more on this theme | more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
It would be incomprehensible and incoherent to ascribe rights to human beings in respect of the specifically human capacities (such as the right to beliefs or life-style) while at the same time denying that those capacities ought to be developed.
Gist of Idea
Assigning a right based on a human capacity implies that the capacity should be developed
Source
Charles Taylor (Atomism [1979], p.33)
Book Ref
'Communitarianism and Individualism', ed/tr. Avineri,S. /de-Shalit,A. [OUP 1992], p.33
A Reaction
Developed by whom? The agent, their family, or the state? At what point has someone got a capacity, with no further requirement to develop it? Taylor pulls rather large rabbits out of small hats.