Talk:Rights/Archive 2

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Lede tweaks

(In response to Stevertigo above, but moved to a new section since this part isn't really about fundamental rights).

I did say "partially reverted", and I explained the other changes I made in their respective edit summaries; the redaction of the fundamental rights chunk was the only thing I thought big enough to warrant creating a talk section above and beyond the edit summary comments. I figured if anybody had any thoughts on the other edits, they would mention them here, as you have. Here is my point-by-point reply:

  • As I said in my edit summary, I objected to the phrase "constructions of principle" because it sounds biased against natural rights. That is, a natural rights theorist would contest the claim that rights are "constructions" of any sort, especially that they are merely social or legal constructions. However, I liked your introduction of the word "principle" in there, as that seems to succinctly get to one of the core features of any conception of rights, so I changed "constructions of principle" to just "principles" to keep that improvement without sacrificing neutrality.
  • I actually struggled a bit with the wording of the "legal, social, or moral" phrase at the end of that sentence, and I'm open to tweaking it further. I moved it because I liked how your edit more straightforwardly said "rights are _____" right off the bat (even though I didn't like how you filled in that blank), rather than the iffy-sounding "rights are variously construed as...". I thought it better to say what rights uncontroversially are (normative principles, that is, hard rules about what ought or ought not be done), and then mention the variation in more specific definitions. Looking back on it now, I realize that "freedoms or entitlements" in the version prior to your edits was supposed to be part of the varying construals (e.g. "variously construed as [...] freedoms or entitlements"), so having that phrase come before "variously construed as" breaks the logical form of the sentence a bit. I have an idea for fixing that though, and also eliminating the possibly problematic "character" phrasing I introduced. See below the bullet points.
  • The "freedom or entitlement" phrase is meant to capture both concepts of claim rights and liberty rights: a liberty right is a (legal, social, or moral) principle that someone is free to do something, and a claim right being a (legal, social, or moral) principle that someone is entitled to something. If you are entitled to something -- if something is to be provided to you on principle -- then you have a claim right to that something, and that claim right is the principle which entitles you to it. Hence, "principles of entitlement" for "claim rights".
  • As for "normative", that word is not restricted to the sense of "social norms". A "normative" judgement is a judgement about how things ought to be (as opposed to about how things are, which is usually termed "positive" when contrasted with "normative"; compare also "prescriptive" or "evaluative" vs "descriptive" or "factual"). Despite its similarity (and relation) to the word "normal", it is not about what is common, average, or typical, but about what is right (and conversely, wrong), whatever that turns out to mean. One can quite coherently express the normative opinion that what is common, average, or typical is usually wrong, without any self-contradiction. "Social norms" are just those things society holds to be right or wrong; but again, a natural rights theorist, or more broadly any moral universalist, would contest that society, law, or custom are not the ultimate authority on what is right and wrong, yet still believe in "norms" -- just, norms of a natural or universal character rather than a social character.

And speaking of "character", here is my suggestion for revising the sentence to remove that wording, and fix the distribution of "variously construed as" over "freedoms or entitlements" as it was supposed to be. How's this:

Rights are normative principles, variously construed as legal, social, or moral freedoms or entitlements.

It's basically what was there prior to your edits, plus your and my added wikilinkage, and the "normative principles" phrasing which straight out states what is common to all the various conceptions of rights. Thoughts? --Pfhorrest (talk) 04:27, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Why would a "natural rights theorist" object to the term "construction?" Perhaps we should find one and ask them what their objection would be. Sorry can't respond further at the moment. -Stevertigo (w | t | e) 22:46, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Well, I'm a type of natural rights proponent myself, so if you want to ask me about my own objections feel free, but my person opinion isn't really relevant to Wikipedia.
Read the article on natural rights here on wiki for the full details on natural rights theory, but I'll sum it up for you briefly. The general objection of any natural rights theorist would be that genuine rights are not constructed by laws or societies, but merely recognized (or not) by them. The basic thesis of natural rights theory is that what is or is not a right is an objective matter just like what the sum of 2 and 2 is, and all that laws or societies can do is recognize or deny those rights; they can't create or destroy them. According to natural rights theory, if a society doesn't call something a right, it's because they don't acknowledge that it's a right (perhaps because it really isn't), not because they haven't made it a right.
There are many different meta-ethical bases for rights claimed by different natural rights theories. Some attribute them to the edicts of a god, some say they are laws of pure reason akin to logical or mathematical truths, etc; but all natural rights theorists agree that they are not merely things made up by laws or societies, but objective things which are discovered, not constructed.
Please note that I am not pushing for this to be stated as the uncontroversial truth in the article; I'm merely objecting that the term "constructed" appears to uncontroversially rule it out, which violates WP:NPOV by biasing the article against a notable position on a controversial subject. --Pfhorrest (talk) 23:59, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Doesn't "natural rights" exist to purposefully contain deist concepts? In which I suppose the difference between a construction and an inalienable right might mean something. I dunno. "Normative principle" works for now, until someone comes along I suppose who could argue that there is nothing normative about a concept that has undergone such dramatic changes and shifts over a certain short period of time. Regards, -Stevertigo (w | t | e) 01:11, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
There's nothing especially deist about the concept of natural rights. A number of notable deists such as Thomas Jefferson supported the idea, sure, but it didn't originate with them. John Locke, from whom Jefferson drew much inspiration, was a Puritan, most certainly not a deist. Not all natural rights proponents are religious either: many contemporary ones derive their concept of natural rights from reason alone, in a manner similar to Kant's Categorical Imperative.
Either way, my point before was that there is not consensus within the relevant academic community on whether rights are natural or artificial, whether they are discovered or constructed, and so we can't say definitively that they are one or the other without violating WP:NPOV. If we made this main Rights article call them "constructions" and such, we would be relegating natural conceptions of rights to the ghetto of their own page, which would violate WP:POVFORK as well as WP:NPOV. How would you like it if a natural rights theorist less concerned about neutrality than I am came here and wanted to make the lede say "Rights are inalienable freedoms or entitlements inherent to all people, discovered by the exercise of practical reason" or something? That would be NPOV in the other direction, and I would object to its inclusion here as well, even though I personally (more or less) agree with it.
Also, I think you still misunderstand the word "normative". Concepts of rights are about normative things, which is to say that about how things ought or ought not be. Nothing about that fact means that such concepts cannot change dramatically or quickly. Consider an example on a small scale: a poor man believes that it is not wrong for him to steal from those who have more than him. That belief is a normative belief: he believes that something is not wrong, and "wrong" is a normative concept, about how things ought to be. Then, over the course of a few years, a string of fortunes befall him and he ends up a small business owner. Other poor people steal from him. Now seeing what it's like on the other side of such actions, he changes his mind and now believes that stealing is wrong. That is also a normative belief, contrary to his previous one. So his normative beliefs have changed, rather quickly, in just a few years. What is it about that change which makes you think his beliefs therefore were not truly normative? Normative does not mean "normal", "usual", "common", "average", or anything like that. --Pfhorrest (talk) 05:14, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Note, I was using "deist" in an inexact way as an inclusifier, Puritans noted, for all whom regard God as the originator of all things - rights and higher laws among them. I understand the argument you make as far as excess determinacy in philosophy - there needs to be academic agreement before we can state for ourselves that such things are natural or otherwise. But just as Max Planck noted, scientific theories are not accepted as much as the ones who object must first die off. ;-) But humour aside there is also another argument for determinancy which is that we cant allow our articles to start off with WP:nonce introductions, such that may reflect only the ambiguities of a term. Though I'm not clear on how exactly to change the article, I may still easily argue that the current version lacks artistry. Here of course we are neither being overdeterminate, nor indeterminate, just being intelligent in finding the right wording for the general abstract aspects of the term, and set aside its major divisions as secondary. Will read the rest in the morning. Regards, -Stevertigo (w | t | e) 09:49, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Lede tweaks again

Regarding User:Stevertigo's recent edits, I'm afraid we're going to be rehashing some of the same ground again:

  • Rights are not universally accepted as constructions and calling them such is biased. "Principles" is neutral (those principles might be constructed or not), "constructions of principle" is biased.
  • "Moral or natural origins" doesn't cover it. Plenty of legal rights are not claimed on the basis of any moral grounding: they are self-admittedly pure legal constructions. Likewise, some social rights are said to arise just from societal agreement, with no deeper moral basis. (E.g. who has the right of way at an intersection? That's just a matter of convention and/or law). Furthermore, in this context, "natural" and "moral" mean the same thing: appealing to some universal moral framework of some sort or another, rather than any mere social or legal construction. I'll admit that "moral" is actually a slightly imprecise term for this, since some people conceive of morality itself as constructed and relative, but "natural" would be more confusing for laypeople to understand, and I think the imprecision is a safer route than the confusion. Maybe "ethical" might work better? "Legal, social, or ethical"...
  • An issue of grammar: rights themselves are not statements. There can be statements of rights, but a right itself, whatever it's nature (legal, social, moral), is more than just a string of words. That error throws the whole rest of that sentence off: rights don't support freedoms or entitlements, they are those freedoms or entitlements. A statement of rights is a statement in support of some freedoms or entitlements: a statement in support of some rights. By analogy: a statement of fact, even if true, is not the fact itself. The fact would be a fact whether or not anyone stated it; the statement is just an indication of someone's assent to that fact. Now, if reality were constructivist in nature, maybe stating facts in the right way could make them so, which is basically what constructivist accounts of rights claim about rights: but even in that case, the statement would cause or create the fact (or right), it still wouldn't be it.
  • The phrase "legal and societal" is either incomplete or redundant, depending on how it is meant. In conjunction with my second point above, I'd just eliminate this phrase entirely.
  • A privilege and a freedom are the same thing in the established rights theory terminology. Both mean "permission" or "liberty", loosely "there is nothing wrong/taboo/illegal about that."

So, about the only part of these edits I'm ok with is the "In philosophy and law..." lead-in to the first sentence. I'm going to revert the rest until we can settle on a consensus here. --Pfhorrest (talk) 20:58, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I think you are misconstruing the idea of what a "construction" is. Keep in mind that the word "right" points not to a principle, but to some formulation which, in a certain framework, is claimed to be based in principle. Rights are not principles: Rights are rights, and principles are principles. While some rights rise to the level of principle, others merely strive for such, and represent a kind of status quo in which law is developing a recognition of principle.
Rights indeed do have a normative aspect and quality, such as to both represent social norms and to normalize social order. But, I could argue as you do from the point of view of the rare exception and say that "normative" doesn't cover all the bases. In that context, one could say that rights are not "normative" just as they are not "statements." In fact they are both, as they have both developmental and declarative aspects. Your points are very well made, and I agree with about half of them. But arguing from the exception doesn't work in a context where we are trying to be constructive in formulating explanations which cover most of the bases without claiming to cover all bases, while still avoiding the problems of WP:NONCE. -Stevertigo (w | t | e) 01:29, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Some more direct responses. Apologies, I didn't have time last night to go into much detail:
  1. Phorrest: "Plenty of legal rights are not claimed on the basis of any moral grounding: they are self-admittedly pure legal constructions." - Pure legal constructions may be called "legal rights", but are these actually "rights?" The term "rights" is generally reserved for statements of higher relevance.
  2. Phorrest: "Likewise, some social rights are said to arise just from societal agreement, with no deeper moral basis." - Keep in mind again there is a trend away from localism, such that local "rights" are not actually "rights," but norms. The term "right of way" does not itself refer to a "right" but a convention, although in a dispute the "right" goes to the party who has adhered to such conventions.
  3. Phorrest: "Furthermore, in this context, "natural" and "moral" mean the same thing: appealing to some universal moral framework of some sort or another, rather than any mere social or legal construction." - I thought of that, but regarded the usage of "natural" to refer to the concept of laws which are innate ("natural"), and laws which have been developed ("moral").
  4. Phorrest: "I'll admit that "moral" is actually a slightly imprecise term for this, since some people conceive of morality itself as constructed and relative, but "natural" would be more confusing for laypeople to understand, and I think the imprecision is a safer route than the confusion. Maybe "ethical" might work better? "Legal, social, or ethical"..." - You deal with it well. My input in this appears to be going toward the direction of using a split definition, as a single cohesive definition that applies to the various contexts doesn't seem to work due to the variance in concept that comes with variances in scope. This split definition would deal with "rights" heirarchically from high "principle" down to social and local "convention" or "norm." While I understand that "morality" doesn't please everyone, and that "ethics" may work better in this context, I should point out that "morality" can be thought of as natural just as much as it can be thought of as "constructed," and in terms of language has deeper and more gravitated connotations than the more intellectual "ethics." -Stevertigo (w | t | e) 19:33, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for the elaborate response. I'm having some trauma in real life at the moment that has left me unable to think very well. I will reply in detail once I manage to regain my sanity. Thanks. --Pfhorrest (talk) 06:19, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
Sorry to hear that. Take your time. -Stevertigo (w | t | e) 16:42, 19 June 2010 (UTC)


(cont'd.)

Ok, feeling a little better now. Lets see:
  1. "Legal rights" are the rights people have according to law; and the law does not necessarily appeal to anything beyond itself for authority. A purely legal construction which claims that someone is permitted or entitled to something is still a "right" in the sense of that word used by people who claim rights are nothing but legal constructions. A philosophical anarchist or the like, someone who denied that laws have any real normative import (see below for more on what I mean by "normative import"), might say that legal rights aren't true rights unless they are codifications of some deeper moral principles. That's a point of view that I personally am inclined to agree with; but it's still a point of view, and a very controversial one, so we can't present it as the unilateral truth in this article, no matter how much we agree with it.
  2. Likewise "social rights" are just the rights people have according to social contracts: you can argue just as with legal rights that these aren't really rights, and I might agree, but some people say that they are (e.g. James Madison), and we can't exclude that point of view from the article. This one in particular, PirateJosh fought for inclusion of, back when the article only mentioned legal right and natural rights.
    • Just as a subnote here and a follow-up to point 1 above, I think you're still misunderstanding the term "norm". It doesn't mean what is common, typical, or average: it means what ought to be. See Norm (philosophy) for more detail. "Social norms" are what society says ought to be; social rights are a type of social norm; in particular, they are socially normative principles. More on principles below...
      (cutting in) I understood that you might be using a specialistic philosophical definition of "norm" that in certain ways contradicts the actual common definition. Its not clear that this particular usage of "norm" can carry over into the legal context, or that it even fits what legal and social conceptions of "rights" are trying to convey. There is an active component implicit in your term "norm" which asserts an active principle for "rights" and thus seems to act as the essential fulcrum for your conceptualization. I don't think its necessary to promote the usage of an active concept here, and in any case, its not clear (again) how a non-standard philosophical term can be used in this context without generating some normal degree of ambiguity. Regards, -Stevertigo 05:06, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
      I acknowledge that in common language today people use "normal" to mean "typical", but even in your own wiktionary link for "norm" by itself, only the phrase "the norm" is defined as having anything to do with typicality; aside from the two highly specialized mathematical senses, both the sociological and the philosophical definition have to do with prescriptive rules. Aside from that, the "prescriptive rule" sense is the older sense: the term derives from Latin norma meaning “a carpenter's square" (whence the mathematical uses come, via geometry), or "a rule", "a pattern", or "a precept”. I suspect the modern connotations of "typical" come from the common assumption that if everybody else is doing it, it must be right.
      All that aside though, the word used in the article is not "norm" itself but "normative", which is not used colloquially at all and so only has specialized academic meanings. The wikipedia article the word in this article is linked to says "Generically, it means relating to an ideal standard or model", or more specifically, "In philosophy, normative statements affirm how things should or ought to be", "In the social sciences, the term 'normative' has broadly the same meaning to its usage in philosophy", and "In law, as an academic discipline, the term 'normative' is used to describe the way something ought to be done". All of which capture the sense that is meant in this article.
      But you know, now that I look at it, I think it might read better just to say "legal, social, or ethical" in place of "normative" instead of parenthetically right after it, anyway, and that seems like it would resolve this part of our debate at least. What say you? --Pfhorrest (talk) 06:12, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
      Say I that we are at the point where we can work on a draft version and point to particular words and phrases that we like or else think need work. It helps that neither of us is particularly attached to anything but the most explanatory and conceptual language. It occurs to me that the word "rights" does indeed have an active/activist component - a component that I suggest is not intrinsic to the normative uses of the word "norm," but which nevertheless needs communicating here. I'll write up a couple variations down below. -Stevertigo (w | t | e) 18:44, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
  3. You say you are distinguishing between "natural" as "innate", and "moral" as "developed" (would you say "artificial"?). That shows a different bias, because many people (moral realism and moral universalism of all varieties) believe that there is a "natural", in the sense of "innate" or at least "not artificial", basis to all of morality, and natural rights are just an expression of that. (Of course, judging from your next point, you are well aware of that point of view). Of course that's just one side of that controversy, and others say morality is entirely an artificial human creation, and rights along with the rest of it. That's why I admitted that saying "moral" as a way of including natural rights was not quite precise, and was trading that imprecision off the confusion that "natural" might bring to laypeople not familiar with the phrases "natural law" or "natural rights". I'm not dead-set on the phrasing here: I'm happy with either "natural" or "moral" (or "ethical") as the term to include natural rights into the definition, but I would lean toward "moral" or "ethical", since in contrast with "legal" or "social" it's pretty clear (IMO) that that means some standard of ethics or morality deeper than mere law or social convention.
  4. Regarding a "split definition", the entire first section of this article is basically about that: all the different ways that different people have defined rights. That all used to be in the lede, but User:Tomwsulcer argued that that was overwhelming to dive straight into that, so it got moved into the first section (with lots of hand-holding verbiage around it), and the lede got trimmed down to a summary of that. Here is my breakdown of the meaning of the current lede, word by word:
    Rights are...
    • Normative - Meaning, rights are about what ought or ought not to be. Acceptable synonyms would be "prescriptive" or perhaps "evaluative". This does not mean that rights are about "normalizing" in the sense of bringing behavior into conformity with some common, typical, or average standard; it only means that rights are about what is good or bad, right or wrong, etc, however you construe good, bad, right, wrong, etc. Maybe what is common, typical, or average is by definition good and right; maybe obedience to the law is; maybe neither of those things are, but something else is; saying "normative" doesn't make any judgement about that, it only says "about good and bad, right and wrong, whatever that means". The different things that might mean are listed at the end of the sentence, though they used to be listed here in place of this word "normative".
    • Principles - Meaning, rights are hard and fast rules. When you say that someone has a right to something, you are saying something about what must be, not just about what should be but maybe it would be ok if it wasn't. If you that claim something is a right, that means you think it is absolutely not acceptable for that something to be denied, not just that it would be nice if it wasn't denied. (Of course principles might also be about what must be in a factual sense too, such as, for example, the principles of some physics theory; but per the point above, we're talking about normative things here, thus normative principles about what must be in some prescriptive or evaluative sense of "must").
    ...of...
    • Freedom - Meaning, some rights are about what you are privileged or permitted to do. That is to say, some rights are about what is not wrong (again, for some unspecified sense of "wrong"). Since rights are principles, this means that if you have a right in the sense of a freedom to something, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing or having that something, not just that it's "mostly harmless" or some such.
    ...or...
    • Entitlement - Meaning, some rights are about what you are owed or due, what others have an obligation or duty to give to you. That is to say, some rights are about what it is wrong (in some sense or another) for others to do (or not do) to or for you. And again, since rights are principles, if you have a right in the sense of an entitlement to something, then it is absolutely wrong for someone to deny you that something, not just that it's mean or not nice or something like that.
    ..., of...
    • Legal - Meaning, some rights are claimed on the basis of the law saying someone has those rights. The law might say that someone has those rights because of social convention or some deeper normative framework, or it might not, but either way, sometimes the law says that someone has some right, and in those cases, that someone has that legal right.
    • Social - Meaning, some rights are claimed on the basis of the bulk of society tacitly agreeing that someone has those rights. Society might say that because of some deeper normative framework, or they might not, but either way, sometimes society says that someone has some right, and in those cases, that someone has that social right.
    ...or...
    • Ethical - Meaning, some rights are claimed on the basis of some purported natural, universal moral truth about what is actually right or wrong. Of course lots of people disagree about what those universal moral truths are, but if someone claims that someone has a right because this or that is actually right or wrong in some realist, universalist, natural, un-constructed, non-artificial sense, then he is claiming that someone has an ethical, moral, or natural right. Whether that someone really has that right, of course, depends on whether the ethical system being appealed to is correct or not, and that's a whole other can of worms.
    ...origin.
    I would argue that strictly speaking, both "freedom" and "entitlement" have the concept of "principle" built into them, and likewise, all three of "legal", "social", and "ethical" have the concept of "normative" built into them. The most succinct definition would be "Rights are normative principles", and strictly speaking that would imply all the rest (legal systems, social convention, and ethical theories are all types of normative framework, and freedoms and entitlements are both types of principle, so those two words cover it all, technically). A more expanded definition, similar to something we had before, would be "Rights are legal, social, or ethical freedoms or entitlements"; once you've said that, saying "normative principles" is entirely redundant. But your first edits here introduced that word "principles" into this, and I liked that, since it gets to the heard of what rights are; so even though it's technically redundant, I think saying "normative principles" along with "freedoms or entitlements" and "legal, social, or ethical" is good.
    I would be happy with adding on another sentence explaining that in simpler English, maybe. Something like "That is to say, rights are rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory." In fact, I like that so much I think I'll add it right now, but if you have a strong objection to that please say so and I'll revert it.
Hopefully that explains my side of things in sufficient detail. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:24, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Drafts

Current:

"In philosophy and law, rights are normative principles of freedom or entitlement, of legal, social, or ethical origin."

Alt 1:

"In philosophy and law, rights are constructions of principle, derived from either moral or natural origins (cf. natural rights), which serve as normative statements in support of legal and societal freedoms, privileges and entitlements."

-Stevertigo (w | t | e) 18:52, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the point of this is (as you say above "we can work on a draft version and point to particular words and phrases that we like or else think need work"), since that's basically what we've been doing already. Most of this talk page is our discussion about objections to particular words. --Pfhorrest (talk) 23:22, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
I think your version is too terse. -Stevertigo (w | t | e) 08:30, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
PS: Ph, I rewrote the lede to compassion. I think its relevant to our disussion here, so please take a look. -Stevertigo (w | t | e) 00:45, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
I don't really see what the relevance of that to our discussion here is, though I have some objections to a few phrases in it myself that I might comment on over there. Would you please explain more clearly what you think that has to do with the this?
Also, I'm not really sure what to say if your only objection to my version of the lede is too terse, especially with the addition of the second sentence that was made before you made that comment. The version labelled "current" above wasn't current when you posted it, and still isn't now. Currently there is:

Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement. That is to say, rights are normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory.

(cutting in) That's not bad. The "principles of" part needs smoothing. The "that is to say" language I dislike because its a bit too conversational, so I prefer m-dash/ie. (just one dot) transitions. "Owed to people" is acutely precise, but if you look deeper, it gets into concepts of ownership and possession that might be more interesting to deal with if opened up - the story about how people have over time claimed rights is essential. The last part "according to...system/convention/theory" is quite good. -Stevertigo (w | t | e) 18:16, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
I've said quite a lot here already about why I object to particular words and phrasings in your version and why I've chosen the particular words in my version and I don't feel like I've really received a proper response to my remarks. To reiterate my objections to your "Alt 1" above:
  • The word "constructions" implies moral constructivism, that rights are something people make, rather than something that "exists" (however much that word may apply to abstract things like rights) independently of human law. That is a biased claim and so can't be allowed into the article, any more than an unqualified claim that rights are "God-given" or "natural" could be allowed in. We can't take a position on that controversy in the article. Upshot: replace "constructions of principle" with just "principles". That leaves us with:

"In philosophy and law, rights are principles, derived from either moral or natural origins (cf. natural rights), which serve as normative statements in support of legal and societal freedoms, privileges and entitlements."

  • The phrase "of moral or natural origins" is incomplete and partially redundant; not all claims of right derive from moral claims, some derive strictly from legal claims or social claims, and many use the terms "moral" and "natural" synonymously in the context of the origin of rights. Upshot: replace "moral or natural" with "legal, social, or moral". (or "or ethical", either is fine by me). This makes the parenthetical c.f. redundant as well, so remove that too, leaving us with:

"In philosophy and law, rights are principles, derived from either legal, social, or moral origins, which serve as normative statements in support of legal and societal freedoms, privileges and entitlements."

  • The word "statements" is inaccurate: whatever rights are, statements can be made about them, asserting them to be, perhaps creating them by doing so, but in any case the statement itself is not the right, but rather it is about the right. Since "normative" is an adjective for "statements" in this version, it has to go along with the noun "statements". Upshot: replace "which serve as normative statements in support of..." with just "which support..." That leaves us with:

"In philosophy and law, rights are principles, derived from either legal, social, or moral origins, which support legal and societal freedoms, privileges and entitlements."

  • But, that whole "support legal and societal" phrase is itself now redundant with the earlier "legal, social, or moral", and it is also inaccurate, because since rights can be wholly legal or social in nature, those kinds of rights don't support legal or social freedoms etc, they are them. Plus sometimes they are moral/natural freedoms etc as well. So, upshot: replace "which support legal and societal" with simply "which are...". which leaves us with:

"In philosophy and law, rights are principles, derived from either legal, social, or moral origins, which are freedoms, privileges and entitlements."

  • The word "privilege" is in one sense redundant with "freedom" (some sources such as Hohfeld use "privilege" to mean "freedom", "permission", or "allowance"), in another sense orthogonal to freedom or entitlement (etymologically a privilege is just a law or right applying to an individual as opposed to the general populace, and thus may confer either freedom or entitlement), and in a third sense is opposite of rights entirely (given a sense of "rights" that implies universality at least within a jurisdiction, as opposed to on an individual basis as with privileges). I think it's best just to leave the word "privileges" out of it entirely. Upshot: remove the word "privileges". This leaves us with:

"In philosophy and law, rights are principles, derived from either legal, social, or moral origins, which are freedoms and entitlements."

  • Now that sounds grammatically weird, so lets move the whole last clause to a bit more natural place in the sentence, and while we're at it, change the conjunction to a disjunction since not every right is a freedom and an entitlement both at the same time; leaving us with:

"In philosophy and law, rights are freedoms or entitlements, principles derived from either legal, social, or moral origins."

  • Which, aside from the prepositional "In philosophy and law" (which I don't really object to, it just seems a little redundant with the "legal, social, or moral"), is only less terse than my version because different word order requiring additional adpositional clauses. Compare:

Rights are freedoms or entitlements, principles derived from either legal, social, or moral origins."

Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement.

Add my second sentence and it's less terse than my corrected version of yours:

Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement. That is to say, rights are normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory.

--Pfhorrest (talk) 06:09, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
Note that I have made a cut-in comment above. -Stevertigo (w | t | e) 05:20, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Overview

Note that your writing is compact, but its also terse. Its better than it was, but I think it needs expansion, ie. how is a "right" different from a "principle" (they are formulated, established, fought for) etc. -Stevertigo (t | log | c) 09:08, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
As the current version says, a right is a kind of principle: specifically, a normative (e.g. legal, social, or moral) principle of freedom or entitlement. I'm not really clear what you want added here. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:29, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
Remember I talked about rights having a story behind them. That's what I want, I want the lede to indicate that rights are not just something that materialized out of nowhere, or just appeared in terse form on some document, but they are concepts of principle which have been debated and fought for and then formulated and established and then defended and upheld. IMHO these are not adequately covered by the word "normative." -Stevertigo (t | log | c) 18:33, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
Ok, so write up a little summary of the history of rights, to follow after the paragraph we've already got, and we'll work out the details of that. The current lede of the "History of rights" section here used to be part of the lede, before that got expanded into its own section. I don't object to reincorporating a summary of that back into the lede again. --Pfhorrest (talk) 22:22, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
Fair enough. -Stevertigo (t | log | c) 01:39, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
Edits

Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement which are regared as established pillars of society and culture.

Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory.

What is this table supposed to mean? It looks like you left before finishing.--Pfhorrest (talk) 01:49, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
I set them up for a contrast and had to go before I could comment. -Stevertigo (t | log | c) 09:05, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Question: What do the reliable sources say about whether or not rights are "concepts of principle which have been debated and fought for and then formulated and established and then defended and upheld"? I'm not interested in debating the philosophy (here)--the goal should be to make our lead conform, as much as possible to the claims found in reliable sources (leaving, of course, room for complex differences between differences in opinions between those sources). In other words, I'm wondering if someone can point to what the consensus of the sources is, not what the principles of the editors (esp. Stevertigo) are. Qwyrxian (talk) 05:21, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

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)

The article is flawed

It assumes that rights are inherent in the development of civilization, even though most civilizations lacked them until they were introduced via transmission from Western civilization. It is important to keep in mind that most civilizations operated for thousands of years (albeit in a terribly inefficient and arbitrary fashion) without any conception of rights. --Coolcaesar (talk) 21:49, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Rights claimants (Consumers)

I think the part of the portal that says rights claimants should also include consumer rights. I found an article to link to. It isn't consumer rights, but it says consumer protection. Do you think this could go in? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_protection 98.228.223.184 (talk) 01:40, 11 September 2012 (UTC) 98.228.223.184 (talk) 01:42, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

On why the edit I reverted was an ENGVAR violation

Please see the diff. Here are the changes:

  • often considered -> generally recognised as
  • ways to categorize -> categorisations of
  • recognize -> endorse
  • Collectivized -> Group
  • recognizing -> implementing

... OK, I'm not going to do every one. The pattern is clear, no? In every case, Hendrick 99 is either changing something that is spelled the same way in both American English and Commonwealth English to a Commonwealth-specific spelling, or else he is changing an American spelling to a word that is spelled the same. The agenda is clear — he is trying to change the English variety from American English to Commonwealth English. --Trovatore (talk) 18:23, 8 August 2013 (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.

Or it could go under children's rights.

That sidebar is a navigation box linking to other rights-related articles. If there is an article on "unborn rights" or "fetus rights" to link to (besides general articles on the beginning of human personhood and the abortion debate and so on), feel free to add it (or just link to it here and I can add it for you, if you're uncomfortable with the wiki table markup). --Pfhorrest (talk) 21:32, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_rights

These are other links http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personhood http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro_life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-life_feminism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-life_Democrats 

 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.228.223.184 (talk) 23:05, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

98.228.223.184 (talk) 23:14, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

QUALIFICATIONS ON THAT: If I depended on brainwashing of helpless children to propagate a medieval mythology no fully functional adult could be convinced of, I too might militate for increasing the number of vulnerable children regardless of cost. However, population biology teaches us that when the reproduction rate of a population increases very fast, that population is subject to a disastrous reduction. This is both inductively true - a generality, since there are no exceptions - and relevant to the context of rights. Legally, the Fourteenth Amendment reads: "All persons born..." Biologically, since a right is a moral claim to freedom of action, it is reasonable that the rights of persons who already exist ought to take precedence over unconstitutional attribution of rights to hypothetical future persons for the mere sake of perpetrating mystical traditions, the surface area of the planet being invariant over time. A woman, pregnant or not, is an individual, and has a right to choose whether or not to reproduce. A graph of the rate of increase of the human population v. time shows the number is fast becoming asymptotic to the vertical axis. Claims that women must be coerced into reproducing might perhaps be listed under religion, but certainly not "the free exercise thereof." translator (talk) 14:21, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Negative and positive rights section being inclusive of active (e.g. liberty) rights

Scott, this is all that remains of your edits after reverting everything that I'd already given reason for, and an additional objection. No significant difference remains, so you can understand why I didn't undertake the effort to piece together multiple partial reversions like this, but to forestall an edit war I've done that anyway to prove the point. You could (and should) have just reinstated those inconsequential changes again if they're really so important, and brought the rest of the contentious matter here to talk about it, instead of tendentiously reinserting your changes with no further justification after I already reverted them with good reason. Please leave it be now and discuss here until we reach consensus. --Pfhorrest (talk) 01:10, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Right (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. Wbm1058 (talk) 19:51, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 14 October 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Extensive prior discussion has settled on Right (disambiguation), see Talk:Right (disambiguation). – Wbm1058 (talk) 15:41, 21 October 2015 (UTC)


Rights → Right (principle) – use singular 73.154.175.89 (talk) 21:49, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

What is the rationale? My sense is the term rights is more of a general conception, while right refers to a specific freedom or entitlement. Like, in the US, a police officer says "read him his rights", while the term right is more often used in a specific instance, such as a right to speak freely or a right to defense counsel. And, if the term "rights" is used in pretty much any sentence, it is referring to what this article is about, so my sense is the current article title is fitting. Wonder what others think.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 22:00, 14 October 2015 (UTC) So unless there is more of a reason put forth, regarding the requested move, I Oppose.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 08:33, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose Agreed with Tom, also c.f. extensive prior discussion about this subject that always come back down to leaving it here. --Pfhorrest (talk) 03:00, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The current title adequately disambiguates its subject from other uses of "right" without requiring artificial parenthetical disambiguation. Changing that would require a very good reason, which I don't see here. 209.211.131.181 (talk) 03:38, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose, per the rationales expressed above. The concept discussed in this article is usually referred to in the plural form (see, e.g., the SEP entry for "Rights"). -- Notecardforfree (talk) 08:37, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose per the above responses. Calidum 03:09, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

History of rights

Hello Eringordon, I think your addition of the Magna Carta to the list of historical documents that show the evolution of human rights is beneficial to the page. However, one addition that might be useful is to include information on how the Magna Carta influenced later documents, such as the United States Constitution. KTJeno (talk) 00:14, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Ancient Egypt's rights were indicated in MAAT

The writers / editors left off the Egyptian (Khemetic) laws MAAT. They are older than all the other rules/laws/rights outlined in the Wikipedia article. --2604:2000:DDD1:4900:64E3:A624:8A75:8C2A (talk) 09:52, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

There is no mention of religious rights in the template

What the Heading says... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.75.41.49 (talk) 14:10, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Is there an article on religious rights? If so, you can add it to the template, or request someone else do so on its talk page. --Pfhorrest (talk) 00:07, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

The term "religious rights" redirects to the article on Freedom of religion. Dimadick (talk) 10:42, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 18:21, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

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