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Single Idea 23835

[filed under theme 25. Social Practice / C. Rights / 1. Basis of Rights ]

Full Idea

A right is effectual only in relation to its corresponding obligation, springing not from the individual who possesses it, but from others who consider themselves under an obligation to him. In isolation a man only has duties, and only others have rights.

Gist of Idea

People have duties, and only have rights because of the obligations of others to them

Source

Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Needs')

Book Ref

Weil,Simone: 'The Need for Roots' [Routledge 2002], p.3

A Reaction

This seems correct, and obviously refutes the idea that people have intrinsic natural rights. However, it may be our sense of what nature requires which gives rise to the obligations we feel towards others.

Related Idea

Idea 23836 Obligations only bind individuals, not collectives [Weil]

The 21 ideas from 'The Need for Roots'

23843 Even the poorest should feel collective ownership, and participation in grand display [Weil]
23841 By making money the sole human measure, inequality has become universal [Weil]
23837 Respect is our only obligation, which can only be expressed through deeds, not words [Weil]
23835 People have duties, and only have rights because of the obligations of others to them [Weil]
23836 Obligations only bind individuals, not collectives [Weil]
23839 A lifelong head of society should only be a symbol, not a ruler [Weil]
23842 Party politics in a democracy can't avoid an anti-democratic party [Weil]
23838 The need for order stands above all others, and is understood via the other needs [Weil]
23840 A citizen should be able to understand the whole of society [Weil]
23848 The aesthete's treatment of beauty as amusement is sacreligious; beauty should nourish [Weil]
23850 The soldier-civilian distinction should be abolished; every citizen is committed to a war [Weil]
23849 Religion should quietly suffuse all human life with its light [Weil]
23846 Culture is an instrument for creating an ongoing succession of teachers [Weil]
23847 Socialism tends to make a proletariat of the whole population [Weil]
23845 The capitalists neglect the people and the nation, and even their own interests [Weil]
23844 The most important human need is to have multiple roots [Weil]
23851 Education is essentially motivation [Weil]
23854 Beauty is the proof of what is good [Weil]
23853 Truth is not a object we love - it is the radiant manifestation of reality [Weil]
23852 To punish people we must ourselves be innocent - but that undermines the desire to punish [Weil]
23855 Creation produced a network or web of determinations [Weil]