George Will argues that a political discourse dominated by “rights talk” is bound to overemphasize the thymotic component of moral life. If our moral landscape is entirely populated by rights bearing individuals who obsessively declare their entitlements then the centrality of rights will produce a kind of angry moral competitiveness—Will essentially describes a much more banal, innocuous version of Hobbes’ state of nature in a Whole Foods parking lot. In his version, the overarching fear of death is replaced by the fear of losing a choice spot.
Behind the practiced hyperbole there’s something to this: the notion that rights in themselves exhaustively describe our moral lives presupposes a denuded and abstract account of the whole human person. The central insight of individual human rights, the unique significance of every human being, becomes “imperial” when not extended to other individuals by way of another moral insight central to the assignment of rights, human equality. Any account of individual rights that denies the essential gregariousness of the human person will inevitably struggle to connect the recognition of one’s own personal significance to the reciprocal recognition of the significance of others. Alan Gewirth famously described the foundation for such an inference as the Principle of Generic Consistency–an account so abstruse it could not possibly capture the actual experience of the way we discern and accept the moral importance of other human beings. In the Lockean account, the connection between rational rights bearing individuals is forged by consentual contract, or by our capacity for making rational arrangements with others on the basis of enlightened self-interest. Needless to say, it’s not clear that these arrangements require the most powerful moral bonds–the kinds of contracts Locke describes are themselves competitive versus moral, only understanding moral obligations as necessary contractual concessions. The Locekan version of contractual peace is not all that different from the rule governed Whole Foods parking lot Will describes.
The issue here is not merely that any conception of rights needs to be accompanied by the assignment of duties–the somewhat contrived bifurcation between rights and duties already signifies a departure from a realist depiction of lived moral experience. A more pressing problem is that the reduction of morality to rights requires a solipsistic encapsulation of the individual from the conditions that clarify and substantiate the claim of personal significance–from the conditions of loving dependance upon others or equal creation by God. The thymotic assertion that often accompanies rights talk has to be more than an empty demand–it’s hard to square the lionization of the individual that accompanies the more libertarian interpretations of rights with the pale shadow of the human person their account assumes.
October 13th, 2009 | 5:12 pm
While I agree that in most cases rights and responsibilities are tied together, this is not always the case. Consider the case of babies and the extremely incapacitated (both mentally and physically). Have they no natural rights since they cannot have responsibilities?
It might be possible to frame those rights as responsibilities on those who are less vulnerable. But if this is to work, it’s tricky to define since you either are stuck with the situation where each individual is responsible for *all* vulnerable people, resulting in each individual being so burdened the he too becomes vulnerable. Or each person is responsible for all vulnerable people he sees — leaving the socially isolated and socially blind free from responsibility. Or each individual assumes the someone else will take care of the vulnerable people, resulting in no-one being taken care of, as in this old story: ( http://www.corsinet.com/braincandy/hlife.html ). Or the responsibility is transferred to “the State”, ensuring that State intervention into every aspect of life is required (since there are so many places the vulnerable can be hidden by the wicked).
None of those choices see appealing and I don’t know a good solution other than to have a combination of the above, and hope that the average balances abuses of any one option.
October 13th, 2009 | 10:53 pm
The lionization of the individual is the problem as Locke reminds us in Aesopian fashion regarding “lions” and “foxes.” Not adhering to the law of nature because they are not equal, they (lions and foxes) see no reason not to harm another in their rights nor do they see a reason to work toward their own self preservation–how much easier to have someone else do it for them.
Nonetheless, Locke says the condition all men are naturally in is the condition of perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of their persons and possessions as they think fit without asking leave or depending on the will of any other man. Not having a judge with common authority puts all men in a state of nature. They are equal in power and jurisdiction over themselves, and they each and all equally have a right to it. There seems to be no difference between powers and rights–what I can do I have a right to do in my perfect freedom. In fact this is the way God made me–perfectly free where there is no prohibition on eating the fruit of that tree.
Being all equal and independent, all men are selves (or ones) in relation to others. Self and other–the origins of all modern social psychology and sociology. It’s all in my head as I enjoy with all other men the powers and rights entitled to me as an individual conscious of my perfect freedom equally with every other man. In this so called state of nature each is his own judge and punisher. While it may be that force without right makes a state of war, but I get to be the judge what force is without right. It’s almost as if every Seinfeld episode had George being this self judge. Hence, “relationships” are strained to say the least.
Having no koinonia, everything becomes force without right–especially if I’m of a prickly thymotic sort. Still, “everyone knows” that “I’m here to help you” is the first thing the fox says–and the lion just says Grrrrrrrrrr before he eats you! No doubt you declaim your rights, and his claw puts you down.
So you–who understand the law of nature–are rational and industrious. There are many others out there like you. So you all agree to to give up your natural power to be a judge in your own case and resign it over to the hands of the community. The community comes to be umpire, by settled and standing rules (a la Chief Justice John Roberts) settling all disputes between members in a way that is indifferent and the same to all.
Lions and foxes remain. It is hard to kill the thirst for distinction. What? Me the equal with you? I drive a BMW and I went to Brown. You drive a VW and went to Syracuse. So come on–let’s have a war! Or instead, let’s scowl at each other over lattes.
October 14th, 2009 | 7:14 am
[...] Rights talk. [...]
October 15th, 2009 | 11:06 am
John and Ivan, Both very good. But it doesn’t curb my righteous anger to learn that you’re rational and industrious and I’m not. I COULD be with a little luck, and anyone you can’t convince me you really deserve your big bonus.
October 17th, 2009 | 2:57 pm
As the catalog of Rights prints more pages, deflation sets in. Somewhere here on this site, a sage stressed the obvious but somehow elusive difference between a “right” and a “good”. With so many popularized “rights”, we seem set to overlook the tangible assets of the “good” and how they rightly inform our currency of “rights”.
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