Human Rights

1
Human Rights

• Chapter 7

2
Human Rights

• What if a doctor found out that someone had a
  fatal heart condition and knows people that could
  use the organs to stay alive? She could inject
  some poison, the patient would never know and
  several people would be able to live long lives.
• It sounds like an argument that a utilitarian
  might approve of. Even a rule utilitarian would
  have a hard time getting around such an argument
  because a rule could be qualified in such a way
  that would not show why an act like this should
  not be committed.
• Why shouldnt the doctor kill the ill patient?
  Most people would say because the patient had a
  right to his/her life.

3
Human Rights

• Rights have no obvious connection with utility.
  Suppose you save money for the new car, house, or
  vacation and someone tells you that you must give
  the money to the homeless. You might say, I
  earned it. I have a right to do with it what I
  want.

4
The Nature of Rights

• What is a right?
• What is an entitlement?
• What is a person entitled to and why?
• A right is more than a claim, it is a justified
  claim. But can someone have a right without
  making a claim?
• A right may be a certain amount of moral space on
  which others may not trespass.
• If you have a right, then others have an
  obligation.
• What about kings or babies?
• A right is not merely a privilege. See page 193
• People such as Thomas Jefferson, and John Locke
  believed that there are God-given rights.
• Some people believe that rights go with sentience
  the capacity to suffer.

5
The Nature of Rights

• Some people think that humans have intrinsic
  worth.
• Still another account of rights is based on
  rationality. Aristotle believed that what made
  humans distinct from everything else was their
  rationality. Men are rational animals.

6
The Right to Life Suicide

• Some people think that humans have intrinsic
  worth.
• Still another account of rights is based on
  rationality. Aristotle believed that what made
  humans distinct from everything else was their
  rationality. Men are rational animals.

7
The Right to Life Suicide

• Voluntary consent is an essential feature of
  rights.
• Suicide is defined as the intentional taking of
  ones own life.
• Arguments against the morality of suicide
• The irrationality of suicide. What about
  Socrates?
• Slippery slope argument
• The religious argument
• It hurts the people that are left behind
• Arguments for the morality of suicide
• A person has a right over his or her own body and
  own life. She is a self. She is the only one
  that feels the pain.
• Please see page 196

8
The Right to Life Mercy Killing

• The word euthanasia comes from the Greek and
  originally meant a good death.
• Should assisted suicide be legal?
• If assisted suicide was not illegal, then should
  there be safeguards?
• Should there be a cooling-off period?
• What about mercy killing?
• Could greedy relatives speed up your death?
• If a patient knew this was going on, couldnt it
  undermine patient confidence?
• Passive euthanasia letting a person die.
• Active euthanasia is actually doing something
  that kills the person.
• Can passive euthanasia actually be more cruel
  than active euthanasia?

9
The Right to Life Mercy Killing

• Arguments against allowing someone to die
• Abandonment of patients
• The possibility of finding cures
• Religious reasons
• Some arguments for allowing someone to die
• Individual rights
• End suffering
• The right to die with dignity

10
Abortion

• What are the rights of a mothers choice vs. the
  rights of a fetus?
• According to Hospers, abortion was common in
  classical Greece and Rome, as it was in most
  pre-civilized societies. The Old Testament is
  full of prohibitions on dress and diet, but it
  never mentions abortion.
• Roe vs. Wade held that abortion is homicide only
  after the fetus is formed, in the third
  trimester of pregnancy.
• Two extreme views
• Pro-choice The final decision on whether to
  abort is the mothers, and whatever she decides
  is final. Its her body, and its for her to say
  what she will do with it.
• Pro-life Abortion is always wrong because from
  the moment of conception there is another person
  inside the mother who has as much right to life
  as she has and to extinguish that life is
  murder. The abortion doctor is as much a
  murderer as the hired killer.

11
Abortion

• Many people do not hold extreme positions. They
  are often willing to modify their position
• People that are generally pro-life may make
  exceptions
• When the life of the mother is endangered.
• When the pregnancy is the result of rape.
• When it is the result of incest
• When the child would have been born with a very
  serious hereditary disease.
• There is controversy about when a fetus becomes a
  human being. How are we going to define a human
  being?
• Does life start
• At conception?
• When a mother feels the baby move inside her?
• When brain waves first occur?
• When the fetus can survive outside of the womb?
• Judy Jarvis Thomsons article

12
Freedom of Expression

• U.S. Constitution First Amendment
• Congress shall make no law respecting an
  establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
  free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom
  of speech, or of the press or the right of the
  people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the
  Government for a redress of grievances.
• John Stuart Mill defended liberty in his famous
  essay On Liberty. He said, suppose that the
  view that government is trying to suppress is
  true
• The authorities, in denying this, are assuming
  that they are infallible. If they dont fear the
  opposing view, why would they want to suppress
  it? Why not let it be discussed publicly so that
  people can determine for themselves whether those
  in authority or right?
• It is only be testing a view in the marketplace
  of ideas that we can come to know whether it is
  true. If it is suppressed, without a free and
  open discussion and the presentation of contrary
  evidence, we can never know whether it is true
  we can only assume it.
• Almost every important idea has some time been
  suppressed by those in power. Such suppressions
  have often set back human progress for centuries
  and kept all but the most courageous from
  expressing their ideas at all. This is a
  tremendous loss to the human race and a shameful
  way to treat humankinds most original and
  creative minds.
• Some say that certain views, such as religious
  ones, should be instilled in everyone, whether
  known to be true or not, for the sake of utility,
  to hold together the moral fabric of society.
  But, said Mill, the utility of an opinion is
  itself a matter of opinion and just as subject to
  dispute as is the opinion itself.

13
Freedom of Expression

• What if the opinion the authorities are
  suppressing is false?
• They cannot know it to be false unless they
  submit it to open discussion.
• John Stuart Mill tries to show why freedom of
  speech has long-term utility.
• If all mankind minus one, he wrote, were of
  one opinion, and only one person were of the
  contrary opinion, mankind would be no more
  justified in silencing that one person, than he,
  if he had the power, would be justified in
  silencing mankind.
• Are there occasions when suppressing a view (even
  a true one) might increase utility?

14
Freedom of Expression

• Sedition
• Sedition
• Conduct or language inciting rebellion against
  the authority of a state.
• Insurrection rebellion.
• Most people believe that those who publicly
  advocate the overthrow of the government should
  be stopped. However, the government is often
  selective in the enforcement of such laws.
• In times of war sedition laws are much more
  repressive. During World War I
• It became criminal to advocate heavier
  taxation instead of bond issues, to state that
  conscription was unconstitutional through the
  Supreme Court had not yet held it valid, to say
  the sinking of merchant ships was legal, to urge
  that a referendum should have preceded our
  declaration of war, to say that war was contrary
  to the teachings of Christ.
• Have the sedition laws become more repressive
  during the war on terror?

15
Freedom of Expression

• Incitement to Riot
• Some speech is construed as being action rather
  than speech. John Stuart Mill gave an example.
  A union foreman approaches a crown of angry
  workers in front of the factory and shouts Burn
  the place down! Should she be arrested,
  although she has only said a could of words?
• Defamation
• communication to third parties of false
  statements about a person that injure the
  reputation of or deter others from associating
  with that person.
• Obscenity
• What is obscene, lewd, and so forth? Ulysses was
  considered obscene, but most people today would
  not consider it to be obscene. Is obscenity in
  the eye of the beholder?
• Fraud
• When is it illegal to make false statements?

16
Property Rights

• Your property is what belongs to you.
• There are some things that ownership does not
  entitle you to do. You cant lure people in from
  the streets, kill them, and bury their bodies in
  the basement. You can violate a right to life.
• If a stream runs through your land, you may not
  pollute it and thereby deprive your neighbor of
  potable water.
• May you build a fence around your property and
  electrify it? May you raise pigs in your
  backyard in the city? May you raise poisonous
  snakes if you are very careful that they dont
  get out?
• Right of eminent domain.

17
Property Rights

• Initial Acquisition of Property
• John Lockes theory.
• The Lockean proviso says we have the right of
  acquisition only if we leave "enough and as good"
  for others.
• Nozick tomato juice in the ocean
• David Schmitz argument. (see pages 213-214)
• Transfer of Property
• How is property justly acquired?
• Reparations how much do you pay back?

18
The Right to Privacy

• Should a psychiatrists records about her patient
  be private, or may she sometimes break
  confidentiality with her patient and tell others?
• Should you be required to reveal to others
  whether you have AIDS, or is it Strictly your
  own business?
• Should others be able to find out how much you
  have in your checking account?
• Should credit agencies be permitted to reveal
  your financial status to others?
• Should others be able to take a picture of you
  without your consent?
• (see pages 216-217)
• Privacy is never mentioned in the Constitution.
  The fourth amendment affirms the right of the
  people to be secure in their persons, houses,
  papers, and effects, against unreasonable
  searches and seizures.
• Do you think privacy rights or more or less
  respected than they were 10 years ago? Why?

19
Welfare Rights

• Do rights arise from human needs?
• Do the hungry have a moral claim on the rest of
  us?
• Are all people on welfare disadvantaged? Should
  that matter?
• What about government inefficiency? (see the
  bottom of page 223 and top of page 224)

20
Positive versus negative rights

• Negative rights They require of others only the
  duty of non-interference.
• Welfare rights require positive actions.
• Specific rights vs. general rights.
• Does welfare give people the right to enslave?
  (See bottom of page 226)

21
Childrens Rights

• Children have positive rights They did not ask
  to be born, and the parents who brought them into
  existence have a duty to take care of them until
  they can take care of themselves.
• Do children have the same negative rights that
  every human being has? Do they have the right
  not to be victims of coercion?
• Children are not the property of the parents.
• The parents are the guardians of their children.