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Right
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Rights are legal or moral entitlements or permissions. Rights are of vital importance in theories of justice and deontological ethics.
Many contemporary notions of rights are universalist and egalitarian, with equal rights granted to all people. By contrast, most historical notions of rights were authoritarian and hierarchical, with different people being granted different rights, and some having more rights than others. For instance, the rights of a father to be respected by his son did not indicate a duty upon the father to return that respect, and the divine right of kings to hold absolute power over their subjects did not leave room for many rights to be granted to the subjects themselves.
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Rights are legal or moral entitlements or permissions. Rights are of vital importance in theories of justice and deontological ethics.
Many contemporary notions of rights are universalist and egalitarian, with equal rights granted to all people. By contrast, most historical notions of rights were authoritarian and hierarchical, with different people being granted different rights, and some having more rights than others. For instance, the rights of a father to be respected by his son did not indicate a duty upon the father to return that respect, and the divine right of kings to hold absolute power over their subjects did not leave room for many rights to be granted to the subjects themselves. Conversely, modern conceptions of rights often emphasize liberty as among the most important of rights, though conceptions of liberty (e.g. positive vs negative) frequently differ.
The specific enumeration of rights accorded to people has historically differed greatly across space and time, and in many cases, the view of rights held by one group can come into sharp and bitter conflict with the view of rights held by another group. At present the question of who has what rights is normally addressed by the constitutions of the respective nations (in the case of legal rights) or a particular philosophical theory (in the case of natural rights).
Theoretical distinctions
There are numerous different theoretical distinctions in accordance with which rights may be classified.
- Natural rights and legal rights - There exists debate over the source of basic rights, such as the right to freedom of speech. On the one hand, these basic rights may be considered of a purely moral or ethical character, i.e., the idea of natural rights, which holds that certain rights derive from nature and cannot be modified by legislative authority. On the other hand, these basic rights may be considered to be of a purely posited nature, i.e., the idea of legal rights, which are arbitrary human constructs, created by legislative authority and subject to change. Other rights, such as that to access a lawyer or an abortion, avoid the question of this dichotomy by finding their validity pursuant to other, more basic rights, such as the right to due process in the case of the former, and the right to privacy in the later.
- Explicit rights and unenumerated rights - Explicit rights are those legal rights specifically granted by a governing body. Unenumerated rights are those legal rights that are not explicitly granted by the governing body. Considerable discussion and disagreement has occurred over unenumerated rights (what these rights include, what types of rights they are, and others).
- Claim rights and liberty rights - A liberty right grants permission, e.g. freedom of speech, whereas a claim right grants an entitlement, e.g. the right to life. Claim rights and liberty rights might be thought of as necessarily imposing constraints or obligations on the other. On the one hand, claim rights restrict other agents' liberty rights to affect the object of the claim. For instance, a claim right to a trial by jury constrains a ruler's liberty right to unilaterally jail whomever he sees fit. On the other hand, a liberty right constrains (but does not totally preclude) the exercise of claim rights on all necessary conditions for the exercise of that liberty. Examples of this are difficult to establish because of the difficulty of establishing necessary conditions for exercising a particular liberty right. One possible modern example might be a liberty right to freedom of movement, which restricts the claim rights one might exercise over the roads (as a necessary condition for freedom of movement). It should also be noted that liberty rights, as permissions, are also known simply as liberties, but are still frequently referred to as rights (e.g. "I have a right to do x" often means "I am permitted to do x"), though some deny that such usage is proper.
- Negative rights and positive rights - Negative rights require inaction from others (in the sense of rights as claims or entitlements), or permit inaction from the right bearer (in the sense of rights as liberties or permissions). Conversely, positive rights require action from others (in the sense of rights as claims or entitlements) or permit action from the right bearer (in the sense of rights as liberties or permissions).
- Individual rights and group rights - Individual rights are rights pertaining to individuals, regardless of their membership within a group. Group rights, in contrast are held by an ensemble of people collectively, or by the members of a group of people who have a certain characteristic in common. In some cases there can be tension between individual and group rights. A classic instance in which group and individual rights clash is conflicts between unions and their members. For example, members of a union may wish to contract with the employer for a wage other than that negotiated by the union, but are unable to due to the union's control of the work sphere, sometimes referred to as a "closed shop."
Other distinctions between rights draw more on historical association or family resemblance than on precise philosophical distinctions. These include the distinction between civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights, between which the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are often divided. Another conception of rights groups them into three generations. These distinctions have much overlap with that between negative and positive rights, as well as between individual rights and group rights, but these groupings are not entirely coextensive.
Areas of concern
Rights about particular issues, or the rights of particular groups, are often areas of special concern. Often these concerns arise when rights come into conflicts with other legal or moral issues, sometimes even other rights.
Issues of concern include labor rights, LGBT rights, reproductive rights, disability rights, patient rights and prisoners' rights.
With increasing monitoring and the information society, information rights, such as the right to privacy are becoming more important.
Examples of groups whose rights are of particular concern include animals, and amongst humans, groups such as children and youth, parents (both mothers and fathers), and men and women.
Important documents
* The Magna Carta (1215; England) required the King of England to renounce certain rights and respect certain legal procedures, and to accept that the will of the king could be bound by law.
- The Bill of Rights (1689; England) declared that Englishmen, as embodied by Parliament, possess certain civil and political rights; the Claim of Right (1689; Scotland) was similar but distinct.
- The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789; France) was one of the fundamental documents of the French Revolution, defining a set of individual rights and collective rights of the people.
- The United States Bill of Rights (1789/1791; United States), the first ten amendments of the United States Constitution, was another influential document.
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) is an over-arching set of standards by which governments, organisations and individuals would measure their behaviour towards each other. The preamble declares that the "...recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world..."
- The European Convention on Human Rights (1950; Europe) was adopted under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms.
- The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) is a follow-up to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, concerning civil and political rights.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) is another follow-up to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, concerning economic, social and cultural rights.
- The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982; Canada) was created to protect the rights of Canadian citizens from actions and policies of all levels of government.
- The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2000) is one of the most recent legal instruments concerning human rights.
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