Rights are the fundamental entitlements and freedoms that individuals possess, often protected by laws or societal norms, ensuring their autonomy and well-being. These include civil, political, economic, and social rights.

Introduction

• Rights are the fundamental building blocks of a just and equitable society. They are more than just legal concepts; they are the bedrock upon which individual liberty, personal development, and happiness are built. Rights are the entitlements or justified claims that individuals possess, and they play a pivotal role in shaping both the individual and society at large.
• The concept that individuals have rights and that these rights mark limits on what may be done to them by the state or in the name of other conceptions is a familiar position in modern political philosophy.
• The Declaration of Independence (1776) was among the first to state that certain rights were inalienable, marking the beginning of a moral movement that still impacts society today.
• Simultaneously, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) developed an equivalent notion of rights.
• These two documents are considered the most influential political documents of the modern age, with the notion of rights as the central concept in their political foundations.
• This chapter provides a comprehensive analysis of rights, including kinds of rights, the relationship between rights and duties, and different theories of rights.
• The interest in rights extended beyond the 17th and 18th centuries; the second half of the 19th century also saw a major resurgence of interest in human rights.
• Rights play a central role in political life, such as the civil rights movement from the 1960s onward, which used rights as a cornerstone to rebuild society.
• Issues regarding women’s rights and disadvantaged minorities have been debated in recent times.
• With advances in medical technology, issues like euthanasia (right to die) have emerged as matters of discussion.
• Discussions about using animals in research and testing are often framed in terms of animal rights.
• Sexual choice is often framed in terms of gay and lesbian rights.
• Human rights have become a major concern in recent times.
• Discourse around rights has proven to be a powerful tool for moral change in the 20th and 21st centuries.

What are Rights?

• Rights, in essence, represent the claims of individuals for their self-development and self-realization. These claims are not abstract; they are recognized and upheld by society itself. Without a societal framework, rights lose their meaning and relevance. It’s important to note that rights are not absolute; they can be subject to restrictions when it serves the broader interests of society.
• Rights are universal, meant to be extended to all members of society. However, they come with a caveat – the exercise of rights is conditional upon the performance of duties and obligations. In other words, rights go hand in hand with responsibilities, creating a harmonious social fabric.
• These claims of individuals are not arbitrary. They must be rooted in rational considerations, possess universal acceptability, and promote the common good. This intrinsic connection between rights and ethical considerations makes them an essential element of a just and balanced society.

Definitions of Rights

Various scholars and thinkers have defined rights in unique ways, offering distinct perspectives on their nature and role in society:

• Harold Laski describes rights as “conditions of social life without which one cannot seek to be their best self,” emphasizing their role in personal development and self-realization.
• T.H. Green views rights as “power claimed and recognized as contributory to the common good,” highlighting their positive impact on the greater society.
• Dr. Beniprasad emphasizes that rights are “social conditions necessary for the development of personality,” underlining their role in shaping individual identity and growth.
• Ronald Dworkin sees rights as “trumps,” signifying their ability to override other considerations or interests.
• Edmund Burke offers a more skeptical view, considering natural rights as “metaphysical abstractions,” suggesting their intangible nature.

• A right is the entitlement to get one’s due, meaning to receive what is due to someone as a human, citizen, individual, or member of a group.
• To have a right means being entitled to do something or to have something done, such as voting, speaking, or accessing healthcare.
• Rights are different from obligations; having a right gives you the choice whether or not to exercise it (e.g., the right to vote does not oblige you to vote).
• Rights and obligations are connected; when you decide to exercise a right, others have an obligation to allow you to do so.
• The justification for a right arises from social membership and the legal system to which both the right-holder and right-observers belong.
• Not all rights are legal; there are also moral rights and ethical rights, which are justified on legal, moral, ethical, or human grounds.
• A right must be justified as something necessary for the individual to play their proper part in a social group.
• A claim to a right is justified if the individual is able and willing to respect the rights of other members of the group.
• Rights express a relationship between the right-holder and the right-observers.
• From the right-holder’s perspective, a right is permission to act, exist, enjoy, or demand.
• From the right-observer’s perspective, a right imposes a correlative duty or obligation, either negative (refrain from interfering) or positive (assist in the successful exercise of the right).
• To have a right entails certain responsibilities.
• This leads to the distinction between negative rights (freedom from interference) and positive rights (the right to assistance).

• Negative rights entail non-interference from society at large.
• Examples of negative rights include the right to liberty, life, and property.
• The right to life prevents others from killing, but does not obligate them to assist in living a full or happy life.
• Positive rights impose obligations on others or the state to do something for the fuller enjoyment of rights.
• Examples of positive rights include the right to health and basic subsistence, which require positive interferenceto ensure enjoyment.
• Negative rights restrict actions and entail negative obligations (non-interference).
• Positive rights impose positive obligations on right-observers to assist in the exercise of the right.
• Rights can be classified in various ways, such as moral, legal, human rights, or civil, political, social rights.

• Civil rights are linked to the struggle for equality of African Americans during the 1950s and 1960s, aiming to secure equal citizenship in a liberal democratic state.
• Civil rights are the basic legal rights necessary for equal citizenship, including personal, political, and **economic rights.
• No contemporary thinker argues that civil rights can be denied based on race, colour, sex, religion, national origin, or disability.
• Until the mid-20th century, civil rights were distinguished from political rights. Civil rights included rights like property ownership, contract enforcement, and freedom of religion, but not the right to vote, hold office, or testify in court (political rights).
• The civil-political distinction was conceptually and morally unstable and used to classify women as citizens with limited rights compared to men.
• As this ideology broke down, the civil-political distinction became increasingly implausible, with the principle of equal rights for all citizens becoming more widely accepted.
• The American civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s fought for first-generation civil rights claims, such as the right to legal recourse, contract enforcement, and the right to vote.
• Second-generation rights (19th century) were economic welfare rights, such as the right to food, shelter, medical care, and employment, which ensured the effectiveness of civil, political, and legal rights.
• Some argue that second-generation rights should not be classified under civil rights, as they require government intervention and cannot be secured through legislation alone.
• Third-generation claims (20th century) focus on rights of cultural membership, such as language rights for cultural minorities and indigenous peoples’ rights to preserve their culture and political autonomy.
• Third-generation rights overlap with first-generation rights, like religious liberty, but are broader and more controversial.
• Rights can also be classified based on legal and moral grounds.

• Laws differ from ordinary life or moral discourse in that the truth of a legal statement depends on the acts of certain authorities.
• What is legal or illegal is determined by legal authorities, and not by moral meaning.
• The ultimate touchstone of legal statements is the acts of legal authorities.
• Courts define terms in a certain manner, and whether they align with moral meanings is irrelevant.
• Legal authorities use the term ‘right’ to refer to four different properties:
  1. The correlate of a legal duty (claim)
  2. The absence of duty (privilege or liberty)
  3. The capacity to change legal relations (power)
  4. The protection against change in one’s legal position (immunity)

• In ordinary language, the term ‘right’ is used in at least two ways:
  1. Saying someone has the right to something means that others have a duty to act in a certain manner towards the right-holder.
  2. Saying someone has a right to do something means that the right-holder is morally free to do so, without it being wrong.
• These two uses correspond to Dworkin’s (1977) ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ senses of rights.
• The standard interpretation of a claim-right is that another person has a duty to act in a certain way with respect to the object or interest to which the right-holder has a right.
• The core idea of a right is that an object or interest protected by a duty has things considered to be good, and having a right means one’s interest in that thing deserves protection.
• Not all goods or interests generate rights; a right is attached only when there is a particularly important moral reasonfor protecting the good or interest.
• Dworkin’s (1977) claim: individual rights are political trumps held by individuals, meaning a collective goal is insufficient to justify denying what an individual wants or imposing harm upon them.
• Raz (1995) claims that a right exists if an aspect of an individual’s well-being is a sufficient reason for holding someone under a duty.
• Political theories differ in the importance of certain goods or interests for humans and therefore in their ascription of particular rights, but the core idea is protecting important individual interests against broader moral considerations.
• Hartney (1991) argues that giving rights to society would annihilate competing individual rights, but overlooks the issue of individuals as culturally embedded entities and the idea of ‘good’ rooted in culture.