Posted on 04/27/2022 10:59:54 PM PDT by libertasbella
What are “Positive Rights”?
There is much talk regarding “rights” and how they relate to freedom and liberty. If you’re wondering, “what are positive rights,” and why should I care? We’ll explain what they are and some of the fundamental issues that many people have with this ideology.
Positive Rights Definition
A positive right is one that requires others (namely the government) to provide you with either a good or service. They do so by taking away another individuals’ rights.
Positive right issues start to arise when these infringe on the fundamental human rights of others by requiring them to put forth something in exchange for others to receive that right.
We’ll get into some concrete examples of this in the following section and how this contrasts from Libertarian beliefs.
When you try to define positive rights, it essentially means the “freedom” to have something that you didn’t necessarily have to work for or do anything to achieve it. At its core, it is a “right,” and it’s something that neither the federal or state government can take away from you.
But, there’s also confusion because these rights are granted to you by the government, and they almost always involve stepping on the toes of someone else’s civil rights in the process.
French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau said it better than anyone we could think of; he stated that a strong government makes you free, and submitting to that government is better for the greater good. When you think about it, it sounds as if this ideology “forces you to be free.”
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.libertasbella.com ...
Our constitutional rights as human beings are to have the freedom to do as we please as long as it doesn’t compromise others inalienable rights. This is where non-interference laws and the legal system come into play.
So when we look at our “positive rights,” are they even rights or are they simply ways for the government to control us in the name of the “greater good”?
We believe that it’s important to realize how incompatible this thought process is. You cannot have both the right to freedom and limitations as to how free you can be. There are no in-betweens, but yet the government wants you to believe that you’re free while still requiring you to:
• Attend specific schools • Pay money for goods and services that don’t benefit you (taxes) • Take immunizations against your will • Follow regulations that infringe on your liberty
We could go on and on about all the positive rights that actually take freedom away from you, but these may not be positive rights at all. Our current society is built on negative rights because any positive right you have, has a limitation, a requirement, and a way that the government can come in and take it from you.
Examples of Positive Rights
Where issues arise is when we start to talk about how positive rights contradict negative rights, and the two are incompatible because one always steps on the toes of the other.
For example, social welfare is a positive right. We, as American citizens of the United States, have the positive right to receive state and federal welfare benefits if we’re unable to care for ourselves and our family.
What is often forgotten is the fact that people all over the country are required to pay taxes to pay for these programs even though they’re not benefiting from them. So, in turn, the positive right of social welfare impacts the negative right of not requiring us to hand our money over to the government.
If we break it down to the most basic level, where do our positive rights end, and our negative rights begin? Under what conditions does a positive action about something we “should” do become a negative action about something we “shouldn’t” do?
Political Philosopher Isaiah Berlin discussed this in a popular lecture titled “Two Concepts of Liberty.” He said:
If negative liberty is concerned with the freedom to pursue one’s interests according to one’s own free will and without “interference from external bodies,” then positive liberty takes up the “degree to which individuals or groups” are able to “act autonomously” in the first place.
For the sake of clarity: Please provide examples of negative rights.
Since ALL rights have to be enforced / protected - and enforcement / protection must come from some higher authority or power (otherwise, in the case of self-enforcement, it's just "might makes right") - I would say that all rights are "positive" rights, and that there are no such things as "negative" rights.
Consequently, the expression "positive rights" is meaningless, and should be replaced with "rights."
Regards,
Sounds like a fake concept and/or a borrowed premise. Why entertain it at all? Just call out the fallacy.
It is what the left (I think I recall Obama Admin first talking about it) says the USA should have. Right to healthcare, livable wage etc.
Negative rights are those you have purely by virtue of being alive, eg right to life, freedom of association, etc. It also includes things like the right to work, food, etc however it doesn’t require that someone else gives you a job or food. You may have to provide those for yourself.
I have heard about negative and positive rights but I don't believe they line up as nicely with negative and positive liberties as the essayist suggests.
The argument that citizens can't possibly have a right to food, shelter, clothing or health care because it would require some people to be farmers, builders, clothiers, and doctors only makes sense for anarchists. As you pointed out even a minimal government that sets, enforces, and judges the law would require some people to perform the necessary jobs.
It's not really about negative or positive rights but about what products and services are best provided by government and which by the private sector.
In most cases the services and products are provided by the private sector with varying degrees of government oversight, e.g. dams requiring much more than soft drinks.
Further: No discussion of "rights" is complete without a parallel discussion about "obligations." A lot of the "talk" about what is "owed" to "poor / underprivileged / historically disadvantaged" people would evaporate if we insisted that the corresponding "duties" of those same people receiving govt. largesse also be discussed.
Most of the people arguing about the "right" to free health care, free education, etc. couldn't explain, e.g., the difference between a "right" and an "entitlement" if their lives depended on it!
In most cases the services and products are provided by the private sector with varying degrees of government oversight, e.g. dams requiring much more than soft drinks.
That might seem to be the case (that dams deserve more govt. oversight than soft drinks), but one could argue that (sugary) soft drinks (resulting in obesity / diabetes) have actually resulted in the loss of more man-years of life in the U.S. than failed dams.
(I'm funnin' yuh there!)
Regards,
Examples, please!
You have repeatedly provided examples of positive rights... I'm still waiting for even ONE concrete example of a negative right.
The right to breathe? Means nothing if someone else can smother me to death, and no one (the State, etc.) is required to intercede to prevent me from being smothered.
Regards,
But for me to exercise those rights (working, eating, etc.), I (may) need (police) protection from outside forces (criminals) attempting to interfere with my exercising those rights.
I still fail to discern the difference between so-called "positive" and "negative" rights. In both cases, I have to be able to invoke the assistance of the State in order to exercise them.
Perhaps using different terminology would help: Let us speak instead of "rights" (to go on a 6-week vacation in the tropics - provided we can AFFORD to pay for it ourselves; to express our opinions - provided we can AFFORD to take out a full-page ad in the paper; to a 4-year education at Harvard - provided that we AFFORD to pay the tuition and provided that we meet Harvard's admission requirements*) - all of which are predicated upon availing ourselves of police protection in the event that some third-party attempts to interfere with our exercise of our rights - and "entitlements" (to govt. largesse). (And yes: I am aware that the term "entitlement" has hitherto referred to rights that are earned - e.g., S.S.)
*Determining the Constitutionality of those admission requirements (which might include, e.g., racial quotas) is another matter, and deserves a separate discussion.
Regards,
Nothing that requires my wealth or effort can by claimed as a “right” by another, else I am no more than a slave to the other’s need, real or imagined.
You can claim as a right that I can’t do anything to you (without just provocation), but you can never claim that I have to do anything for you.
Have you ever signed a contract?
Have you ever been told to get off of someone's property?
Have you ever told someone to get off of your property?
“If we have to be forced into freedom, are we really free at all?”
If you tell your 20 something child they have to move out of your house have you “forced” them into freedom? Is said child really free if not free to stay against your will?
No, govt is a construct to guarantee liberty, all of our rights are inherent in ourselves. People create govt, so no govt can endow rights. Only people have rights and by extension, a govt of for and by the people have a right to exist at their pleasure.
In fact, the idea that govt must provide for indigents etc is false and a construct of statism.
People, acting through their govt, however can provide for such things, but the will of the people can and must be the throttle and brake to all such benefits.
God gives rights to man; man gives authority to govt; govt executes justice as a third party to prevent a state of war between men. nothing more. Govt grants me nothing. I grant govt everything it has power to do, and nothing more.
Nonsense arguments.
Do you have the right to make me sign a contract?
Trespassing is a violation of one of the three basic rights. life, liberty, and private property. You don’t have the “right” to trespass because it does something to the property owner, it endangers security (life).
“Do you have the right to make me sign a contract?”
No. But you wrote “you can never claim that I have to do anything for you” and once you have voluntarily signed a contract with someone they can claim that you have to do anything required by the contract, or they can claim you have to do an alternative “anything” as a penalty for violating the contract.
“Trespassing is a violation of one of the three basic rights. life, liberty, and private property. You don’t have the “right” to trespass because it does something to the property owner, it endangers security (life).”
I didn’t write about trespassing. I wrote about “getting off” property. Someone may be on another’s property without trespassing till they are told to get off, as in the case of retail property at closing time. If they fail to get off, then it’s time to talk about trespassing.
Even if you are on my property by invite, without trespassing, I can claim that you “have to do anything” if the “anything” is to get off. If you don’t get off, then it’s time to talk about trespassing.
“Nonsense arguments.”
I disagree.
I don’t like this idea of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ rights.
It is not natural, but is a construct of the Leftist.
A right is a characteristic of my Humanity, and is endowed by the Creator (as per the Declaration of Independence, or Evolution, for which I have NO Proof or Evidence.) There is no way to have something that is innate to my existence to be described as this is.
‘Positive Rights’ may be better described here are just items our society has adopted to tend to people who may need help of some sort. Such things May and CAN be with held by society/government at the whim of the provider. Can the desire of the society two generations ago to help certain members through a depression be considered obsolete, and thus ended? Certainly. Rights, they are not.
My right to Healthcare starts with me. If I have a fever, I can choose to rest, drink water, and eat soup. I can rest on my own, and get water from a public tap, but soup I may need to get from somewhere else. Do I buy it, or do I proclaim a ‘Right’ to soup and make someone else provide it? Who am I taking from, who’s labor am I taking? My SLAVES?
You should see where I am going. Our Rights are innate to us, at birth, and are not to be messed with lightly. The so called Positive rights are the tool of Socialists, and are to BIND us eternally to the Government.
“I don’t like this idea of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ rights.”
Nor do I. I find it obfuscating.
When discussing “rights”, people too often leave out the definition of a right, seeming to assume that everyone means the same thing.
Samuel Johnson in his dictionaries of the late 1700’s defined a right as a “just claim”.
Noah Webster in his dictionary of 1828 also defines a right as a “just claim” and goes on to say “Rights are natural, civil, political, religious, personal, and public.”
They both say more, but the above seems to me most applicable here as a basic definition of a right.
The Declaration of Independence states “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”. The use of the adjective “unalienable” implies other kinds of rights. An unalienable right may be described as” a characteristic of my Humanity, and is endowed by the Creator (as per the Declaration of Independence, or Evolution…)” and would be a natural right as defined by Webster in 1828, but there may be other rights or just claims based on “civil, political, religious, personal, and public” grounds which rights are other than unalienable.
“I disagree.”
I respect your right to be wrong.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.