more from W. David Ross

Single Idea 5916

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

Full Idea

A 'right' does not stand for a purely moral notion; it began, I suppose, by standing for a legal notion, and its usage has broadened out so as to include certain things that cannot be claimed at law, but it is not yet correlative to duty.

Clarification

'Correlative' means 'precisely corresponding'

Gist of Idea

Rights were originally legal, and broadened to include other things

Source

W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §II App I)

Book Reference

Ross,W.David: 'The Right and the Good' [OUP 1930], p.53


A Reaction

Presumably 'natural rights' are those which ought to be legal rights - or they are so obvious that there is no point in discussing legal rights until the natural rights are granted. Don't we make laws because we perceive rights?