Originally posted Nov. of 2008
This year’s election has focused overwhelmingly on positive rights and hardly touched negative rights at all. The debate has not been one over whether or not positive rights are legitimate but only how far positive rights should go, who should receive the positive rights, and who should pay for them.
But what are positive rights? And what are the differences between positive and negative rights? And why is it so important?
Negative rights used to be the only rights there were, and can still be found in some of our most basic laws, such as those against murder, rape, theft, etc. and in some of our most important documents as the Bill of rights, and the right of Habeas Corpus in the Magna Carta and our own Bill of Rights.
Negative Rights are essentially the rights to be left alone, that you have the right not to be murdered, not to be robbed, not to be interfered with in your attempt to own property or express yourself. They are called negative rights because their effect is to tell others what they can not do to you.
Positive rights on the other hand do not tell us what actions we must not make towards others, but instead insist that we take certain actions to ensure that others are garrenteed their positive rights. Positive rights are still relatively new, but I’m sure you are all familiar with such concepts as the right to healthcare, education, a living wage, and adequate housing, all of which are examples of positive rights.
No one would disagree that healthcare, education, or any of the above are good things, but the reason garunteeing these as rights are called positive rights is because it requires an action rather than an inaction by you to keep these rights for others.
Consider the differences. For another person’s negative rights to be maintained, all you must do is not act (inappropriately) in such a way that would directly harm another person or his property, whereas to keep positive rights intact, you must go out of your way to accomodate another person and provide to them whatever positive rights they have declared, or may be so legislated by the government.
Not only do positive rights create a burden, but they necessarily conflict with your negative rights by interfering with your right to be left alone. Negative rights and positive rights are mutually exclusive, you can not claim negative rights, to be left alone, and at the same time demand positive rights. If we are to have positive rights, we must give up our negative rights.
Besides this, since positive rights, unlike negative rights are not grounded in any foundations upon self ownership and property rights, they become arbitrary and discriminatory so that we are not all equal before the wall. An example of this is the positive right to food, where the person making less than an arbitrary amount or unemployed receives stamps redeemable for food, while those making more than an arbitrary amount receive nothing, but instead are deprived of their negative right to not have their property taken.
Even after this, most positive rights, even if granted can never be satisfied, there is no definate way to say what the proper amount of a given good should be, for example there is a continuous debate as to the quality of education,
Regardless of the outcome of this election, we will need to redouble our efforts and work to resecure our natural, negative rights and fight against arbitrary and discriminatory positive rights.
But what are positive rights? And what are the differences between positive and negative rights? And why is it so important?
Negative rights used to be the only rights there were, and can still be found in some of our most basic laws, such as those against murder, rape, theft, etc. and in some of our most important documents as the Bill of rights, and the right of Habeas Corpus in the Magna Carta and our own Bill of Rights.
Negative Rights are essentially the rights to be left alone, that you have the right not to be murdered, not to be robbed, not to be interfered with in your attempt to own property or express yourself. They are called negative rights because their effect is to tell others what they can not do to you.
Positive rights on the other hand do not tell us what actions we must not make towards others, but instead insist that we take certain actions to ensure that others are garrenteed their positive rights. Positive rights are still relatively new, but I’m sure you are all familiar with such concepts as the right to healthcare, education, a living wage, and adequate housing, all of which are examples of positive rights.
No one would disagree that healthcare, education, or any of the above are good things, but the reason garunteeing these as rights are called positive rights is because it requires an action rather than an inaction by you to keep these rights for others.
Consider the differences. For another person’s negative rights to be maintained, all you must do is not act (inappropriately) in such a way that would directly harm another person or his property, whereas to keep positive rights intact, you must go out of your way to accomodate another person and provide to them whatever positive rights they have declared, or may be so legislated by the government.
Not only do positive rights create a burden, but they necessarily conflict with your negative rights by interfering with your right to be left alone. Negative rights and positive rights are mutually exclusive, you can not claim negative rights, to be left alone, and at the same time demand positive rights. If we are to have positive rights, we must give up our negative rights.
Besides this, since positive rights, unlike negative rights are not grounded in any foundations upon self ownership and property rights, they become arbitrary and discriminatory so that we are not all equal before the wall. An example of this is the positive right to food, where the person making less than an arbitrary amount or unemployed receives stamps redeemable for food, while those making more than an arbitrary amount receive nothing, but instead are deprived of their negative right to not have their property taken.
Even after this, most positive rights, even if granted can never be satisfied, there is no definate way to say what the proper amount of a given good should be, for example there is a continuous debate as to the quality of education,
Regardless of the outcome of this election, we will need to redouble our efforts and work to resecure our natural, negative rights and fight against arbitrary and discriminatory positive rights.
No comments:
Post a Comment