rights

"All Nature is but art unknown to thee; All chance direction, which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good; And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, One truth is clear, Whatever is is right."

"No question is ever settled Until it is settled right."

"Old rights must remain: it would be very unreasonable if it should be otherwise."

"A pretensed right is no right at all."

"It shall not be in the power of any man, by his election, to vary the rights of two other contending parties."

"By the laws of England, there can be no special right, no particular interest or privilege whatever, of perpetual duration, but such as have respect to some kind of inheritance."

"The denial of God conduced to the denial of God-given rights – and that, in turn, conduced to rights becoming eminently alienable whenever it served the purposes of the government."

"Rights presuppose duties, if they are not to become mere license."

"The leading contemporary non-consequentialist theories are those which are framed in the language of rights. Following the Second World War, there has been an immense increase in “rights talk”, both in number of supposed rights and in total volume. Rights doctrine has progressed a long way since its original aim of providing “a legitimisation of … claims against tyrannical or exploiting regimes”. As Tom Campbell points out: The human rights movement is based on the need for a counter-ideology to combat the abuses and misuses of political authority by those who invoke, as a justification for their activities, the need to subordinate the particular interests of individuals to the general good."

"There is now, more than ever, a strong tendency to advance moral claims and arguments in terms of rights. Assertion of rights has become the customary means to express our moral sentiments. As Sumner notes: “there is virtually no are aof public controversy in which rights ar enot to be found on at least one side of the question – and generally on both”. The domination of rights talk is such that it is accurate to state that human rights have at least temporarily replaced maximising utility as the leading philosophical inspiration for political and social reform. Despite the dazzling veneer of deontological rights-based theories, when examined closely they are unable to provide convincing answers to central issues such as: what is the justification for rights? How can be distinguish real from fanciful rights?"

"[P]roponents of the right can simply assert the existence of a right to privacy and, equally validly, opponents can assert a “right to know”. An impasse is then reached because there is no underlying principle that can be invoked to provide guidance on the issue. As with many rights, the victor may unfortunately be the side which simply yells the loudest. This may seem to be unduly dismissive of rights-based theories and pay inadequate regard to the considerable moral reforms that have occurred against the backdrop of rights talk over the past half-century. There is no doubt that rights claims have proved to be an effective lever in bringing about social change. As Campbell correctly notes, rights have provided “a constant source of inspiration for the protection of individual liberty”. For example, reoognition of the (universal) right of liberty resulted in the abolition of slavery; more recently the right of equaliy has been used as an effective weapon by women and other disenfranchised groups. For this reason, it is accepted that there is an ongoing need for moral discourse in the form of rights. For this reason, it is accepted that there is an ongoing need for moral discourse in the form of rghts. There is so even in deontological rights-based moral theories (with their absolutist overtones) are incapable of providing answers to questions such as the existence and content of proposed rights, and even if rights are difficult to defend intellectually or are seen to be culturally biased. There is a need for rights-talk, at least at the “edges of civilisation and in the tangle of international politics”.32. Still the significant changes to the moral landscape for which non-consequentialist rights have provided the catalyst must be accounted for."

"[A]t the descriptive level, the intuitive appeal of rights claims, and the absolutist and foreceful manner in which they are expressed, has heretofore been sufficient to mask fundamental logical deficiencies associated with the concept of rights."

"[W]e do not believe that there is no role in moral discourse for rights claims. Rather, we content that the only manner in which rights can be substantiated is in the context of a consequntialist ethic.33"

"See also JS Mill who claimed that rights reconcile justice with utility. Justice, which he claimed consists of certain fundamental rights, is merely a part of utility. And “to have a right is .. to have something which society ought to defend …. [if asked why[ … I have give no other reason than general utility”: JS Mill, “Utilitarianism” in M Warnock (ed), Utilitarianism (1986, first published 1859) pp 251, 309. T Campbell, “The Legal Theory of Ethical Positivism” (1996) pp 161-85. T. Campbel, “The Point of Legal Positivism”, in T Campbell (ed), “Legal Positivism” (1999) p 323."

"Rights can be spoken of only on the condition that a person is thought as a person, that is, as an individual, or, in other words, as occupying a relation to other individuals, between whom and him a community, though not actually posited, perhaps, is at least fictitiously assumed. For those things which, through speculative philosophy, we discovered to be conditions of personality, become rights only if other persons are added in thought, who dare not violate those conditions. Free beings can not, however, be thought as coexisting at all, unless their rights reciprocally limit each other, that is, unless the sphere of their original rights changes into the sphere of rights in a commonwealth. It would seem, therefore, impossible to reflect upon rights as original rights, that is, without regard to their necessary limitations through the rights of others. …. There is no status of original rights for Man. Man attains rights only in a community with others as indeed he only becomes man — whereof we have shown the grounds heretofore — through intercourse with others. Man, indeed, can not be thought as one individual. Original Rights are, therefore, a pure fiction, but a fiction necessary for the purpose of Science."

"If inequalities stare us in the face the essential equality too is not to be missed. Every man has an equal right to the necessaries of life even as birds and beasts have. And since every right carries with it a corresponding duty and the corresponding remedy for resisting any attack upon it, it is merely a matter of finding out the corresponding duties and remedies to vindicate the elementary fundamental equality."

"If instead of insisting on rights everyone does his duty, there will immediately be the rule of order established among mankind. There is no such thing as the divine right of kings to rule and the humble duty of the ryots to pay respectful obedience."

"Away with private wrongs! We'll not go forth To fight for these — but for the rights of men."

"Civilization no longer represents the conscience of the individuals who must find therein their work. The facts and forces which now organize industry and so-called justice, violate the best instincts of mankind. ... Without regard to his conscience, the economic system involves a man in the guilt of the moral and physical death of his brothers: their blood cries to him from the adulterated and monopolized foods he eats; from the sweat-shop clothes he wears; from his educational advantages, his special privileges, his social opportunities. ... Civilization denies to man that highest of all rights — the right to live a guiltless life, the right to do right."

"The real lesson of [archbishop Óscar] Romero is that there are no legitimate reasons to deny [civil or natural] rights. His government in his time believed that [civil or natural] rights could be somewhat “suspended” to protect El Salvador from Communist influences coming from the Soviet Union via Cuba and Nicaragua. Romero was certainly not an admirer of the Soviet Union, but believed there should be other ways of protecting his country, not suspending [civil or natural] rights. He taught us that those who advocate for [civil or natural] rights are “for” their countries, not “against” them. …Romero wrote that religious persecution happens because “truth is always persecuted,” and that God blesses those who protest and fight for freedom. But they should know they should suffer, because “pain is the money that buys freedom.” …Romero’s key teaching, that there is no reason good enough to justify the violation of [civil or natural] rights, is relevant for both religious liberty and the Tai Ji Men case. There are governments that claim that limiting religious liberty is necessary to protect social stability or the harmony of the country. Romero’s message is that this is [no] valid justification. [Civil or natural] rights protection defines what a legitimate social stability is, rather than the other way around."

"Social justice without [civil or natural] rights is [maliciously] ideological and false."

"In a now-well-known 2022 article, legal scholar and poet Charilaos Nikolaidis has argued that rights are not only legal instruments but also poetic creations. In his theory of the “poetry of rights,” he reminds us that rights possess aesthetic, emotional, and symbolic qualities. They are more than clauses in a statute or articles in a treaty; they are verses in humanity’s collective poem. Rights inspire, resonate, and move us beyond the technicalities of law into the realm of imagination. They allow us to envision justice as duty and dream, as enforcement and beauty. Rights, Nikolaidis suggests, are powerful because they are both rational and emotional, both functional and symbolic. They carry the power to inspire, mobilize, and transform."

"Nothing can be permitted to the few ; rights and advantages were sent for all ..."

"Qui jure suo utitur neminem tedit."

"Rights are lost by disuse."

"One of the grandest things in having rights is that, being your rights, you may give them up."

"As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights."

"No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation."

"As citizens, individuals are entitled to affirm their rights. Rights are not just mere ideals, abstract concepts, or values. Values need to be translated in active policies with rigorous standards of political life."

"The law helps the vigilant, before those who sleep on their rights."

"To name a thing is easy: the difficulty is to discern it before its appearance. In giving expression to the last stage of an idea, — an idea which permeates all minds, which to-morrow will be proclaimed by another if I fail to announce it to-day, — I can claim no merit save that of priority of utterance. Do we eulogize the man who first perceives the dawn? Yes: all men believe and repeat that equality of conditions is identical with equality of rights; that property and robbery are synonymous terms; that every social advantage accorded, or rather usurped, in the name of superior talent or service, is iniquity and extortion. All men in their hearts, I say, bear witness to these truths; they need only to be made to understand it."

"Once a nation ceases to respect the source of human dignity, it will soon stop respecting the rights that dignity demands."

"A right is based on the interest which figures essentially in the justification of the statement that the rights exits. The interest relates directly to the core right and indirectly to its derivatives. The relation of core and derivative rights is not that of entailment, but of the order of justification."

"Imagine if a government agency could get away with violating your constitutional rights simply by denying it was acting as the government. It seems absurd, but that is what has attempted to avoid liability after it sanctioned a professor [Dr. Norman Wang] for criticizing racial preferences in an article in a prestigious academic journal."

"We cannot speak of [civil or natural] rights without centering our attention on [the moral compass of] conscience, one among a few distinctive features that make humans human‒and humane."

"The expression “human rights” did not always exist. It started being used in 17th-century Europe. We could even speculate on the fact that the use of the expression “human rights” increased proportionally to the loss of clarity on what those rights were and are, as if simply repeating the formula could fill the void. Prior to the introduction of the expression “human rights,” Western culture spoke of “natural rights.” The genealogical process leading from natural rights to human rights is an interesting subject to explore. Interestingly, that genealogy also surfaces in documents of the UN beyond the “Declaration.” But if—again—the argument I am proposing is meaningful, the point here is that the substitution of “natural” with “human” created a serious problem."

"We live in a world where rights multiply every single day, and everything seems to have rights. Today, rights are the products of imagination, social consensus, even ideology and power. Each group that has the practical force to impose itself upon society can claim to have established one or more new rights, to which everyone has then to bow. Those who don’t are denounced as backward-looking."

"Rights are grand things, divine things, in this world of God; but the way in which we expound those rights, alas! seems to me to be the very incarnation of selfishness. I see nothing very noble in a man who is forever going about calling for his own rights. Alas! alas! for the man who feels nothing more grand in this wondrous, divine world than his own rights!"

"Rights may be universal, but their enforcement must be local."

"I think that freedom means being able to do what you want without harming others... Freedom isn't something given by the government. I think it is a God-given right, and you are born with this right as a human being."

"One can conclude that certain essential, or fundamental, rights should exist in any just society. It does not follow that each of those essential rights is one that we as judges can enforce under the written Constitution. The Due Process Clause is not a guarantee of every right that should inhere in an ideal system. Many argue that a just society grants a right to engage in homosexual conduct. If that view is accepted, the Bowers decision in effect says the State of Georgia has the right to make a wrong decision—wrong in the sense that it violates some people's views of rights in a just society. We can extend that slightly to say that Georgia's right to be wrong in matters not specifically controlled by the Constitution is a necessary component of its own political processes. Its citizens have the political liberty to direct the governmental process to make decisions that might be wrong in the ideal sense, subject to correction in the ordinary political process."

"Your life brings you into a multiplicity of relationships with other people. Some of them love justice and righteousness; others do not seem to want to practice them-they do you a wrong. Your soul is not hardened to the suffering they inflict upon you in this way, but you search and examine yourself; you convince yourself that you are in the right, and you rest call and strong in this conviction. However much they outrage me they still will not be able to deprive me of this peace-that I know I am in the right and that I suffer wrong. In this view there is a satisfaction, a joy, that presumably every one of us has tasted, and when you continue to suffer wrong, you are built up by the thought that you are in the right. This point of view is so natural, so understandable, so frequently tested in life, and yet it is not with this that we want to calm doubt and to heal care but by deliberating upon the upbuilding that lies in the thought that we are always in the wrong. Can the opposite point of view have the same effect?"

"That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety."

"[On completely popular government:] Its superiority in reference to present well-being rests upon two principles, of as universal truth and applicability as any general propositions which can be laid down respecting human affairs. The first is, that the rights and interests of every or any person are only secure from being disregarded, when the person interested is himself able, and habitually disposed, to stand up for them. The second is, that the general prosperity attains a greater height, and is more widely diffused, in proportion to the amount and variety of the personal energies enlisted in promoting it."

"‘Natural rights’...[is not] a true way of putting things—and certainly not the most useful and fertile way. Nature [is] simply the mastery of the strongest [and confers no rights on man]. Two savage tribes contend for a tract of land of wh[ich] they are in need for their subsistence: nature gave the right to this land to the tribe wh[ich] was strong enough to thrash the other. No right is worth a straw apart from the good that it brings: and all claims to rights must depend—not upon nature—but upon the good that the said rights are calculated to bring to the greatest number. General utility, public expediency, the greatest happiness of the greatest number—these are the tests and standards of a right; not the dictate of nature."

"You Own Your Own Life... To lose your Life is to lose your Future, to lose your Liberty is to lose your Present …and to lose the product of your Life and Liberty is to lose that portion of your Past that produced it A product of you Life and Liberty is your Property"

"Not only is democracy mystical nonsense, it is also immoral. If one man has no right to impose his wishes on another, then ten million men have no right to impose their wishes on the one, since the initiation of force is wrong (and the assent of even the most overwhelming majority can never make it morally permissible). Opinions—even majority opinions—neither create truth nor alter facts. A lynch mob is democracy in action. So much for mob rule."

"The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual's private rights."

"The absolute rights of man, considered as a free agent, endowed with discernment to know good from evil, and with power of choosing those measures which appear to him to be most desirable, are usually summed up in one general appellation, and denominated the natural liberty of mankind. This natural liberty consists properly in a power of acting as one thinks fit, without any restraint or control, unless by the law of nature: being a right inherent in us by birth, and one of the gifts of God to man at his creation, when he endowed him with the faculty of freewill. But every man, when he enters into society, gives up a part of his natural liberty, as the price of so valuable a purchase; and, in consideration of receiving the advantages of mutual commerce, obliges himself to conform to those laws, which the community has thought proper to establish."

"'That which has no existence cannot be destroyed — that which cannot be destroyed cannot require anything to preserve it from destruction. Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense — nonsense upon stilts. But this rhetorical nonsense ends in the old strain of mischievous nonsense for immediately a list of these pretended natural rights is given, and those are so expressed as to present to view legal rights. And of these rights, whatever they are, there is not, it seems, any one of which any government can, upon any occasion whatever, abrogate the smallest particle."