Difference between revisions of "What Are Rights?"

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[[Category:Rights|025]]
 
[[Category:Rights|025]]
 
[[Category:Under Construction]]
 
[[Category:Under Construction]]
{{DES | des = Rights are a far more complex subject than we usually think.  Most people would be surprised at how much that their folk models of rights leave out.  Libertarians rely on such simple models because they can lead to the right ideological conclusions.  At least four fields consider rights: philosophy, law, economics, and anthropology.  A good model would be compatible with all four fields. | show=}}
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{{DES | des = Rights are a far more complex subject than we usually think.  Most people would be surprised at how much that their folk models of rights leave out.  Libertarians rely on such simple models because they can lead to the right ideological conclusions.  At least five fields consider rights: philosophy, law, economics, sociology, and anthropology.  A good model would be compatible with all five fields. | show=}}
  
 
== Natural Rights ==
 
== Natural Rights ==
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== Rights Are Socially Constructed ==
 
== Rights Are Socially Constructed ==
Both moral rights and enforced rights (see below for the distinction) are socially constructed through political, religious, or academic institutions that codify, promote, and sometimes enforce these ideas.  They have no positive existence outside of human ideas and practices.  This is why there is little uniformity in ideas of rights, except where pragmatic needs (such as competitiveness) lead to gross similarities.  This is why there are no "true" rights: every society will construct its own based on the interests of its members.  Philosophy of rights that doesn't start with the social construction of rights is making a basic category error.
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Both moral rights and enforced rights (see below for the distinction) are socially constructed through political, religious, or academic institutions that codify, promote, and sometimes enforce these ideas.  They have no positive existence outside of human ideas and practices.  This is why there is little uniformity in ideas of rights, except where pragmatic needs (such as competitiveness) lead to gross similarities.  This is why there are no "true" rights: every society will construct its own based on the interests of its members.  Philosophy of rights that doesn't start with the social construction of rights is making a basic [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake category mistake].
  
 
For more, see:
 
For more, 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.  Legal rights are enforced rights.  Moral rights can coexist in contradictory multitudes because they are only words and not enforced.  For example, both Anne and Bob can claim the same car.  There is no actual protection with moral rights, and natural rights are an example.  Enforced rights, on the other hand, can conflict.  Anne and Bob can not enforce exclusive rights to the same car without 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.
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A moral right is a wish for a right with its correlative duty, but no enforcement.  An enforced right is a rights claim whose correlative duty is enforced by threat and/or coercion.  Legal rights are enforced rights.  Moral rights can coexist in contradictory, conflicting multitudes because they are only words and not enforced.  For example, both Anne and Bob can claim the same car.  There is no actual protection with moral rights, and natural rights are an example.  Enforced rights, on the other hand, can be resolved when they conflict.  Anne and Bob can not enforce exclusive rights to the same car without 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.
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Philosophical claims for moral rights generally suffer from the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is–ought_problem is–ought problem] and other gross fallacies.  The Humean solution is to simply admit that you desire the benefits of particular rights because reason is the slave of the passions.  The appeal to consequences is the best you can do, and indeed is the basis of democratic decision making as well as the method of individual decision making libertarians mean by [[rationality]].
  
 
From here on, I am only going to talk about enforced rights and duties.  When people talk about moral rights, it is usually because they want them converted to enforced rights.
 
From here on, I am only going to talk about enforced rights and duties.  When people talk about moral rights, it is usually because they want them converted to enforced rights.
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There is no culture where social agreement has been sufficient to create rights.  Even extremely non-violent pacifist cultures such as the Mennonites are parasitic upon coercive governments to protect their rights.
 
There is no culture where social agreement has been sufficient to create rights.  Even extremely non-violent pacifist cultures such as the Mennonites are parasitic upon coercive governments to protect their rights.
== Negative Duties Are Free? ==
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== Negative Duties Are Not Free ==
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Every right creates negative duties for all other people, which are often characterized as requiring only "restraint" by the others.  As [[Frederic Bastiat]] liked to point out in [[What Is Seen And Unseen]], that overlooks an opportunity cost (for that "restraint"): those other people could benefit from ignoring the duty created by a right.  Plenty of people have starved because of the opportunity cost of respecting property rights in land that they could have farmed themselves.
 
== Compound Rights ==
 
== Compound Rights ==
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Single rights are frequently not very useful.  For example, if you have a right to pick a tangerine then you might not have any recourse when somebody else picks the tangerine (unless you also have another right to exclude all others.)  There are institutions creating several sets of [http://critiques.us/index.php?title=Bundle_of_Rights bundles of rights] that are commonly useful in society.
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=== Property ===
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Property is a specific set of rights that are coercively enforced. See: [http://critiques.us/index.php?title=What_Is_Property%3F#What_are_the_component_rights_of_property.3F What are the component rights of property?]
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=== Contracts ===
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Contracts too have bundles of rights such as:
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* Rights to purchase a particular product or service
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* Rights to resell a product or service
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* Rights to be the only seller or buyer
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* Rights to delivery and timely payment
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* Rights to refunds or repairs
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and many others.  These rights can vary a great deal and can be explicit in the contract or implicit due to contract law.  Enforcement is ultimately through the courts, even if arbitration is specified, because the parties may not abide by the arbitration.
 
== Positive And Negative Rights? ==
 
== Positive And Negative Rights? ==
 
== Absolute Rights? ==
 
== Absolute Rights? ==
 
== Spheres Of Rights? ==
 
== Spheres Of Rights? ==
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== Inalienable Rights==
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Inalienable rights (also known as unalienable or inherent rights) were originally used in a natural rights context, as in the US Declaration of Independence.  As natural rights, they are imaginary.  As Enforced Rights, government (the Enforcer) makes the Threat Claims without requiring an Enforcement Claim or Fees from the RightHolder.
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== Collective Rights ==
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Libertarians ignore a lot of reality to sometimes claim that rights (especially property) are always individual.  That's nonsense, usually presented as "Government cannot own things because only individuals can own things": a quick way to "logically" define government as illegitimate.  But of course that ignores corporations, partnerships, joint ownership, marriage, governments and much more.  Collective rights are common in society and play important functions.
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== Individual and Human Rights ==
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[[Murray Rothbard]] and some other libertarians claim that individual (and human) rights are actually [[Property|property rights]].  Starting from a fantasy [[Natural Rights]] assumption of property , they build a silly argument.  Individual Rights are clearly not property rights because they do not have all the subsidiary rights typical of property.  This is a classic example of [[Greedy Reductionism|greedy reductionism]].
 
== Notes ==
 
== Notes ==
 
==Related Articles==
 
==Related Articles==

Latest revision as of 20:38, 17 January 2021