Hierarchy of Rights

Several times in his last chapter Wellman mentions considering legal and moral rights based on their relative importance to each other. This assertion presupposes that some legal and moral rights are more important than others and the offhand way in which Wellman tosses in this phrase implies that at least he considers the question of determining which rights are more important and why to be an easy one to answer, not worth commenting on. So what criteria determine which moral or legal rights are more important than others? Does the hierarchy of rights fall along generational lines, prioritizing civil and political rights above economic, social and cultural rights? How does a difference in the importance of a right change our interaction and understanding of it?

I would also like to continue the conversation begun by Michael and Cameron about how moral rights interact within and beyond society. Wellman says that asserting moral rights is the first step toward demanding change in social institutions. It makes sense that the newly established moral rights can enact change in a society, but doesn't it also follow that a change in society can enact a change in moral rights? After all, do moral rights remain universal and unchanged even as our societal mores change? What morals would the rights be ascribed to then?