On "Rights"
There is something faintly depressing hearing people talk about rights. And it is happening more and more – “I’ve got a right to work”, “I’ve got a right to a university education” and so on. And this tedious tendency to talk in political absolutes is one of the many reasons why political debate in this country has descended into repetitive, pointless bickering over the same old issues.
I’ve got two main problems with this talk of rights. Firstly, having a right to something is often totally meaningless in reality. You might say you have a right to life – but what does that count for when the man next to you on the bus blows his rucksack, himself and you into little pieces? Or when the feral chav you pass on the street slots with a stolen kitchen knife you because he doesn’t like your face? Yes, you have a right to life; that doesn’t mean people will respect that right or any others you might claim to have.
And what happens when your rights clash with someone else’s? Take university education – a protestor might claim to have a right to higher education, but that right might clash with another individual’s right not to be taxed to the hilt in order to pay for the education of others. This sort of conflict can be seen in its extremes in the “debate” over abortion in the US – the right to life and the right to choose clash fundamentally, and there’s no way around that. So what do we do? Well, as the likes of John Gray have persuasively argued, we need to do something other than stick the to discourse of “rights” when they fundamentally clash – because such talk gets us nowhere fast.
Some debates will always rage, and when we have to make hard choices someone will always lose out. But if we start seeing these difficult choices as a compromise rather than a battle between conflicting rights, we’re more likely to get to a settlement that, even if it doesn’t please everyone, can be lived with by all.
Which has got to be better than the level of debate around tuition fees; it has ceased to be a convincing argument when it consists of people whacking the shit out of each other on the streets.
posted by The Nameless Libertarian @ 9:03 am
4 Comments
4 Comments:
Moving beyond the restating of the Axiomatic non-aggression principle...
Most of these irritating "rights" are positive rights, not negative rights. Positive rights are "gimme" rights, as someone recently labelled them as.
We can deal with rights by removing the impossibility of guaranteeing them through inverting the logic (or should I say reversing the previous - Fabian? - inversion).
People do not have a right to prevent someone seeking education. Example: Afghanistan, people have no right to bomb or intimidate girls/schools. People do bomb and intimidate, but no refuge in law for them should be made.
Nobody has the right to prevent someone seeking gainful employment. Unions please note. This does not mean one can force another to pay one a wage and certainly does not entitle groups to force others to not enter their workplace freely.
Some are best described as freedoms, such as the one of association, i.e. no one has the right to force themselves into a group or the company or life of another. The freedom of disassociation, as it were, which is more important than the one of association. As such, the work "right" is exploded, as it is an example of someone thinking they have the right to force themselves into a group (the company) against the will of others in that group.
If nobody has the right to mess with another, then many arguments fall away or are exposed to be Authoritarian or forms of forced collectivism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law
Apparently 22 US states have the right idea
Surely all this talk of "rights" is just a discussion of one side of a coin. The other side being "responsibilities".
For example, if you demand/claim the right to free speech then it is your responsibility not to slander, insult or defame others.
If we spent more time enforcing these (i.e. by jailing/fining those who ignore their responsibilities) we'd get a bit more balance back into society.
Wisest blog I've seen for some time.
The more old-fashioned of us thought we had duties, not rights.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home