Difference between revisions of "What Are Rights?"
From Critiques Of Libertarianism
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Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld created the standard legal classification of right, duty, privilege (meaning liberty), no-right, power, liability, immunity and disability in a 1913 article that he expanded into a book. Libertarians (and lay people in general) are usually ignorant of these important definitions. | Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld created the standard legal classification of right, duty, privilege (meaning liberty), no-right, power, liability, immunity and disability in a 1913 article that he expanded into a book. Libertarians (and lay people in general) are usually ignorant of these important definitions. | ||
| − | For the sake of simplicity, we are only going to consider right (also known as claim right) and duty. A right can be expressed as " | + | For the sake of simplicity, we are only going to consider right (also known as claim right) and duty. A right can be expressed as "R has a right against D to T". For example, Anne has a right against everybody to use her car. '''For every right, there is a correlative duty.''' A duty can be expressed as "D has a duty to R to T". For example, everybody has a duty to Anne to let her use her car. You cannot have a right without creating a duty. |
For more on Hohfeld's classification see: | For more on Hohfeld's classification see: | ||
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== Moral Rights And Enforced Rights == | == Moral Rights And Enforced Rights == | ||
| − | A moral right is a rights claim with its correlative claim of duty. An enforced right is a rights claim whose correlative duty is enforced by threat and/or coercion. Moral rights can coexist in contradictory multitudes because they are only words and not enforced. There is no actual protection with moral rights, and natural rights are an example. Enforced rights, on the other hand, can conflict. That's why law is usually dominant and conflicting rights claims are brought to court to decide a winner. An enforced right can be expressed as " | + | A moral right is a rights claim with its correlative claim of duty. An enforced right is a rights claim whose correlative duty is enforced by threat and/or coercion. Moral rights can coexist in contradictory multitudes because they are only words and not enforced. There is no actual protection with moral rights, and natural rights are an example. Enforced rights, on the other hand, can conflict. That's why law is usually dominant and conflicting rights claims are brought to court to decide a winner. An enforced right can be expressed as "R has a right against D to T and R tells E to enforce D's duty to R. For example, Anne has a right against everybody to use her car and Anne tells the police to enforce everybody's duty to let her use her car. |
From here on, I am only going to talk about enforced rights and duties. | From here on, I am only going to talk about enforced rights and duties. | ||
