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Stigma
(Dee Speaking)

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I agree that we value many different things, but I want to repeat a point that I have made before. Some values are more important than others. Some values are better understood as rights that limit what we can do even to achieve good ends. In other words, they limit what we can do to pursue other values.

Basic moral rights are side constraints on what other people may do to an individual in order to achieve their ends.

Basic rights are not just one value among many that can be balanced against the others. Balancing is a dangerous metaphor when we are comparing rights with other good things. Rights constitute a kind of boundary that we must not transgress when we are balancing the values of other good things. They represent a moral minimum that must be observed. (And that's why, incidentally, we should not go around manufacturing basic rights for everything we want.)

The fact that the ends are good does not by itself justify redefining or overriding basic rights.

The fact that exercising a right in some way harms others does not by itself justify redefining or overriding that right.

I am not against building an irreducible pluralism of values into our social philosophy; but I believe that that philosophy should also contain individual rights of the sort I am describing.

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Stigma (Dee Speaking)

Stigma
(Dee Speaking)