so. For example, she suggests that a
property right can be infringed when the
property at issue is of "little value" to the
owner, but not when it is of "immense value"
to the owner. See "Ruminations" p. 139-40 in Reading Nozick.
The bottom line is this: libertarian property
rights are too absolute to fit our everyday
moral convictions on property. They need to be
limited and balanced against other moral
concerns.
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