Rights

Rights are entitlements or permissions, usually of a legal or moral nature. Rights are of vital importance in the fields of law and ethics, especially theories of justice and deontology.

• Rights presuppose duties, if they are not to become mere license.
  • Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Caritas in Veritate (29 June 2009), Chapter 43.

"Privacy law in Australia”, Carolyn Doyle, Mirko Bagaric – (2005)

• The leading contemporary non-consequentialist theories are those which are framed in the language of rights. Following the Second World War, there has been an immense increase in “rights talk”, both in number of supposed rights and in total volume. Rights doctrine has progressed a long way since its original aim of providing “a legitimisation of … claims against tyrannical or exploiting regimes”. As Tom Campbell points out:
  The human rights movement is based on the need for a counter-ideology to combat the abuses and misuses of political authority by those who invoke, as a justification for their activities, the need to subordinate the particular interests of individuals to the general good.
  • Campbell, The Legal Theory of Ethical Positivism (1996); SI Benn, “Human rights – For Whom and For What?” in E Kamenka and AE Tay (eds_, Human Rights (1978) p 61; T Campbell, “Realizing Human Rights”, in T Campbell, D Goldberg, S McLean, and T Mullen*eds), Human Rights: From Rhetoric to Reality (1996) pp 1, 13; as quoted on pp.20-21

• There is now, more than ever, a strong tendency to advance moral claims and arguments in terms of rights. Assertion of rights has become the customary means to express our moral sentiments. As Sumner notes: “there is virtually no are aof public controversy in which rights ar enot to be found on at least one side of the question – and generally on both”. The domination of rights talk is such that it is accurate to state that human rights have at least temporarily replaced maximising utility as the leading philosophical inspiration for political and social reform.
  Despite the dazzling veneer of deontological rights-based theories, when examined closely they are unable to provide convincing answers to central issues such as: what is the justification for rights? How can be distinguish real from fanciful rights?
  • LW Sumner, The Moral Foundation of Rights (1987) p 1.

• [P]roponents of the right can simply assert the existence of a right to privacy and, equally validly, opponents can assert a “right to know”. An impasse is then reached because there is no underlying principle that can be invoked to provide guidance on the issue. As with many rights, the victor may unfortunately be the side which simply yells the loudest.
  This may seem to be unduly dismissive of rights-based theories and pay inadequate regard to the considerable moral reforms that have occurred against the backdrop of rights talk over the past half-century. There is no doubt that rights claims have proved to be an effective lever in bringing about social change. As Campbell correctly notes, rights have provided “a constant source of inspiration for the protection of individual liberty”. For example, reoognition of the (universal) right of liberty resulted in the abolition of slavery; more recently the right of equaliy has been used as an effective weapon by women and other disenfranchised groups.
  For this reason, it is accepted that there is an ongoing need for moral discourse in the form of rights.
  For this reason, it is accepted that there is an ongoing need for moral discourse in the form of rghts. There is so even in deontological rights-based moral theories (with their absolutist overtones) are incapable of providing answers to questions such as the existence and content of proposed rights, and even if rights are difficult to defend intellectually or are seen to be culturally biased. There is a need for rights-talk, at least at the “edges of civilisation and in the tangle of international politics”.32.
  Still the significant changes to the moral landscape for which non-consequentialist rights have provided the catalyst must be accounted for.
  • T Campbell, The Legal Theory of Ethical Positivism (1996) p 165., as quoted on p.23

• [A]t the descriptive level, the intuitive appeal of rights claims, and the absolutist and foreceful manner in which they are expressed, has heretofore been sufficient to mask fundamental logical deficiencies associated with the concept of rights.
  • p.23

• [W]e do not believe that there is no role in moral discourse for rights claims. Rather, we content that the only manner in which rights can be substantiated is in the context of a consequntialist ethic.33
  • pp.23-24

• See also JS Mill who claimed that rights reconcile justice with utility. Justice, which he claimed consists of certain fundamental rights, is merely a part of utility. And “to have a right is .. to have something which society ought to defend …. [if asked why[ … I have give no other reason than general utility”: JS Mill, “Utilitarianism” in M Warnock (ed), Utilitarianism (1986, first published 1859) pp 251, 309. T Campbell, “The Legal Theory of Ethical Positivism” (1996) pp 161-85. T. Campbel, “The Point of Legal Positivism”, in T Campbell (ed), “Legal Positivism” (1999) p 323.
  • Footnote 33, p.24

• Rights can be spoken of only on the condition that a person is thought as a person, that is, as an individual, or, in other words, as occupying a relation to other individuals, between whom and him a community, though not actually posited, perhaps, is at least fictitiously assumed. For those things which, through speculative philosophy, we discovered to be conditions of personality, become rights only if other persons are added in thought, who dare not violate those conditions. Free beings can not, however, be thought as coexisting at all, unless their rights reciprocally limit each other, that is, unless the sphere of their original rights changes into the sphere of rights in a commonwealth. It would seem, therefore, impossible to reflect upon rights as original rights, that is, without regard to their necessary limitations through the rights of others. …. There is no status of original rights for Man. Man attains rights only in a community with others as indeed he only becomes man — whereof we have shown the grounds heretofore — through intercourse with others. Man, indeed, can not be thought as one individual. Original Rights are, therefore, a pure fiction, but a fiction necessary for the purpose of Science.
  • The Science of Rights 1796 by, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, 1762-1814; Kroeger, Adolph Ernest, 1837-1882, tr Publication date 1889 P. 159-160

• If inequalities stare us in the face the essential equality too is not to be missed. Every man has an equal right to the necessaries of life even as birds and beasts have. And since every right carries with it a corresponding duty and the corresponding remedy for resisting any attack upon it, it is merely a matter of finding out the corresponding duties and remedies to vindicate the elementary fundamental equality.
  • Mohandas Gandhi, "Questions and Answers", Young India magazine, 26th March 1931. Quoted in Gandhi: The Essential Writings. Judith M. Brown, Oxford University Press, 1998 (pp 97-98).

• If instead of insisting on rights everyone does his duty, there will immediately be the rule of order established among mankind. There is no such thing as the divine right of kings to rule and the humble duty of the ryots to pay respectful obedience.
  • Mohandas Gandhi, "Rights or Duties?", Harijan Magazine, 6 July 1947. Quoted in Mahatma Gandhi : The Essential Writings, edited by Judith M. Brown. Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2008. (p.91)

• Away with private wrongs! We'll not go forth
  To fight for these — but for the rights of men.
  • Sarah Josepha Hale, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 524.

• Civilization no longer represents the conscience of the individuals who must find therein their work. The facts and forces which now organize industry and so-called justice, violate the best instincts of mankind. ... Without regard to his conscience, the economic system involves a man in the guilt of the moral and physical death of his brothers: their blood cries to him from the adulterated and monopolized foods he eats; from the sweat-shop clothes he wears; from his educational advantages, his special privileges, his social opportunities. ... Civilization denies to man that highest of all rights — the right to live a guiltless life, the right to do right.
  • George D. Herron, Between Caesar and Jesus (1899), p. 20

• The real lesson of [archbishop Óscar] Romero is that there are no legitimate reasons to deny [civil or natural] rights.
  His government in his time believed that [civil or natural] rights could be somewhat “suspended” to protect El Salvador from Communist influences coming from the Soviet Union via Cuba and Nicaragua.
  Romero was certainly not an admirer of the Soviet Union, but believed there should be other ways of protecting his country, not suspending [civil or natural] rights.
  He taught us that those who advocate for [civil or natural] rights are “for” their countries, not “against” them.
  …Romero wrote that religious persecution happens because “truth is always persecuted,” and that God blesses those who protest and fight for freedom. But they should know they should suffer, because “pain is the money that buys freedom.”
  …Romero’s key teaching, that there is no reason good enough to justify the violation of [civil or natural] rights, is relevant for both religious liberty and the Tai Ji Men case.
  There are governments that claim that limiting religious liberty is necessary to protect social stability or the harmony of the country.
  Romero’s message is that this is [no] valid justification. [Civil or natural] rights protection defines what a legitimate social stability is, rather than the other way around.
  • Massimo Introvigne, "Monsignor Óscar Romero: His Lesson for Freedom of Religion or Belief", Bitter Winter (2021)

• Social justice without [civil or natural] rights is [maliciously] ideological and false.
  • Massimo Introvigne, "From John Rawls to Tai Ji Men: An Autobiographical Confession", Bitter Winter (February 2024)

• Nothing can be permitted to the few ; rights and advantages were sent for all ...
  • Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Ethel Churchill (or The Two Brides) (1838), Vol. II, Chapter 31

• Qui jure suo utitur neminem tedit.
  • Translated: He who exercises his own right injures no one.
  • Legal maxim, reported in Henry Louis Mencken, A new dictionary of quotations on historical principles from ancient and modern sources (1946), p. 1044.

• Rights are lost by disuse.
  • Legal maxim, reported in Henry Louis Mencken, A new dictionary of quotations on historical principles from ancient and modern sources (1946), p. 1044.

• One of the grandest things in having rights is that, being your rights, you may give them up.
  • George MacDonald, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 524.

• As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.
  • James Madison, "Property"

• No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.
  • New York Times, (4th Dec 2015), p. Front page Editorial.

• The law helps the vigilant, before those who sleep on their rights.
  • Legal maxim, reported in Oscar B. Parkinson, Outlines of Commercial Law: A Text Book for Schools and Colleges (1912), p. 234. Sometimes reported as "equity" rather than "the law".

• To name a thing is easy: the difficulty is to discern it before its appearance. In giving expression to the last stage of an idea, — an idea which permeates all minds, which to-morrow will be proclaimed by another if I fail to announce it to-day, — I can claim no merit save that of priority of utterance. Do we eulogize the man who first perceives the dawn?

  Yes: all men believe and repeat that equality of conditions is identical with equality of rights; that property and robbery are synonymous terms; that every social advantage accorded, or rather usurped, in the name of superior talent or service, is iniquity and extortion. All men in their hearts, I say, bear witness to these truths; they need only to be made to understand it.

  • Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, What is Property? (1840), Ch. I: "Method Pursued in this Work. The Idea of a Revolution".

• A right is based on the interest which figures essentially in the justification of the statement that the rights exits. The interest relates directly to the core right and indirectly to its derivatives. The relation of core and derivative rights is not that of entailment, but of the order of justification.
  • Raz, “The Morality of Freedom, supra” n 12 at 169; as quoted in “Personal Autonomy, the Private Sphere and Criminal Law”, by Peter Alldridge, Chrisje H. Brants , 2001, footnote 30, p.67

• Imagine if a government agency could get away with violating your constitutional rights simply by denying it was acting as the government. It seems absurd, but that is what Pitt has attempted to avoid liability after it sanctioned a professor [Dr. Norman Wang] for criticizing racial preferences in an article in a prestigious academic journal.
  • J. Robert Renner, "University Of Pittsburg Shifts Blame After Firing Med School Professor For Criticizing DEI", The Federalist (June 7, 2024)

• We cannot speak of [civil or natural] rights without centering our attention on [the moral compass of] conscience, one among a few distinctive features that make humans human‒and humane.
  • Marco Respinti, "Tai Ji Men: A Voyage to the Center of Conscience", Bitter Winter (April 2022)

• The expression “human rights” did not always exist. It started being used in 17th-century Europe. We could even speculate on the fact that the use of the expression “human rights” increased proportionally to the loss of clarity on what those rights were and are, as if simply repeating the formula could fill the void.
  Prior to the introduction of the expression “human rights,” Western culture spoke of “natural rights.” The genealogical process leading from natural rights to human rights is an interesting subject to explore. Interestingly, that genealogy also surfaces in documents of the UN beyond the “Declaration.” But if—again—the argument I am proposing is meaningful, the point here is that the substitution of “natural” with “human” created a serious problem.
  • Marco Respinti, "Tai Ji Men and the Return of Human Nature", Bitter Winter (December 2023)

• Rights are grand things, divine things, in this world of God; but the way in which we expound those rights, alas! seems to me to be the very incarnation of selfishness. I see nothing very noble in a man who is forever going about calling for his own rights. Alas! alas! for the man who feels nothing more grand in this wondrous, divine world than his own rights!
  • Frederick William Robertson, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 524.

• Rights may be universal, but their enforcement must be local.
  • Murray Rothbard, Two Just Wars: 1776 and 1861 (1994).

• All existing right is - foreign law; someone makes me out to be in the right, “does right by me". But should I therefore be in the right if all the world made me out so? And yet what else is the right that I obtain in the State, in society, but a right of those foreign to me? …If you let yourself be made out in the right by another, you must no less let yourself be made out in the wrong by him; if justification and reward come to you from him, expect also his arraignment and punishment. Alongside right goes wrong, alongside legality crime.
  • Max Stirner, from The Ego and His Own (1845).

• A right should not be absolute for the same reason that a power should not be absolute.
  • R. H. Tawney, The Acquisitive Society (1920), p. 50

• Many international [civil] rights institutions and legal scholars emphasize that there should be no “time limitations” in the investigation and redress of [civil] rights violations, and the use of new evidence should also adhere to the principle of conscience, without “time limitations.”
  • Tsai Cheng-An, "The Conscience Principle and Transitional Justice: The Tai Ji Men Human Rights Case", Bitter Winter (March 2024)

• If you say to someone who has ears to hear: “What you are doing to me is not just,” you may touch and awaken at its source the spirit of attention and love. But it is not the same with words like, “I have the right...” or “you have no right to...” They evoke a latent war and awaken the spirit of contention.
  • Simone Weil, Human Personality (1943), p. 63.

• Those closest, and so most accountable, to the people are best positioned to protect their rights.
  • Huma Yusuf, Missing rights (4 May, 2020), Dawn

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 674-75.

• Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.
  • Samuel Adams, Statement of the Rights of the Colonists, etc. (1772).

• Right as a trivet.
  • R. H. Barham, The Ingoldsby Legends, Auto-da-fé.

• They made and recorded a sort of institute and digest of anarchy, called the rights of man.
  • Edmund Burke, On the Army Estimates, Volume III, p. 221.

• Sir, I would rather be right than be President.
  • Henry Clay, speech (1850), referring to the compromise measure.

• He will hew to the line of right, let the chips fly where they may.
  • Roscoe Conkling, speech at the National Convention, Chicago, 1880, when General Grant was nominated for a third term.

• But 'twas a maxim he had often tried,
  That right was right, and there he would abide.
  • George Crabbe, Tales, Tale XV, The Squire and the Priest.

• Be sure you are right, then go ahead.
  • David Crockett, Motto, in the War of 1812.

• The rule of the road is a parodox quite,
  If you drive with a whip or a thong;
  If you go to the left you are sure to be right,
  If you go to the right you are wrong.
  • Henry Erskine, Rule of the Road.

• For right is right, since God is God,
  And right the day must win;
  To doubt would be disloyalty,
  To falter would be sin.
  • F. W. Faber, The Right Must Win, Stanza 18.

• Wherever there is a human being, I see God-given rights inherent in that being, whatever may be the sex or complexion.
  • William Lloyd Garrison, In his Life, Volume III, p. 390.

• The equal right of all men to the use of land is as clear as their equal right to breathe the air—it is a right proclaimed by the fact of their existence. For we cannot suppose that some men have a right to be in this world, and others no right.
  • Henry George, Progress and Poverty, Book VII, Chapter I.

• And wanting the right rule they take chalke for cheese, as the saying is.
  • Nicholas Grimald, preface to his translation of Marcus Tullius Cicero. Three Bookes of Duties to Marcus his Sonne. Same expression in Gower, Confessio Amantis.

• For the ultimate notion of right is that which tends to the universal good; and when one's acting in a certain manner has this tendency he has a right thus to act.
  • Francis Hutcheson, A System of Moral Philosophy, The General Notions of Rights and Laws Explained, Book II, Chapter III.

• May it be to the world, what I believe it will be. To some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all, the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessing and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights. and an undiminished devotion to them.
  • Thomas Jefferson, letter to Robert Weightman (24 June 1826)

• We hold these truths to be self-evident,—that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
  • Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence of the United States of America.

• Let us have faith that Right makes Might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.
  • Abraham Lincoln, address in New York City (Feb. 21, 1859). See Henry J. Raymond's Life and Public Services of Lincoln, Chapter III.

• With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.
  • Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address (March 4, 1865).

• Mensuraque juris
  Vis erat.
  • Might was the measure of right.
  • Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, Pharsalia, I. 175. Found in Thucydides, IV. 86. Plautus—Truncul, IV. 3. 30. Lucan. I. 175. Seneca the Younger, Hercules Furens. 291. Schiller, Wallenstein's Camp, VI. 144.

• All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights.
  • Constitution of Massachusetts.

• Every man has by the law of nature a right to such a waste portion of the earth as is necessary for his subsistence.
  • Thomas More, Utopia, Book II.

• The practice of democracy has the notorious tendency to become paradoxical. [...] Democracy inspires ideas of rights but allows the taming of rights for purposes of order.
  • Suhas Palshikar, Will there be a George Floyd moment in India’s public life? (June 11, 2020), The Indian Express

• Reparation for our rights at home, and security against the like future violations.
  • William Pitt (Earl of Chatham), letter to the Earl of Shelburne (Sept. 29, 1770).

• All Nature is but art unknown to thee;
  All chance direction, which thou canst not see;
  All discord, harmony not understood;
  All partial evil, universal good;
  And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
  One truth is clear, Whatever is is right.
  • Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle I, line 289.

• No question is ever settled
  Until it is settled right.
  • Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

Quotes reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 221.

• Old rights must remain: it would be very unreasonable if it should be otherwise.
  • Joseph Yates, J., Mayor, &c. of Colchester v. Seaber (1765), 3 Burr. Part IV. 1872.

• A pretensed right is no right at all.
  • Powell, J., Reg. v. Mackarty (1705), 2 Raym. 1183.

• It shall not be in the power of any man, by his election, to vary the rights of two other contending parties.
  • Lord Mansfield, Drinkwater v. Goodwin (1775), Cowp. 251.

• By the laws of England, there can be no special right, no particular interest or privilege whatever, of perpetual duration, but such as have respect to some kind of inheritance.
  • Joseph Yates, J., dissenting in Millar v. Taylor (1769), 4 Burr. Part IV., 2385.

• Animal rights
• Civil rights
• Human rights
• Natural rights
• United States Bill of Rights
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights