Talk:Rights

Normative

Why is the word "normative" used in the lede and in the second section? ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 07:09, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Because rights are normative? Normative means having to do with what ought to be (compare 'evaluative' or 'prescriptive'; and contrast 'positive' or 'factual' or 'descriptive', meaning having to do with what is). Rights are rules about what ought or ought not be. So rights are normative. Do you object to that word? --Pfhorrest (talk) 02:59, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree that normative doesn't make a lot of sense, or at least isn't correct. I take "normative rule" to mean that rights reflect freedoms or entitlements that "ought" to exist. Simply put, being a "normative rule" is not integral to a right. Or, there are rights which are not normative rules. I can imagine right that everyone agrees should not exist. There could be rights which shoult not be, but are rights nonetheless. While some people feel that rights should reflect normative claims, rights are not necessarily "normative rules," and "normative" should be dropped. Piratejosh85 (talk) 16:20, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Freedom and entitlement are themselves normative concepts: about what ought not be interfered with (freedom), or what ought to be done or given (entitlement). You have a freedom if it not forbidden for you to do something, and you have an entitlement if it is forbidden for you to be denied something. That doesn't say according to whom or by what standard whatever 'ought' to be or is 'forbidden'; those might be legal norms (what ought to be according to law) or social norms (what ought to be according to society) or some deeper kind of moral norms (what ought to be according to whatever ethical foundation you appeal to).

You seem to be taking rights to be necessarily of a legal/social character, and normativity to be necessarily of some kind of deeper moral character, both of which are biased: a natural rights theorist would say the closest thing to "rights which should not be" would be an incorrect claim about what should or should not be, which is a false right, i.e. you don't really have that right to begin with, even if law or society claim you do. A moral relativist on the other hand would claim that the only sense to be made of "ought" is in terms of social or legal norms, so legal or social rights are again (by that theory) either truly normative or don't really exist at all, and no other (i.e natural) sense of rights is deemed valid. The phrasing as it stands does not claim that either of these positions is true, but your line of argument implies that they are both false.

That said, just removing the word "normative" does not itself bias the article, and as I wrote in the long discussion with Stevertigo above I consider the "legal, social, or moral" phrasing to be strictly redundant with "normative" (although it's possible there might be other senses of normativity besides legal, social, and moral ones). So I could be amenable to its removal; however, I think it is useful and informative (especially with the wikilink to the article on normativity), and not harmful, so I argue that it should stay. --Pfhorrest (talk)

Pf., I agree that freedoms and entitlements are normative in the sense you have described them, that freedom and entitlement are themselves claims about what about what you ought not to be denied or what you ought be be given, according to whatever system, legal, moral, whatever. However, taken in that sense, as you point out, the word normative is redundant. And as redundant, it should be cut out. Because the word looks like it denotes something further than what was already said. Particularly, "normative" looks like it means that rights are normative claims in some superlative sense, in some primary sense. I would point to Noscitur a sociis to support this possition. Piratejosh85 (talk) 17:59, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Hey this article is better

Good job of improving it. This is an excellent article and keeps getting better.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 02:53, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Conservative bias

The article sort of glosses over "equality of outcome" and essentially states that socialists believe everyone should receive equal goods and services. Considering that the source for this is in fact a conservative (perhaps even paleoconservative considering the full text of the source) it should be taken with a grain of salt, and certainly should not be the definition used in this article. Of course, this article is not about equality of outcome, so maybe there should be no definitions on this page. Theshibboleth (talk) 22:20, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

This article is incorrect. Conservatives do not expect equal and fair rules. There is no such thing as equal and fair. There is agreed upon and consistent rules, that we want to held accountable to as drafted in the constitution. We can not be equal, we will not be equal, and that is just the nature of things. The strong will always dominate the weak. The rich will always be rich unless they are stupid. The smart will always dominate the stupid. Fairness is a fairy tail that we tell our children. There is no utopia, we will never get there, no matter how dictatorial the statists believe they can be. Liberals believe that their views should dominate because they think we can all be equal. They think government is the answer to all the problems. So when they don't get their entitlements they riot and seek to bring down the government. The masses are wrong most of the time. a mob mentality born of irresponsibility. The group is stronger than the individual, but no one want to take responsibility for the consequences. Who pays for the entitlements, everyone but the poor, who gets them, the poor. The problem is that there are so many poor who have given up on working smart, and putting in the effort needed to lift themselves out of poverty, they fall back and accept dependency on the government and entitlements. We are nearing the tipping point were the poor outnumber the producers. The rich will always be rich, they will move their wealth to where it is safe. They will not invest in a society that does not provide incentives. Increasing the taxes on the producers and the rich (owners/jobs providers) drags the middle class down, and disengages the rich. --74.106.238.59 (talk) 21:28, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Be that as it may or not, where does the article explicitly contradict that view? Please not that not asserting that view in the article's own voice is not the same as contradicting it; Wikipedia articles must maintain a neutral point of view and cannot take a stance, either for or against, any controversial position. If you see something that is against that position, it should be corrected; but just not being unilaterally for it doesn't make the article incorrect. --Pfhorrest (talk) 09:06, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I am saying that conservatives don't expect equal and fair rules. The article takes a bias stance that suggests that conservatives believe fairness and equality can be implemented across the board. Is that neutral? Espousing a bias for equality when reality is there is no such thing. Fairness is relative, we are looking for rules that applied to all, but suggesting that many ignore the rules and there is no honest broker to ensure fairness. The justice department is biased toward the pursuit toward equality, but is picking a choosing who get justice and therefore is biasing the rules and playing field. Those in power make the rules, they don't write them to be fair, then make it so they have the advantage, understand the loop holes, and how to game the system. --Mtnewc19 (talk) 19:36, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

It is a biased position to say that "reality is there is no such thing" as equality. If you think the attribution of support for equality of opportunity to conservatives and libertarians is unsupported, we can put a {{fact}} tag on it, although it seems like a "sky is blue" kind of issue to me. --Pfhorrest (talk) 01:24, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand how you can equate freedom and entitlement? Freedom is our right to do as we choose within reason. Where entitlements are obligations on the government. Rights are inherent and natural freedoms that people and the government must respect and defend. Entitlements are promises by government to be provided to all eligible. The key word is eligible, only those deemed by government who determines are the beneficiaries of government goods and services. Government is limited by the people, not the all powerful who grant rights to us. --Mtnewc19 (talk) 19:54, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Nothing is equating freedom and entitlement. Different people use the term "rights" to mean different things, and the article can't declare either of them correct. Some people use "rights" to mean "freedoms", as in what is allowed of people. Others use "rights" to mean "entitlements", as in what is owed to people. So the article says that they are freedoms OR entitlements; they're at least one of those things, we're not definitively saying which.

Also, your understanding of the relationship between the natural-legal distinction, and the claim-liberty distinction, is lacking. For example, do you hold that you have an inherent right to be free from assault? If so, you hold that you have a natural claim against assault; you are entitled, naturally and without any government intervention, not to be assaulted.

The article as it stands is mostly an explanation of these different senses of "right". You might want to read it more thoroughly before critiquing it further. --Pfhorrest (talk)

Positive versus Negative Rights

The short discussion on positive versus negative rights seems a bit inaccurate and doesn't really describe the same thing as covered under the specific topic "Negative and Positive Rights". In particular, the example given about voting in Australia versus the United States is probably the wrong example. In the United States, there is both a positive and negative right to vote (under the various parts of the US Constitution, the 14th Amendment, and subsequent court decisions, the government not only can't stand in the way of you voting but has an obligation to make it possible for you to vote). However, what is described as a "positive right" to vote in Australia is not actually a right, but an obligation or duty. The analogy would be a law saying that you must serve in the military if drafted -- we would not call this your "positive right" to serve in the military.

In contrast, the article "Negative and Positive Rights" describes the distinction as:

"Adrian has a negative right to x against Clay if and only if Clay is prohibited from acting upon Adrian in some way regarding x. In contrast, Adrian has a positive right to x against Clay if and only if Clay is obliged to act upon Adrian in some way regarding x. A case in point, if Adrian has a negative right to life against Clay, then Clay is required to refrain from killing Adrian; while if Adrian has a positive right to life against Clay, then Clay is required to act as necessary to preserve the life of Adrian."

The difference here is basically that, where governments are concerned, positive individual rights impose an obligation on the government to do something. A negative right, by contrast, imposes on the government a prohibition on doing something regarding that individual. In other words, the "right to free speech" is a negative right because it prohibits the government from interfering with free speech -- it doesn't create a right for you to speak that you do not have to exercise.

Are there any objections to changing this section accordingly? Epstein's Mother (talk) 19:29, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm wondering what Pfhorrest thinks. My sense about voting is that it is both a right and a duty; it is hard to separate out which part of it is a "right" (ie, a benefit) versus what part is an "obligation" (ie, a chore). I do not think you can equate voting with military service -- two different animals. But the discussion about Adrian and Clay seems right.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 20:03, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not attached to the voting example, but I think the idea it's trying to convey is that while in the US, people have liberty rights about voting both positive (to vote) and negative (to not vote) -- that is, either action or omission is permitted -- in Australia people only have the positive right (to vote) and not the negative right (to not vote). The absence of a liberty right is the same thing as an obligation (if you're not permitted to P then you're obligated not to P), so Epstein's Mom has got it going on is right that that means Australians are obligated to vote.

I can see where that technicality might be confusing to laypeople, but I'm not sure any alternate example can be any clearer, because in any case we want some example where, for some subject P, people somewhere are permitted both to P and not to P that is the question, while people elsewhere are permitted to P but not to not P; and no matter what P is, that will mean that the latter group are obligated to P. --Pfhorrest (talk) 03:15, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Addendum: It occurs to me that a difference between the Adrain & Clay example and the voting rights example is that the former speaks of claim rights while the latter speaks of liberty rights. The positive-negative distinction is usually (but not necessarily) brought up in context of claim rights, and I don't think an example in that context will have the same issue. Some kind of welfare issue would probably be the best-recognized example here; where in one jurisdiction people may not be deprivation of some good in their possession (a negative claim right), but are not entitled to the provision of it (a positive claim right), while in a different jurisdiction people are also entitled to the provision of it. --Pfhorrest (talk) 03:24, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Rights claimants (unborn/ fetuses)

Under the header "rights" and under rights claimants the unborn/ fetuses are not on there and they are people too. They deserve a place