Monday, February 23, 2009

Utility & Rights

[I think] what Lyons is saying is that utilitarian reasons for justifying rights are different than moral reasons or "moral force" for justifying rights, and because many of our rights are conceptualized under a moral framework, or a legal one grounded on moral rights, it becomes difficult to explain rights within the utilitarian framework. Further, it becomes difficult because we have certain rights whether or not they increase utility. The part that I, like Ernie, struggled with, is the discussion about utilitarian considerations "within limits" and the different thresholds he discusses. He states, "Let us suppose that very substantial utilities or disutilities outweigh the moral force of Mary's rights. We cannot infer from this that minimal increments of utility are sufficient to outweight those arguments" (120). He puts focus on the italicized phrases but doesn't really explain what they entail.

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