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25. Social Practice / C. Rights / 1. Basis of Rights

[what can justify giving or withholding rights]

43 ideas
Sound laws achieve the happiness of those who observe them [Plato]
Law is intelligence without appetite [Aristotle]
It is not a law if not endorsed by the public [Hooker,R]
Spinoza wanted democracy based on individual rights, and is thus the first modern political philosopher [Stewart,M on Spinoza]
The sovereignty has absolute power over citizens [Spinoza]
The loss of perfect rights causes misery, but the loss of imperfect rights reduces social good [Hutcheson]
There are two kinds of right - to power, and to property [Hume]
There is now a growing universal community, and violations of rights are felt everywhere [Kant]
There are political and inter-national rights, but also universal cosmopolitan rights [Kant]
Only laws can produce real rights; rights from 'law of nature' are imaginary [Bentham]
To get duties from people without rights, you must pay them well [Goethe]
The absolute right is the right to have rights [Hegel]
Rights imply duties, and duties imply rights [Hegel]
A right is a valid claim to society's protection [Mill]
Marxists say liberal rights are confrontational, and liberal equality is a sham [Marx, by Wolff,J]
Rights arise out of contracts, which need a balance of power [Nietzsche]
Rights were originally legal, and broadened to include other things [Ross]
Rights are asserted contentiously, and need the backing of force [Weil]
Giving centrality to rights stifles all impulses of charity [Weil]
People have duties, and only have rights because of the obligations of others to them [Weil]
Hart (against Bentham) says human rights are what motivate legal rights [Hart,HLA, by Sen]
The right of non-interference (with a 'negative duty'), and the right to goods/services ('positive') [Foot]
A right is not just a rule, but also asserts certain ideas of moral worth [Taylor,C]
For most people the primacy of rights mainly concerns freedom [Taylor,C]
A morality of rights is very minimal, leaving a lot of human life without restrictions or duties [Nagel]
If whole states possess rights, there can be social relations between states [Walzer]
If a right entails having the relevant desire, many creatures might have no right to life [Singer]
Fans of natural rights or laws can't agree on what the actual rights or laws are [MacIntyre]
Political and civil rights are not separate from economic and social rights [Nussbaum]
The Lockean view of freedom depends on whether you had a right to what is restricted [Kymlicka]
Rights are a part of nation-building, to build a common national identity and culture [Kymlicka]
Rights derived from group membership are opposed to the idea of state citizenship [Kymlicka]
A right is a power which is enforced in the name of justice [Scruton]
Rights are moral significance, or liberty, or right not to be restrained, or entitlement [Mawson]
Standard rights: life, free speech, assembly, movement, vote, stand (plus shelter, food, health?) [Wolff,J]
If natural rights are axiomatic, there is then no way we can defend them [Wolff,J]
If rights are natural, rather than inferred, how do we know which rights we have? [Wolff,J]
Freedom from torture or terrorist attacks is independent of citizenship [Sen]
Liberty Rights are permissions, and Claim Rights are freedom from intervention [McMahan]
Some rights are 'claims' that other people should act in a certain way [Tuckness/Wolf]
One theory (fairly utilitarian) says rights protect interests (but it needs to cover trivial interests) [Tuckness/Wolf]
Choice theory says protecting individual autonomy is basic (but needs to cover infants and animals) [Tuckness/Wolf]
Having a right does not entail further rights needed to implement it [Tuckness/Wolf]