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The main points of a lecture on rights ethics, discussing the divisions of rights into natural and conventional, negative and positive. The existence and nature of natural rights, particularly natural positive rights, are explored, and the basis for natural rights is considered.
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Rights based ethics (summary of main points covered in lecture)
Rights are claims against others (whether individuals or social entities) to be treated in certain ways. Rights claims generate correlative duties on the part of others. There are two basic divisions of rights:
l. Natural and conventional -- natural rights pertain to us by virtue of our humanity; as such they apply to all persons. Natural rights are commonly called moral rights. Conventional rights are created by humans, generally within the context of social and political organizations.
Note the following possibilities:
As Oazr points out. if we choose actual rationality or the exercise of freedom as the basis for having rights, then we simply cannot extend moral rights to all humans (everyone in cat. 2- would be eliminated from having moral rights). Indeed, depending on what we mean by rationality, we may have to include some non-humans (e.g., higher primates exhibit some capacity for rational behavior).
If we choose the capacity for rationality as the basis for having rights, we include many more humans (e.g., all ‘normal’ humans from the moment of conception, but we still do not include all humans (e.g., those in category 4). Again, depending upon what is meant by rationality, we still may not be able to limit moral rights only to humans. The problem with basing moral rights on the capacity for a property is why should merely possessing the capacity for a property generate actual rather than moral rights?
If we want to insist that all humans have natural moral rights (including those in cat. 4), then it seems we have to hold that there is an immaterial dimension to human beings that is the locus of our having rights and that this immaterial dimension persists undiminished by what happens to the body/brain. So, one might argue that all humans have a rational soul. Our having rights is grounded in having such a soul, the soul persists in us as long as we live (and may survive death) and is not affected in morally relevant ways by what happens to the body as in case 4. This view of course requires philosophical justification. It is commonly used as a basis to extend moral rights to all and only human beings.
Some argue that rationality is too narrow a basis for rights; that we need to look at the capacity for pleasure and pain. So, some would argue it is simply wrong to torture a dog or kill it for no good reason since that inflicts unjustifiable suffering on the dog. Why? because a dog has some right to life, say not to be grossly interfered with.