![]() Yet I am permitted to kill in self-defense within certain boundaries. Likewise, in the case of murder – it’s not permitted to kill other people. So I as a landlord would have a very limited ability to control who lives in my property – yet if I am renting out a room in my house, or if I own very few properties (four or less houses or apartments) the rules against discrimination don’t apply. For instance, I have a right to freedom of association, but in specific cases that right can be trumped by the government enforcing the rights of others to not be discriminated against in terms of housing, etc. I don’t think that its that strange a thing for various positive rights to be balanced. Maybe abortion should be legal because despite the fetus having a right to life, the governmental enforcement of that right creates numerous other harms–I’m not proposing this, but I recognize it as coherent.īut it is incoherent and absurd to say that abortion should be legal because your rights only restrict the government and not fellow citizens. Now, what you are really talking about, it seems, is how obligated is the government to enforce other people’s violations of your rights. The government probably has more right to restrict your rights than another citizen because we delegate enforcement to the government. ![]() But fundamentally rights only restrict the government because they restrict everyone. Other rights (and even those sometimes) are murkier because they are more likely to conflict and require some compromise and discussion. You may not take money from my pocket because I have as much right to property as do you. You may not kill me because I have as much right (desert, entitlement, whatever) to life as do you. Rights, in the relevant sense, are only as against the government healthcare or other common positive rights claims? ![]() Is it that some negative rights are indeed also positive rights, but the negative interpretation of the right always trumps its positive counterpart? And if so, how do you apply that in the case of, e.g. And so in response pro-choice people say “Women have the right to an abortion.” (This of course is at the heart of the abortion debate.) Negative rights make far more sense: you have a right not to, say, be unduly spied upon by your government, or to be forced to ascribe to some particular spiritual religion.īut what’s the interplay in edge cases such as abortion? (Full disclosure: I am personally opposed to the legality of abortion, but with - and to some degree, because of - low epistemic confidence of the underlying truth about when human life actually begins.) You might say a human embryo has a negative right not to have its life taken, but this implies a positive right to life, which in this case must be, and can only be, provided by its mother. have to provide it for you even if they aren’t paid for it, which kind of turns them into slaves. For instance you can’t have a right to healthcare because that implies doctors and nurses and pharmaceutical companies etc. that they imply obligations that need to be filled by others and that this very quickly will be carried to the point of immorality and injustice. I agree with what I understand to be the central criticism of positive rights, i.e. I’ll probably end up reposting this in OT 94.5 94.75 but it’s on my mind and I want to get it out:
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