display all the ideas for this combination of texts
8 ideas
21407 | Equality is not being bound in ways you cannot bind others [Kant] |
Full Idea: Our innate equality is independence from being bound by others to more than one can in turn bind them. | |
From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals I: Doctrine of Right [1797], Div B) | |
A reaction: This doesn't seem to capture the whole concept. The two of us may be unequally oppressed by a third. We are unequal with the third, but also with one another, though with no binding relationships. |
5916 | Rights were originally legal, and broadened to include other things [Ross] |
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. | |
From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §II App I) | |
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? |
21084 | In the contract people lose their rights, but immediately regain them, in the new commonwealth [Kant] |
Full Idea: By the original contract all members of the people give up their external freedom in order to receive it back at once as members of a commonweath. | |
From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals I: Doctrine of Right [1797], §47) | |
A reaction: This tries to give the impression that absolutely nothing is lost in the original alienation of rights. It is probably better to say that you give up one set of freedoms, which are replaced by a different (and presumably superior) set. |
21090 | If someone has largely made something, then they own it [Kant] |
Full Idea: Whatever someone has himself substantially made is his own undisputed property. | |
From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals I: Doctrine of Right [1797], §55) | |
A reaction: To this extent Kant offers clear agreement with Locke about a self-evident property right. Ownership of land is the controversial bit. |
21087 | Human life is pointless without justice [Kant] |
Full Idea: If justice perishes, there is no further point in men living on earth. | |
From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals I: Doctrine of Right [1797], §49 Gen E) | |
A reaction: I suspect that human life is also pointless if it only involves justice, and nothing else worthwhile. Are there other things so good that we might sacrifice justice to achieve them? How about maximal utilitarian happiness? |
21088 | Justice asserts the death penalty for murder, from a priori laws [Kant] |
Full Idea: All murderers …must suffer the death penalty. This is what justice, as the idea of judicial power, wills in accordance with universal laws of a priori origin. | |
From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals I: Doctrine of Right [1797], §49 Gen E) | |
A reaction: Illustration of how giving a principle an a priori origin puts it beyond dispute. Kant is adamant that mercy mustn't interfere with the enactment of justice. And Kant obviously rejects any consequentialist approach. Remind me what is wrong with murder? |
21085 | The church has a political role, by offering a supreme power over people [Kant] |
Full Idea: The church [as opposed to religion] fulfils a genuine political necessity, for it enables the people to regard themselves as subjects of an invisible supreme power to which they must pay homage. | |
From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals I: Doctrine of Right [1797], §49 Gen C) | |
A reaction: I'm sure I remember Marx putting a different spin on this point… This idea captures the conservative attitude to established religion, at least in the UK. |
5915 | Rights can be justly claimed, so animals have no rights, as they cannot claim any [Ross] |
Full Idea: On the whole, since we mean by a right something that can be justly claimed, we should probably say that animals have not rights, not because the claim to humane treatment would not be just if it were made, but because they cannot make it. | |
From: W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §II App I) | |
A reaction: This would also apply to a human being who was, for some reason, unable to claim their rights. If Amnesty can claim rights for prisoners, presumably we can claim rights for dumb animals. Ross is on weak ground. |