Solidarity sister

At the core of chapter four was the friction between individuals and groups and individuals and society. Wolgast argues that human rights are individual and create a kind of social atomism, that rights are inextricably bound to self interest and not dependent on society. Minow would add the social context back into the discussion because she argues that rights are an indication from the community around the individual.

The debate over women's rights straddles that line between the individual and society. Women, as being biologically different than men now boast certain rights that men can never claim - maternity leave, abortion, etc. But yet these individual rights don't alleviate the problems inherent in the societal structure we live in. Smart argues that legal resources like new civil rights will never be enough, the underlying social concerns must be addressed and molded to underwrite these rights. By that logic, Wolgast's idea that rights are individual and independent of society founders. Rights are inextricably bound the the social context in which they exist.

While the women's rights discussed in the first chapter could be considered first generation rights because they are civil and political, the rights might be more effective if they were filtered through the notion of solidarity rights. Because "no appeal to individual rights can ever adequately remedy the sexual discrimination of women as a group," (80) perhaps women's rights need to be approached as group rights, tantamount to solidarity rights. If women were kept from jobs and equal pay because they were women, and not determined on an individual basis, doesn't that appeal to the core logic of solidarity rights, that the whole of the group is more important than the collection of individuals?

Chapter 4

What stood out to me in this chapter was focus on pragmatism when considering how certain rights functioned. This first is mentioned on page 75 with the differences between real and formal equality. Wellman also brings up the arguments that sometimes rights simply aren’t effective, or are not the best way to solve a situation.

The right not to be raped becomes less effective because the laws are made in masculine terms and men are usually enforcing these laws (88). This right also faces pragmatic trouble due to the biased nature of the laws. The laws regarding what evidence is permissible and what presumed consent is, are skewed against women (89). I agree with Wellman that there should be increased efforts for rights, but it is also important to realize that the change won’t come only from rights. It is also important to make changes to social institutions and perceptions.

This social reform also seems to be necessary in any attempts to achieve fair wages. The right to equal pay doesn’t address the issues of actually getting a job. The issue is more than whether a woman executive will receive the same pay, it also includes whether that woman will ever make it to an executive role within the company. Discriminatory hiring, firing, and maternity leave practices will usually happen before a woman is able to exercise her right.

Achieving legal rights for women is important, however these are never a panacea. It is still necessary to make changes to the social and legal institutions because these shape how the law is written and enforced.

This makes me wonder if the proliferation of rights comes out of an idealistic desire to create a more just world and not just individual self-interest. Maybe rights should be the legal form of changes that are also being promoted on a social level.

Womens rights

Abortion, father has no legal say in the matter. But if the father has no responsibility for making the decision as to whether a child will be born why should he be imagined to have any responsibility then should the mother choose not to abort? This was my favorite question out of the whole chapter. I never thought of abortion in a light like this, it opened my eyes a little. Pg. 82 “To argue a special right for maternity leave is to suggest that women are essentially different from men and their “natural” place is to bear and rear children.” And that maternity leave should be argued more as a need than a right.

Chapter 4

One main problem or issue that was addressed in the fourth chapter that caught my eye was the discussion of abortion rights for women. This goes along with my previous post about moral rights and how the government should or shouldn’t put themselves into certain situations.

What makes the government feel like they should impose on certain problems and not others? What gives the government the right to invade on a woman’s choice about abortion but not the family issues of abuse or marital rape? These are all questions that arose while reading the section about abortion rights. The problem I have with abortion is that it is a woman’s choice what happens to her body but how far does it go until it becomes a problem with the government? Why does the government still feel the need to interfere with a woman’s choice?

I still do not understand what gives the government a right to get involved with a problem or issue that should be dealt with either the person involved and the doctor or even to the local and state governments. The federal government has too much on their mind to even think about, much less actually do, interfere with small issues that don’t concern them.

The other issue that caught my eye was the one about equal pay for equal work. I understand that women should be paid the same as their male co-workers but it is difficult. How can equal pay be delegated when two people of the opposite sex may do two different job titles? For example, say that all teachers should be paid the same; the ones with Masters all get a paid a certain rate; the ones with a Bachelor’s degree get paid the same. Problem being, what if one teacher is working harder and more efficient than another and they are getting paid the same? This problem arises because how does one evaluate that teacher A is doing more work or harder work than teacher B?

There are so many problems with just the two examples that I have given. I don’t understand, again, why the federal government should be putting there foot down on issues that, personally, shouldn’t affect them. These issues should be resolved and decided by the local and state governments.

Chapter 4

On page 79 it says, "Because the new legal right to equal employment opportunity confers one and the same right on men and women, it cannot do justice to those special needs of woman that arise from thier exclusive reproductive function and its social implications." This made me think about third generation rights because the only way that woman are going to achive good things in the work world is to be granted rights as a group of woman. This idea was mentioned in ch.4 (80). Because right now they are granted to individulas as citizens, men or woman. I think its a great idea to stand force as a group. I would be intrested in seeing the rhetoric of those new 3rd generation rights.

Now I turn to the right not to be raped section and my confusion there. I understand that the law realizes this as a crime but I was surprised by the exceptions. I also kept thinking that to me this seemed like it should have belonged in the first generation of rights. It is after all negative insofar as it say you shall NOT rape woman as opposed to equal employmeny which is saying "do something for me". It seems like we should have a claim right to not be raped, I have a right not to be raped and you have a duty not to rape me, no matter if your married or not, but yet it is a new right. Is this because women started to get rights after the first generation of rights were already established? This brings me back to my point before if these rights in chapter 4 aren't first generation rights , and they don't seem to be second generation rights either, dosesn't it make sense to go at them from a third generation lens as a group?

Chapter 4

Wellman talks about the fight for certain rights have redirected the discrimination. Such as for equal pay for equal work; how some jobs now have become predominantly female orientated and how other jobs are dominantly male orientated. He says that even though most jobs have reconciled the difference between equal pay the whole of society and what jobs are viewed as jobs for women and vice versa become more segregated. But is this a real problem, if this were the case? Has the fight for equal pay made things worse for women?

Women have fought for equal rights under the law and have gained ground, but now the question Wellman brings to light is the fight for special rights and not equal rights because women and men have different needs for different disabilities. And as he goes to say that special rights may in fact lead to reverse discrimination towards women. This is more of an issue of social justice rather than a fight for a legal right. Social justice should base rights off of need and not equality. I think the best solution for this is issue is to make their needs apparent to employers and the public. And concerning morality I think that “care” better suits this situation and that it should be just the way society is toward women who bring us into this world.

The issues women are fighting for seem to be very contradictory because if they fight for equal rights, they are saying they need special rights for special needs: which is true. But perhaps fighting for equal rights is not the way to approach this fight. And if they are fighting for “women’s” rights then are they fighting for group rights or individual rights of each and every woman? And if it is a group right simply because they one is a woman then do rights as we know them apply toward a people group in this way? It seems to me that once one right is reached that the next right uproots the last right and needs to be reevaluated. I definitely think this is a problem but how and where to start might be the key question.

Abortion as Wellman states is the most controversial right out there. One of the interesting statements Wellman makes is this issue distorts politics by diverting attention away from our urgent social problems, and that this issue leads toward violence. I am taking it he is pro-choice? If he is making the argument that this is not an “urgent social problem” and it should not be an urgent issue. Most pro-life supporters say this is genocide: so is abortion genocide and if so is that an “urgent social problem?” And who has the right of an unborn child; the mother who carries the child or the mother and father who coherently brought about the child. Some argue the father does have a say since if the child were to be born they would have to support him/her. Others argue that the mother has sole control over the child. Wellman’s conclusion states that old and new moral rights must be considered when establishing new moral rights for an ideal society. Will this proliferation of “alleged” moral rights ruin current human rights we possess?

Human Rights vs Men & Women Rights?

As I was reading chapter four, the concept that caught my attention was the distinction between basic human rights and the rights of individual men and women. "the difference between the sexes is fundamental to the nature, situation, and self-image of every women. Hence legal distinctions between females and males are not always arbitrary and unjust" (pg 79). Thus far in class we have asked whether we have moral rights or not? Now we need to ask, if we do have moral rights, are they the same for both men and women? Seemingly, there is an obvious difference between men and women. Yet in the legal world the trend seems to be towards having men and women be equal in certain regards (claiming men and women should treated equal because they are human) and unequal in other regards (claiming women should get special rights because men and women are biologically different). Wellman writes, also on pg 79, "For many purposes, sexual differences are biologically superficial and irrelevant to the proper social roles of men and women". I guess the question I have is, how much should the biological differences of men and women impact our conceptions of moral and legal rights as individuals?

Prolif. of Rights Ch. 4

For me, the most interesting passage in the chapter was the following:

"It is not merely legal rights that have their limits in the struggle for an idealth society; moral rights also have limited applicability. There is more to morality than rights" (94).

I've heard a little about the ethics of care but I'd be interested in learning more. It seems like a fairly intuitive concept--separating morality from emotion (which, I presume to be at least partially the basis of care) might be a misstep. What other factors might be needed to fully encompass all aspects of morality?

A problem with equal pay and the problem of affirmative action are intertwined. On the one hand, it is clear that African-Americans are denied opportunities in higher education partially because their relatives were denied those same opportunities. If they are then denied opportunities, the cycle continues. Yet, we are not comfortable with affirmative action because it denies an opportunity granted to someone else. It is clear that merely granting equal pay to women is not sufficient for rectifying inequality between the sexes, primarily because they are stuck in jobs that are not recognize as important. One answer would be assimilation--to enter the jobs that men currently primarily hold. Presuming this is a desirable option (a debateable point) women face severe entrance barriers, even assuming they come from well off families. Lack of other women in their profession, bias (largely from older generations) and other issues create detrimental work environments. How is this problem rectified? Placing more women in the workplace? Or do we start paying positions that women tend to hold (eg teaching) more? Who does this and where do we take away money from? As Wellman describes, comparing different jobs can be a terribly difficult task--yet not doing so and leaving it in the hands of the market it equally troubling.

The arguments on p. 79 are also of particular interest. It is clear to me that discrimination--used without negative connotations--might be necessary in order to capture the essence of rights distinctly needed by women. In law, though, there is a very thin line between warranted and unwarranted discrimination. How can courts construct laws so as to determine and then maintain such a line?

I also think its telling the way we default to rights language when attempting to express something we are passionate about (85). It shows just how valuable this language in and thereby the extent to which it needs to be limited to maintain its effectiveness. I am compelled by the standards Wellman gives for both legal and moral rights at the end of chapter three and would like to explore the legitimacy of these further.

Wellman Ch. 4

I also found it very interesting to see the different approaches that feminists use to fight for women's rights and equality. It is evident that some rights do indeed have to be special to each of the sexes, but the main point is that those rights do not create inequality. By not giving special rights and recognition of maternity leave or prostate cancer insurance, men and women alike would be stripped of their identity.

Another very interesting and depressing idea I came upon was that "no appeal to individual rights can ever adequatly remedy the sexual discrimination of women as a group" (80). This parallels to genocide in the way that murder of many individuals does not equal the removal of a people. With sexual discrimination, even the sum of all women's discrimination does not equal the discrimination that they have faced as a group. The roadblock that I come upon is the possible solution for women's pain as a whole? If women are not able to fight discrimination alone, how are they to fight it as a group. Law and legal rights are targeted more specificly towards certian issues. When one brings a case the court, the issue at hand is usually one involving a specific situation. I feel that it would be very difficult to defend a case for women as a group, or people. This leads me to conclude that perhaps the best way to equality is through social change. Raising awareness of the problems might lead to their reduction. A possible objection, I am aware, is that issues not enforced by law sometimes bring no change at all.

Lastly, I want to focus of women's right not to be raped. The traditional definition of rape excludes marital rape, even if the husband brutally beats and forces the wife. It baffles me to think that men seem entitled to their wives' bodies. This way of thinking makes it seem that upon signing the marriage certificate, the women give away any integrity or free will and become subjects to their husbands. Wellman quoted the English jurist, Lord Hale, whose opinion made it impossible for marital rape because the woman consents to her husband's will upon entering the marriage. (Oh, Please!)
It will be impossible for women to achieve equality until men take responsability of social obligations similar to women's and attempt to remedy centuries of wrongdoing.

Wellman Chapter 4

Wellman's chapter 4 was especially interesting to me, because I have wondered throughout the course whether any of these rights could be deemed special or equal intermittently. As Thomas Hobbes states (77) maybe it is an innate human characteristic to be self interested. Therefore it would seem that all the rights being advocated for are special rather than equal, because they apply to a certain group, rather than universally.

It seems necessary to have to use the individualistic approach, because some members of the group may reject the right in the first place. For instance, women who do not plan on having children may not fight for the right for maternal leave, thus rejecting their claim on this “women’s right.” Women who do see the validity of such a right, take it upon their individualistic interest to promote such a right to exist. Essentially, rights can be perceived as individual or group-oriented dependent upon who is utilizing the right.

It’s also impossible for special rights to not be interrelated with equal rights. Affirmative action may seem like a special right claim for women and African American to men, but to the former it is a reparation right to make up for past injury. However, if the group or individual is not taking advantage of the right then for seems to be no way to make up for the injustices of the past. Also, are we going to be regretting any of these t in the future? There’s always the possibility that these reparations could harm a minority group in the future, something we would not be able to foresee until it is too late. Where is the morality of another group being discriminated against?

People say there is a proliferation of rights. I don’t see the expansion of rights coming to an end until the actual end of the world (if such ever occurs), because it seems someone will always be left out. Therefore the proliferation, whether it has moral basis, will most likely continue.

A chapter four fundamental

Dear All,

It's a wonder to me that when we talk about rights, it's always group by group (or at least in this book). I can see how the rights became specific to a group, but I can't see WHY. I agree with Carol Smart on page 80 when she says that rights are developed to correct social wrongs, but why these wrongs were there in the first place is what I would suggest correcting. It would be an interesting experiment to create a world in which the rights were non-explicit--meaning they defended everyone by not defending anyone.

I was particularly interested in the argument for "special rights". Most of us come into the argument understanding that men and women are biologically different whether we like it or not. But are we wary enough, when wording our "rights talk", to recognize when we are prescribing negative attributes? I am thinking of the passage on 82 that sums, "to argue for a special right to maternity leave is to suggest...that their primary purpose is repoduction." How could we make a special right in regards to maternity leave that does not say that?

Wellman Chapter 4

As I was reading this chapter, I kept thinking about our discussion of third generation rights from Tuesday's class. I know that our course deals mainly with the rights of individuals, but I thought that some of the recurring themes in this chapter resonated with our class discussion. In particular, Wellman notes several times the argument that the rights which women have received in recent decades do not compensate for the wrongs done to them in the past. Particularly, he writes: "Some feminists explain that no right could possibly be adequate to remedy the unjust treatment of women. Rights, in theory and in practice, are paradigmatically rights of individuals. Thus, women's rights are taken to be rights of each and every individual woman, not rights of women as a group" (80). Reading this passage reminded me of the "is the whole greater than the sum of its parts?" portion of class. Here, the feminist argument to which Wellman is referring says that there is something intangible that makes "women" greater than the sum of every individual woman. Still, Wellman draws the distinction between any possible group right and an individual right. Based on my reading of Wellman, it seems that women's rights are not a group right; rather, they are individual rights bestowed upon someone by nature of her participation in a certain category (i.e. womanhood).

As such, I'm wondering if these rights are universal. I suppose some would argue that they are universal rights because, theoretically, men already had these rights. Others would probably argue that they are universal rights because they apply to all people (some people just needed the right more than others). Still other people would claim that these rights are exclusive to women and do not apply to men. Looking at history, I can see that some rights (like the right to vote, the right to own property, etc.) were afforded to only a few individuals by virtue of their participation in a particular property (i.e. white or male). So, I guess my larger question is the following: why are some rights universal and others not? Do some individuals or classes of individuals "need" rights more than others (for example, do we try to give people rights to make up for past injustice)? What kinds of rights can justly be attributed to some individuals and not others?

One concept in the chapter that I struggled with was the concept of social atomism. In his conclusion, Wellman states that the concept of rights does not require any social atomism; however, earlier in the chapter, he entertains Wolgast's argument to the contrary. Wolgast argues that the individual who has any particular right acts completely independently of other individuals, society, and culture; the individual acts simply to further his or her own self-interest. Wellman, writing about the theory, writes: "Because both employers and employees are assumed to be motivated purely by self-interest, there is no room in their theory of rights even to conceive of a moral right to equal pay for work of comparable worth to society" (77). I'm confused as to how the idea of social atomism cannot accommodate moral rights. my guess is that, in the pursuit of self-interest, there is no room for a moral right that could derail an individual from his or her pursuit of self-interest, but I'm not sure if this is correct. I see Wellman's larger point that such social atomism is not required for rights (after all, I think that some rights are probably formed based on the knowledge that one gains through his or her interaction with others in society); yet, that particular critique of Wolgast had me confused.

Rights and Duties, the second generation

I was interested in Wellman's discussion of second generation rights - what he eventually names "social welfare rights." Nozick's view of these rights is that they do not have corresponding duties (or perhaps that they do not exist at all as they infringe on the rights of taxpayers not to pay for welfare services for other people). I found this distinctly problematic, though I don't know that I can explain or justify the way I feel about this section (Sorry, I am a feeling person - I tend to know how I feel about issues before I know why I feel that way or how to describe/analyze the problem). My immediate reaction, which merely comes out of personal belief, is that people have a responsibility to assist their brethren when they are capable of doing so. That is, I don't think taxpayers should complain about "their tax dollars" going to public assistance or social welfare programs. Social welfare programs don't just include what people typically think of as "welfare" (providing monetary assistance to people who are living in poverty), but instead it includes public education, public transportation and road construction/repair, the state provides money for people who suffer from mental illness and disabilities when their families cannot afford the costs of medicines and treatments, the state also provides the foster care system and the money used to buy children clothes and provide them with food and other necessities. Many of these services are necessary to the operation of a community - one which recognizes the problems it faces and tries to provide for the people who need the assistance. My problem, then, is that I don't know if these are genuine moral rights. I feel that they are, mostly because in our society, there is an unequal distribution of wealth, education, and opportunity. And, looking at it from the utilitarian view (although I hate that utilitarianism makes commodities of human life), it is better for everyone, even those of us near the top, if these social welfare programs are in place. It's a bit off topic, but I certainly feel better.

So how do we know for sure if something is a moral right? What would it mean to have a legal right that is not morally justifiable? Should it remain a legal right?

ch 2 & 3

An interesting distinction I found was on pg 38 "genuine moral rights, if they exist, are different from the conventional rights created by the moral code of a society". I found this particularly interesting because of the idea of a society having a moral code, which is separate from alleged moral rights, seems to make understanding our alleged moral rights all that much more difficult. For example just consider two different societies, each with a very different moral code. Each society would most likely claim to have its moral code based off our alleged, objective moral rights. Yet, if we have universal moral rights one side must be wrong, or a least more wrong than the other side. The point I'm trying to make is that when we are trying to understand our alleged moral rights as humans, we need to consider not only our society's moral code, but the moral code of every society. We cannot afford to be ethnocentric in our search for understanding our moral rights...if we have any.

Another passage I found interesting was on pg 69 "the law cannot remove the injustices arising from racial discrimination in our society because it cannot change the hearts and minds of those who discriminate." The passage goes on to suggest that education is the means for eradicating moral evil. I do not believe anyone would argue with this statement. Just look at the civil rights movement in the last 50 years. Laws have been created, yet racial discrimination still occurred. Fast forward to today, where we have been raised differently then previous generations, and one could argue that real change has been made...perhaps just a small one (arguably) via education. This leads me to believe that the proliferation of legal rights may not be all that important in the grand scheme of things, not to say they are not needed, just that we may be over saturated with them. If we really want to see change, is creating laws the best means? Or, perhaps education is the key to seeing real change? Thoughts???

Chapters 2-3

To me, it's completely obvious that there has been a proliferation of rights and I don't think it is empty rhetoric. Today's society is progressing so well that morality is also increasing, even though there will always be violence and discrimination in the world. This can be exemplified through today's generation. 5o years ago, it would be mind-boggling to think that there would be an upper education course that advocated gay rights. In my LPS course last semester, we extensively studied the gay and lesbian social movement. The fact that we are able to take courses such as these today shows that we are advancing progressively as a society to be more moral and provide more rights for oppressed groups. Even though there are setbacks, such as Proposition 8, there is progress in the mindset of individuals. At least in our current generation, people have become more acceptant of "different individualsl." Things that were once considered tabboo, are now accepted, because we realize the rights of more individuals.

I think this does show that rights are proliferating. However, I agree with some students that maybe these rights are coming just because the laws are being passed and we are forced to abide by them. Are we assimilating into a society where we have to follow these "moral orders?" For instance, what if I (which is not my opinion in the slightesT!!!) was totally unwilling to provide any gays and lesbians equal rights due to MY moral thinking involving religion, or just that I thought it was morally wrong? How then would it be considered moral progression, because everyone has different moral prospectives? Who determines what is moral when our morals and values are so shaped by society, family, religion, culture, etc? I think it's a hard thing to measure whether there is moral progression, since the definition is so debatable.

On the issue that Wellman discusses on affirmative action I am very indecisive. I realize we have a duty as a society to concede reparations to the African American population, but I feel like this is a further point of discrimination. This may be quite a stretch, but aren't we further isolating them from "normal society" by giving them special privileges? I understand the horrible, horrible, horrible things that we did to them in the past, but I still wonder whether acceptance should be considered solely on education. The race description should not be involved whatsoever. I think it is a form of discrimination by having that aspect considered even slightly. However, I am very unknowledgable on this subject and look forward to the discussion and insight in class tomorrow!!! (or today since I'm sadly up late finishing this!)

Human rights...

I’m confused as to whether human rights could or are considered moral rights. If they are the same thing or if I’m just getting them mixed up; “human rights” I’m told in the book did not gain currency until after the WWII. Or because of this human rights are more laws guiding or backing up moral rights. First generations are Civil and political rights; same for second, third is moral theory.

One of the things that particularly grabbed my attention in the readings of Chapter 2 and 3 is Wellman's argument that groups cannot have moral rights. He states, "Because I believe that groups, including peoples, are incapable of acting collectively, I deny that a people as such could have any moral rights" (p. 35).

I can't bring myself to agree with the idea of groups not having moral rights. Some of the previous posts include the argument that third generation rights are not necessary because such rights are already accounted for by first generation rights. However, I think that first generation rights and third generation rights are each important in their own sense, because both individual and collective rights are necessary for the full realization of human rights.

If collective rights are those claimed by human beings as part of groups, they are not necessarily in tension with individual rights. I also don't think that it is a safe assumption that individual rights are able to replace collective rights. I think the question should not be which are more important, but rather, how best to promote both so as to attain a full meaning of human rights.

In order to understand the importance of third generation rights, it is necessary to understand the context under which such rights arose. Third generation rights arose in international law in the aftermath of World War I, but I think became even more prominent after World War II and decolonization. The importance of third generation rights is illustrated through the concept of genocide, as Wellman points out. Prior to the acceptance of the term "genocide" after WWII, the act of what we now know to be "genocide" was, in the words of Winston Churchill, "a crime without a name". If such a crime had remained without a name, and if this collective human right from genocide was not brought into international discourse, the crimes in Yugoslavia or the crimes against Jews by Nazis may not have ever been brought before the international agenda and the crimes committed may have remained unrecognized if we solely depended on first generation rights. Because the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted in a historical context motivated by the crimes during WWII, Wellman states that, "Presumably, then, the peoples' right to existence concerns its physical existence rather than its cultural identity" (p. 31). But doesn't the annihilation of a group also destroy that group's cultural identity, therefore making the right to existence not only a matter of physical existence, but also one of cultural identity? Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term "genocide" was concerned with nationality and ethnicity because they are components of a culture. "He thought that each cultural group had its own 'genius' that should be preserved. To destroy, or attempt to destroy, a culture, is a special kind of crime because culture is the unit of collective memory...To kill a culture is to cast its individual members into individual oblivion, their memories buried with their mortal remains" (Jones, Adam. Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction. Routledge, 2006.11.). Therefore, the importance of the term "genocide" is not only the recognition that groups of people are destroyed, but also that with those groups, their cultural identities are destroyed, as well.

Even though third generation rights may reinforce certain first generation rights (i.e. the protection against the annihilation of a group reinforces the individual human right of life), the third generation rights are still important in themselves because first generation rights are inadequate in protecting the collective rights of a group. The sole right to life does not encompass a broader concept such as genocide. That not only highlights the importance of third-generation rights, but also makes one question how someone can claim that groups do not possess moral rights? If a group is destroyed, individuals are also killed, and does that not in turn violate the moral rights of individuals? Furthermore, if groups are compromised of individuals, and individuals possess moral rights (if they, in fact, do), then doesn't the group, as a whole, share certain moral rights by virtue of being comprised by individuals?

These last two chapters have been very interesting for me because I for the most part had never really questioned several of the rights being examined here. This is not to say that I have been convinced that these rights do not exist, especially the first and second generation rights but the third generation rights were a little more back and forth for me. I understood the argument that many of these rights were covered through individual rights and thus for the most part redundant. It definitely is an interesting issue to work through. Another argument in this section I found interesting was dealing with the welfare rights and how they may infringe on the first generation rights through taxation.
Ernie I was having the same thoughts about whether white people were advantaged in our society in much the same way as African Americans. I would argue that they are but I have not figured out what I think ought to be done about it. I have been toying with this argument sense reading "Black Theology of Liberation" by Cone last semester and it is an issue I am still not sure what to do with. Now about your question at the end of your post...
I would argue that groups are capable of action and duties in much the same way as governments are. Groups, at least of an organized nature, have the ability to come together to perform a task which could not have been done by an individual and are often held accountable for their actions which is why governments/international groups label some groups as terrorist organizations and works to abolish it rather than just a group that has some terrorists in it and then work to merely try various individuals in the group guilty of the act of terrorism. This idea of collective action and group goals is how I understand groups and under that understanding it would seem that groups have the necessary ability for action and find themselves bound by the usual duties to human rights.

I think there are a lot of interesting things in the posts below but two I want to draw particular attention to. I enjoyed Mike's post a lot because it gets to the heart of a fundamental question in politics: Where ought (or should) morality be injected into law? One option, of course, is the legislature. All students in Pols001 know the basic problems of legislation--legislators are responsive to the populous. To give all the power of dictating morality to the majority would be ill advised--I, at least, am not compelled that what the public believes to be moral always is moral.

But then, as Mike notes, you have judges. In theory, these judges check poor legal (and, therefore, moral) maneuvers by congress. As Wellman discusses at the end of chapter 3, sometimes legal decisions/laws do something odd--they turn around and create new moral rights. These aren't brand new ideas, of course, but new ways of thinking about human rights. Often times, these are auxilliary rights. Judges, because of their unique place in society, have the ability to see the way our current legal and moral discourse fails to capture the ways in which individuals should be protected. Then again, they are also human, and many of them have overruled laws which probably accurately captured morality. In sum, just as legislators and judges share a responsibility to guard the constitution/represent the will of the people, they also share an obligation to keep an eye on morality.

The second post I think is important is Ryan's. First off, I don't think Native Americans generally like being referred to as "red." I also think that your argument mischaracterizes the arguments Wellman outlines. In sum, most of them claim that discrimination does still occur today. It is not merely a discussion of one's grandparents being discriminated against. The conditions 100 years ago created unequal access to education, housing, health care, etc. today. The complaint outlined in the book is whether or not this creates a new ability to "discriminate" in order to rectify injustice that occurs now.

This leads to my primary concern with the affirmative action argument as outlined by Wellman. One piece seems to be missing. I can buy the claim that Bakke might not have ever actively discriminated against anyone. Is he not, however, advantaged in virtue of his status as a white male? Is there an argument to be made that his position in society is at least partially determined by his being white? If we agree that African-Americans are disadvantage in virtue of their skin color (as the argument Wellman outlines concedes) wouldn't this be a logical consequence? I'm not sure that this creates a right/obligation, but I think it might and is a part of the puzzle that should be considered. I'll have to think about this more but I think there is an argument here.

This book has really made me rethink the way I view rights. Its kind of like the concept of truth--once you get over the fact that there isn't a Truth out there that you can touch and point to for all the answers, it isn't so intimidating. Before I saw all rights in a Nozickian frame; rights are constraints that are never to be violated. I think a more reasonable way to view rights is a set of claims that are all limited by each other. We modify rights over time to account for new factors that we didn't foresee. When rights conflict, we prioritize them.

I am sympathetic to the claim that group rights might be a superfluous concept. I agree that the individual right to life necessitates a right for collectives to not be killed. I also find compelling the claim that since groups aren't things capable of acting and, I think, are incapable of having obligations, it doesn't make sense to give them rights. I'd be interested in hearing counterarguments on this issue.

Chapter 2 and 3

I would agree that the U.N. has been of great importance in the proliferation of human rights. However, I feel that the proliferation has affected U.S. citizens to a lesser degree than other countries' citizens (as many of our most basic rights have spread through post-Soviet nations, etc.).

I agree with Wellman that rights can be categorized. However, I think the categories presented by Wellman overlap, a fact he acknowledges may occur. The third generation rights he refers to are actually those protected under the first generation rights. In fact, the rights of association, solidarity (which is group cohesiveness), self-determination, and peace are covered under civil rights (or, at least they are in the United States), so the third generation could be classified as a subsection of the first generation. Instead, could rights be categorized by economic, civil, and self-determination rights?

Chapters 2 & 3

I found Wellman's breakdown of the different types of rights (first, second, and third generation) particularly helpful because it gave us a more in depth look into where moral rights were first introduced, anciently, and how they came to be recognized as "fundamental moral rights of man in the constitutional law (p16)." First generation rights are political and civil in nature. Although there is no perfect right I feel that these are the rights that are most easily understood and enforcable mainly because of the moral duty and importance that is attached to them. Most of us would feel ok saying that we are pretty secure in the fact that we share the rights of life, liberty, and property. Also I think that we can morally justify wanting to seek refuge from persecution like in the right to asylum. However,this only names a few, are all of our so called human rights really protected and who's job is it to protect them?

But now I want to skip to chapter 3 for a minute and discuss new civil rights. Wellman focuses on three different topics in this chapter nonsegegated public education, interracial marriage, and preferential addmissions. Today I think that we take for granted or just can't imagine what it would of been like to live in a time when you could not attend school on the basis of race. From the definition that we get of civil rights, belonging to every citizen, it's hard to see how things got that out of control. It's great to see that our government has taken a stance on some issues regaurding race and racial discrimination. There is no denying that preventing children from reciveing an education solely on the basis of race is wrong, even though some believed it was perfectly alllright. Interracial marrige is also something that we can see everyday now but at one time people really believed that it was wrong. This one really got me because the whole time I was reading it I was thinking of the recent culture war over same-sex marriage. If two people love each other, want to raise a family, and have a right to the pursuit of happiness, shouldn't they be able to get married. So the issue then was race and now it's sexual preference, maybe a proliferation of rights could come in handy right now. Also I fimly believe that if African Americans want to attend school and they are given preferential addmittance then that is wonderful. Personally, and I know this will get comments, I think that we, "white people", do alot of unnessary whineing. Everyday in alot of ways we are privlaged in so many ways not because we earned it becaue we are white. There is Affirmative Action but who cares if we haven't noticed the population is a majority white and I can safely say that most schools proablly follow suit, so all I'm saying with that is there are a lot of white students being accepted and rejected every year, period. Also there is stilll a huge education gap and even if we weren't the ones to personally mess everything up we need to stand up and permenatly fix it. In my opinion I think that even upper level education should be free for African Americans it's time to pay back what we owe. Also you can't be the victim of racial discrimination when you are the majority that dosn't make sense.

Back to chapter two, Second generation rights are economic, social, and cultural rights. These rights I had a hard time with because I agree with the arguement on p 23 that it seems as if they are not enforceable. Although it seems like there should be some kind of legal protection for them there isn't so my question from last week remains... Are these really rights at all? It seems that with out legal support and proper funding these. I thought that third generation rights was pretty well explained basically they seem to be rights that are relevant to a group and not just an individual like, as Wellman states, genocide.

Moral Rights?

What are moral rights? We have tried to define moral rights but have been unsuccessful. To me, morals are defined by what each person believes; for instance someone may be a Christian and their morals come from their religion. Being that there are many different religions or non-religions, how can there be moral rights when not one religion or non-religion will have the same morals? It doesn't make sense to say that everyone has this moral right when maybe someone may not believe that people should or do have that moral right. This leads into my next question, who decides what moral rights that people should or do have? The government? Local or state or federal government? To help me better understand rights, can we define moral rights or is there not really a definition because it is such a broad term?

This is the main idea in the reading that I couldn't get past. Another main one was the Interracial Marriage. How in the world can a government say that it is "against the law" to marry whites with non-whites? What about non-whites with non-whites? Did the government say anything about that? Probably not because in this case they were trying to keep public schools segregated. I don't think this is right but that still doesn't give the American Government the right to control the lives of Americans. This seems that it would go against the moral rights or the rights of human beings. Humans/Americans should be able to make decisions by themselves therefore, they should be able to make the right as to who they marry.

I believe that this should not be an obligation for the government to be prying around in. They should have been focusing on bigger issues at that time other than who people marry.

Chapters 2 & 3

Wellman talks about at the beginning of chapter two, three generations of human rights: Civil and political rights, social welfare rights and solidarity rights. First generation rights are civil and political rights; civil meaning every citizen possesses these rights and political meaning they are enabled to participate in the establishment of government. And he says that this idea has come from ancient lineage. Why then has it taken our country so long to establish these rights amongst our own people? As we grow as a country it is almost no-wonder why we have had this proliferation of rights, “moral rights”. For the longest time our society has not treated all human beings equally as our very own constitution has stated. We have amendments after amendments giving the same rights to different genders, races of people. If our society just followed the moral principle by which we were founded on, that all men were created equal then we might not have this proliferation.

When citizens enter into a society they essentially enter into a social contract and by that they limit certain rights to which they may have previously held for the betterment of society to secure these fundamental moral rights, Wellman states. Associated with the first generation of rights is that of the right to asylum, if certain other social groups throughout the world such as the United Nations were effective then certain human rights might not be in place. The right to asylum is a key right to be able to survive if someone “country, government” is after you for an unjust reason then this particular right I think is good. But why establish rights after the base is corrupt. Wouldn’t it be more effective to establish certain rights and enforce certain laws on all peoples internationally then to establish rights by which the right itself shouldn’t exist because the problem shouldn’t exist?

The second generation rights Wellman talks about are social welfare rights. The right to work is part of this; I think that work is a privilege and a legal right and not necessarily a fundamental human right. If one kills another and is imprisoned does he loose his right to work or his privilege to work? I would argue that he loses his privilege to work and perhaps even a legal right associated with that. If these were a human moral right and there is a possibility it could be. then we as a social network on earth have failed many peoples, maybe even the majority of people in this aspect of welfare rights. Even though there are no economic, social, or cultural human rights under existing international law. Wellman says that the primary test for a moral right is practicability, is this practicable?

The third generations of rights include solidarity rights. Whether this is an actual human right is debatable. As some have argued and I agree that adding this generation of human rights would devalue the currency of human rights. If these rights exist it seems to me that they would fundamentally alter human rights as we know them. Because what may seem best for a group of people might not always be best for an individual person, this view is utilitarian to me. Because if these rights exist then the better part of society would choose which groups are right and which are wrong. It would leave many individual people out of what the majority calls right and wrong. As Wellman talks about this would call for worldwide action immediately. Not that this would be bad but again is this plausible? If we actually established an international organization which effectively orchestrated the moral action around the world then this may be within reach. But given that organizations such as the UN or NATO have not been the most effective by all means then solidarity rights to large groups seems to me to hinder the actual goal of human rights. Solidarity rights seem as Wellman puts it incompatible with the “nature of human rights”.

Civil rights are rights one possesses as a citizen. And the civil rights movement focused on three areas of rights: non-segregated public education, interracial marriage, and preferential admissions. It is a little crazy to me to not allow children of different skin colors or adults of different skin colors to be granted the same education or the right to marry. But when it comes to the “legal” right to marry whatever color one is, it opens the door to many more questions dealing with marriage. The first whether or not people of the same sex should be allowed to marry, the second how many spouses one should be allowed to have. Because it seems to me that allowing one of these should be tolerant of the other. Why does our society view that marriage between a man and woman the only legally binding way to marry. And once married why one is allowed only one wife. If these views are based on the Judao-Christian point-of-view then why haven’t we established more laws based on this view point? If we were founded as a country on Christian values then why are some areas permissible and others not. And if these laws are established where it ends perhaps it is a proliferation of human rights. How far will it go? Until all are happy? Until everything is acceptable? Our founding fathers left the church in the state and as we are headed toward a secular system, is there room for God and if so where?

Preferential admissions to universities is not a progressive way to think. Bakke was rejected out of the medical school he wanted to get into while others were accepted into the school with lower tests scores then himself. To me this is a major problem within our colleges and universities or any place/organization that uses preferential admissions. It is almost like saying to the people nowadays that because your great grandfather were treated poorly that we are going to grant you compensation for the actions our grandfathers did to them. if we are progressing toward human rights then this seems to put us in almost a reverse sense. It is still racism just directed at a different race. One question Wellman asks is “US institutions have a legal right but do they have a moral right?” I would say no they do not. Because as he goes on to say it is morally wrong to engage in any form of racial discrimination and I happen to agree with him. He talks about how this is reverse racial discrimination. It is like the government providing funding for Native Americans, as we can all see that reservations are not very well sought after. The government granting funding for the wrong doings the white grandfathers did to the red grandfathers, this is obscene. Again if we allow preferential admissions to continue then we have already begun to cripple the civil rights movement.

Too many rights have been established for too many people groups. We need to have rights for all peoples and not just certain groups. If we are a society that does not allow racism in our government and laws than reverse racial discrimination is just as bad as racial discrimination. At the end of the chapter he asks if the proliferation of rights has improved our legal system and I would say, NO. It has not and if we continue down the road we are on then like I said we will paralyze our very own human rights and ones that should be seen as moral.

The Role of the Courts

At the beginning of chapter three, Wellman locates civil rights clearly within the realm of legal (not moral) rights; still, he notes that some moral rights (like those found in declarations of human rights) are often formalized into the law. Beginning his discussion of civil rights, Wellman writes that “[o]ur examination will reveal how deeply moral reasoning penetrates our legal system and how central the language of rights is to our political discourse” (41-42). My question, then, regards Wellman’s view of the role of the legal system. I’m wondering exactly what he views as the proper role of the courts in the broader political system. Each of the three cases he cites is an instance when the federal courts exercise their power to protect the rights of individuals.

If, according to Wellman’s argument above, governments formalize moral rights into legal rights through the process of lawmaking, wouldn’t it be preferable to have such work done by elected representatives who are (theoretically) charged with representing the will of their constituents instead of unelected judges with life tenure? Or, perhaps allowing the courts (viewed as a countermajoritarian body) to codify moral rights into legal rights is preferable since they are responsible for listening to the underdog; after all, we want our judges to listen to both sides of the case, find applicable law, and apply that law to the case regardless of the implications of the decision. Our view of a fair judiciary, then, relies upon impartial judges who can remove their own personal views from the case to make a decision that is based solely upon the law. If this is taken as true, then, allowing the courts to transform moral rights into legal rights causes problems because (it seems to me) that we are asking judges to express their own moral views. If we are asking them to transform these rights then (it seems to me) that we are asking them to create law based on morals. In the absence of an impartial statement of morals, it seems that the judges would need to default to their own moral standards.

I guess a larger point that I am trying to make is this: is there a role for an elected legislature in the creation and preservation of civil rights, or does the countermajoritarian nature of civil rights necessitate the increased involvement of the courts? I’m not trying to jump on the bandwagon and say that the courts are becoming increasingly activist; rather, I’m simply trying to demarcate the line of appropriate involvement in the creation and preservation of rights for both the judicial and legislative branches.

It is very interesting to read these different opinions. Although some claim that human rights are individualistic, I do not see them as such. Wellman notes throughout the book that human rights are rights that human beings have in the virtue of being human. As Indira pointed out, those rights have been rooted in society/people even before laws were created. This is where I come to some confustion. Why is the proliferation of rights regarded as negative? I understand that Wellman argues that it demeans the value of rights, but how is that possible? A right is something one has or does not have. In my opinion, they do not have values.

I also wanted to draw attention to a few passages/arguements that I found to be very interesting.
In the section about solidarity rights, Wellman explains what those rights encompass, as well as possible arguements against their existance. "They include rights of all humanity to peace and to a healthy environment and the rights of any people to self-determination and to it's own culture."(29) Wellman later explains how some critiques of solidarity rights include their unnecessary repetition. What I mean by this is that the rights given to a group of people are overlapping those given to them as individuals. Why is it then that these third-generation rights have come into existance? As Wellman mention, genocide is one of the possible explanation. Even in the case of genocide, peoples's basic human rights were violated, such as their right to life. That means that they already had protection under the first two generations of rights. Something I did find interesting is that Wellman mentioned that the cause for genocide and other attoricities is what brought solidarity rights into existance. He said that the attempt to exterminate a group of people because of who they are is what gave them solidarity rights.

"Not every consideration that might make an action morally right makes it just." (47)
I am a little confused by this statement. Wellman further gives the example of the failing student and rich father, but I am having trouble understanding what the moral and what the just action would be. Regardless, is Wellman saying that even moral actions can be unjust. And how is that so? People, including myself, have the idea of morality as the ultimate justice. I see a moral act as one that is "supposed to be done". Justice can be seen in the same way. I would love to hear others' opinions on this. Feel free to elaborate.

To be a right or not to be a right?

I understand Wellman's concept that the rights we claim we have are easily taken advantage of now days which has led to the proliferation of our rights. He uses the example of our right "to national holidays", and "animals rights compared to humans" as a way to explain how the language of rights even in our political rhetoric distorts the origin and real meaning of the reasons we have rights in the first place. I view our moral/legal rights originated universally by the experiences that we individually share. For example if I do not like pain then I can assume that you do not either, therefore I have no right to inlflict pain on you without it being permitted to be afflicted on me. Wellman quotes Maurice Cranston who states that "A human right is something of which noone may be deprived without a grave affront of justice"(3). I feel that even in countries besides the U.S. that this is the definition that is used to apply rights. Many may disagree because in plenty countries they do not sare the same rights as we do in the United States although the majority of them are still justified through a judicial system.

As the optimistic cynic and someonelse noted, Welman names morals rights as the "alleged moral rights" never really stating that we do have them so I question how is it that he feels that moral rights go "hand in hand" with legal rights if you never admit to us having moral rights in the first place? I am confused by his notion to neglect the origin of moral rights but believe that the legal system is there to enforce them.

Regan I disagree that Wellman believes that human rights are individualistic. Maybe now the public discourse and terms rights is an individualistic manipulation to avoid social responsibility (i.e, "paid holidays off work"), but the origin of human rights or moral rights is universal and a collective response to the treatment of human beings. It is a universal understanding to the right to life and to the right to liberity it just varies on what country law choose to follow all the said moral and human rights.

A (Rant?) about animal rights and children's rights

Wellman seems vehemently opposed to bestowing legal and/or "alleged moral rights" onto children. He had also written that animal rights are problematic. With the latter opinion, I think I agree (to some extent - I don't know that animals have "rights" though I don't think we should treat them cruelly and I think humane slaughter is important) but with the former, I find myself torn. I understand Wellman's argument that children are not independent persons with the ability to make decisions for themselves or the ability to understand their rights. However, in reading the Declaration (http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/25.htm), it seems that it is not so much a laundry list of outlandish rights of which the child must be cognizant to receive, but rather it is a list of responsibilities the state holds to each and every child regardless of race, sex, creed, disability, or bubble gum flavor. They are basic human needs or things that will ensure the wellbeing, health, and happiness of the child. The Declaration includes statements that underline the importance of the family. Wellman's claim that "what children really need is nt to be liberated and empowered... as much as to receive loving care and nurture by their parents or guardians" (5). Yes! The UN agrees, and goes on to say that the state needs to help parents to ensure the child receives an education, food, water, and that she is not put in harms way through employment, war, or abuse. So what is Wellman arguing against? Merely the language of rights being applied to children? Do we lack rights as a child but gain them when we become conscious of ourselves, or perhaps when we are no longer dependent on our parents, or maybe when we reach the arbitrary age of 18? I do not think states should remove children from their caregivers willy-nilly, but there are circumstances in which, for the wellbeing and safety of the child, this must occur. Wellman says that "Child abuse and neglect are all too common and grave moral wrongs, but they can be effectively addressed only by defining and insisting upon the moral responsibility of children's caregivers" (6). Really? Last time I checked, the probability that an abusive or neglectful parent will successfully reform and be able to adequately care for a child is slim to none. Abusers very rarely have the ability (and perhaps this is judgmental, but they also seem very rarely to have the will) to change, even if their "rights" as a parent are taken away. Obviously there are instances in which some education can change everything, but these cases are not the norm. So what does Wellman propose now? Do Children really not have rights?

As a note, I think it is interesting that in this country, animal "rights" came before children's rights. Here is some food for thought:

"Child protection cases in the United States were first brought pursuant to animal abuse laws. Henry Bergh founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (“ASPCA”) in 1866. In 1874, Bergh and Elbridge Gery, an attorney for the ASPCA, successfully petitioned to have eight-year-old Mary Ellen Wilson removed from her abusive home. Several months later, the first meeting of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was held at the ASPCA's office" (http://www.animallaw.info/articles/arus30sepcololaw29.htm).

I hope that made sense.
(sorry it's late)

The impetus for proliferation

Especially since the language of rights is so prominent in political discourse, I think Ernie makes a good point that we are attempting to pass judgment about rights without ever defining them. In the posts so far we have spoken of "human," "moral," "legal" and "universal rights. Wellman divides the categories further in his explanation of claim-rights, liberty-rights, power-rights, immunity-rights but the larger term "rights" is left largely alone.

I think it is fair to argue that the rights we attribute to ourselves and others are socialized to some extent, influenced by the norms and mores of our culture. While others might believe that there are universal rights that extend beyond the relative approval of an individual society, it is challenging, if not impossible, to dislodge our notion of rights from the societal influences that surround us.

Wellman seems content to explore the effect of "this recent proliferation of rights" as a "complex social phenomenon," and I would agree with others that in his tone and examples, he seems to suggest that the increase in alleged rights is a negative development. I am more interested in why this proliferation has occurred in this society at this moment. Perhaps by looking at the historical and societal factors we could better interpret what this influx of perceived rights means for our culture and laws.

Is the proliferation of rights inherently a negative phenomenon?

From my interpretation of the posts prior to mine, one of the themes that emerges is the idea that the proliferation of rights is an inherently negative thing and that rights are individualistic, therefore automatically lead to selfishness and manipulation. It seems like the proliferation of rights is being associated with the proliferation of laws, in general, and I'm not sure that Wellman means this in Chapter 1. Even though Wellman does allude to specific examples of law to demonstrate how rights have proliferated, and I think he does so because rights are embodied in laws and the rhetoric of rights has been used to advance laws.

In response to Ernie's first post, I understand the concept of a right as something so fundamental and universal that no human being should be deprived. However, even though rights are embodied in laws so that they can be enforced, there is a clear distinction between the proliferation of rights and the proliferation of laws. I think that rights have always existed, it has just been a matter of time as to when certain rights have been recognized in language, writings, and discourse. Laws, on the other hand, have not always existed, they have been developed over time and I do agree that there has been a proliferation in laws. I don't agree that just because rights are individualistic that they automatically lead to selfishness and manipulation. After all, doesn't the recognition of individual rights in turn benefit society as a whole? Specifically in response to Jasmine, when stating "People are denied these rights in all kinds of places everyday and if you are denied something everyday do you have a right to it?" I think that even though people may be denied certain rights, that does not mean that they still do not possess those rights. Similarly, just because people may not be aware that they have certain rights, that does not mean that they do not possess such rights.

While I do agree that some laws may be meaningless, I don't think that rights are meaningless and the proliferation of rights does not necessarily need to be viewed as negative. I am more inclined to agree with Wellman when he states that there has been a "proliferation of the language of rights in political discourse" (2). It is apparent that rights are interwoven into rhetoric in political discourse and many laws are justified through the language of rights and moral claims. However, just because politicians or other figures use the language of rights to suit their agendas, it does not mean that it is a horrible thing that we have so many rights, it is just disheartening that such fundamental concepts are being utilized to further certain political aims.

Lastly, I feel like I need to touch on the concept of moral rights because Wellman uses specific rhetoric himself when he refers to them as "alleged moral rights" (2). The word "alleged" is an interesting choice. Perhaps Wellman means that we claim certain rights that we do not have, or that we may or may not have. I don't have a clear answer as to where moral rights stem from or how to prove that we do indeed have moral rights, other than my intuition as to what is "right" and what is "wrong". Of course, my conception of right and wrong is a product of socialization, as is everyone else's. That leads me to believe that moral rights and our view of them is largely dependent upon a social context. At the same time, I do think that there are certain universal moral rights that we share as human beings. Since I don't have any clear answers in this area, I will be interested in exploring this concept through readings and your responses throughout the semester.

Wellman Ch. 1

I would like to begin by adding some more thoughts to the post before mine. Jasmine noted that people have a moral right to healthcare, and there are many who do not have access to that service. On page 5, Wellman states that "...introduction of some new legal right as necessary to protect some alleged moral right." When I first read this part, I associated it with what Jasmine is saying, but after looking again, I feel that Wellman is criticizing people for needing a legal action/right to "do the moral act". Why is it that people cannot act morally without the influence of law?

Further, another concept that struck me was the passage on sexual harassment. The following sentance stirred some emotions. "When sexual harassment takes a less serious form, the best solution is personal negotiation...office or the factory." (4). The reason this statement had such a strong impact is the way "smaller" harassment was tossed aside. In a way, it was made less important, and left to the victim to deal with. Small or big, unwanted sexual attention or harassment is still destructive to one's ability to perform well in one's job. It is not only "big" or "serious" harassment that needs legal attention.

My question still remains the same. Why do people need law to keep them in line with morality? Many refer to the golden rule, but few actually adhere to it's practice.

What I meant by conditional was not that they do not exsist and that they aren't a right but there is no guarentee for tomarrow without the legal right part and that leads to proliferation. Also like when he talks about childens rights and sexual harrassment in the work place and how even if they have "rights" against this kind of violence they have no way to access that right properly and effectively, So is that really a right? Rights are also conditional in the sense that not all humans share the same rights all over the world like that there are no God given rights and we are conditioned by the society in which we are a part of. Also do people automativally believe that they have a right, to food, clothing, and shelter or a need for it? People are denied these rights in all kinds of places everyday and if you are denied something everyday do you have a right to it? People should have a moral right to health care but not all people do and until a law is passed or funds are given to make this possible for some the moral right to life may not exsist. Does this clear up what I was trying to say?

Wellman Chapter 1

In class we discussed the idea of moral rights existence very briefly, and Wellman refers to these rights as "alleged moral rights." Moral rights exist. The problem with moral rights are that they are relative to our own experiences and only those experiences. They are not merely a product of socialization. For example, if you look at a hypothetical situation where a man or woman is able to successfully grow and develop (on their own) in a setting away from "civilization," that person will still develop concepts like the right to life (which is the product of survival instinct). This person will also decide they have a moral right to food, water, and shelter. Socialization can also foster rights, but I think it is important to draw the distinction that human rights are not subject only to our existence as humans in a society. Wellman's wording doesn't suggest he refutes the claim of moral rights, but it seems he does question a primary premise of moral rights: because the rights are relative to each individual, the rights are significant regardless of the number of or claims of rights. People will and must be able to determine their own concepts of moral rights in whatever manner they choose (in other words, the determination of rights does not always occur through concepts of liberty, claim, power, etc. because these principles are not present in all societies for all individuals).

As discussed by Wellman, legality serves as a strainer to the mass number of purported moral rights. Laws, which ALL have some basis in moral rights, are a means to selecting the most acceptable rights within a society. The problem here, though, is that law itself is relative and highly subjective (despite a goal of objectivity). As to the relativity, compare the U.S. legal code with that of any theocracy, such as Iran or during the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The laws in those theocracies concerning women were highly relative to the religious concepts integrated in those country's governments. As to subjective laws, the result of this is simple-it is near, if not completely, impossible to create a law with no room for various interpretation. Because of this wiggle room in interpretation, the rights which are made uniform in society through law can often be misconstrued.

I'd also like to address Jasmine's entry specifically about the obtainment of rights. For example, I do not think humans derive the right to survive from social norms (as illustrated in my first paragraph). We certainly are not able to cognitively recognize all of our rights in earlier stages of life, both due to a lack of experiences and cognitive development, but there ARE some absolute rights. Again, the problem comes in the articulation of the rights (same problem with any issue of defining something in words), but a lack of articulation does not mean a lack of existence.

I dont know about the start of this

My take on the opening of the issue of the proliferation of "rights" is that perhaps in some cases there are not rights in that some can make claims to such as animals and trees but we still have duties to animals and trees. So, I agree with Wellman that perhaps the use of this term of "rights" is over used and perhaps even deflates its effectiveness in serious issues. But that may not be a real reason not to pass a law which legally protects things, like trees and animals, that we have a duty towards all the same. The question then becomes trickier when dealing with humans, because in some cases such as abortion or going on strike(even teachers and firefighters) I believe that these groups do have rights they can claim and the city or country or company or whatever do have duties to them which they are capable of making claim to. But then what is within their rights to do in order to gain the rights which are owed them? Other groups like his argument for children seems to be the one which is most troubling for me. He seems to say that while parents or gaurdians owe children in their care duties the children are unable to make a claim to these duties and are dependent upon the care of the parent/gaurdian thus can not make a claim to rights. I feel that this treds on some very sketchy ground. How far do we take an argument of inability to articulate a claim to be sufficient evidence that someone is unworthy of the rights others have. I am not willing to agree that a human child is void of the human right not to be beaten by her parents simply because the child can not articulate a claim to the right and is dependent on her parents for survival. It is my opinion(which may be found wrong at somepoint in this course) that even if a human is not capable of making a claim to a right she is still intitled to the right and the claim can be made for her even if it is against those that would by nature be deemed the provider for that individual. But it is always possible I missed the point

The True Nature of Moral Rights

After reading Chaper 1 and reading some of my classmates blogs I feel that a major issue that needs some attention is the nature of moral rights. Unlike legal rights, moral rights are not written down anywhere and are not intrinsically known. One may be tempted to ask if we even have objective moral rights, and if so what are they and how do we know this? To complacate the matters further, moral rights may have a subjective nature i.e. moral rights are created by individuals and vary depending on the individual.

Understanding the nature of moral rights has a huge significance in the legal world as well. As Wellman writes on page 5 "the moral and the legal, go hand in hand, for moral reformers often demand the introduction of some new legal right as necessary in order to protect some alleged moral right". It is my understanding thus far, that legal rights are in essence alleged moral rights written into enforceable laws. The concept makes sense, we need a system of punishing those who break our moral rights (assuming we have any).

One question that really stuck with me from chapter 1 was on page 7 asking " is the recent proliferation of rights moral progress or empty and sometimes dangerous rhetoric?". I read this question as asking what the nature of legal rights are. Do legal rights make progress in enforceing our moral rights (again assuming we have any) or are they a means for some other less worthy purpose? I need to learn more on the subject before I give a verdict personally.

Wellman Chapter 1

It seems to be Wellman's main purpose in Chapter 1 is to emphasize the "empty rhetoric" perspective and why rights may have transitioned into this category. If a right is to be "something that can be justly claimed," then animals do not have rights as Wellman insinuated as an alleged moral right (2). Therefore, it seems excessive at the most to create legislation and regulations that give non-humans rights if society does not even believe they deserve them. 

Who, then, determines who should get rights? "Alleged rights" as Wellman discusses, makes our government institutions seem illegitimate and not practical at accomplishing anything to guarantee citizens justice and peace. I agree wholly with Wellman's argument that many human rights are individualistic and therefore may not even be applicable or for the better of the whole. Or it just gives people, in the form of manipulation, an easy way to avoid social responsibility. 

Many groups turn to the manipulation method, as in social protests, to gain a "right" that they may not have a just claim for. Maybe these social protesters could have gained their movement's aims by using a different mode, rather than distorting language to make it imminent that they gain a certain right. This could, as Wellman suggested, progress society into a more litigious society where citizens only follow legal reasoning.

Only in America

I think that it is important to point out, or what I've concluded from the first chapter in Wellman, is that "rights" are conditional. As with many aspects of life nothing is guarenteed and unfortunatly and surprisingly, to some, rights are not the exception. This may be why we as Americans enjoy "rights" that others in other countries may not. For example the right to an education that we listed as one of our rights pertaining to this class. We also talked about how that right may not be granted or even expected in a culture different from ours. Rights in America have become an ingrained part of our culture to the point that we may take them for granted or not even appreciate them. The abundance of and lack of appreciation for rights has led to that proliferation that Wellman discusses by making them empty rhetoric.

What I mean is that we make think that as humans we are born with certian rights but actually we are only granted what our surrounding society and culture allows, what is useful. This is why others in other societies may not have the same rights as us and why we may feel deprived of something that we always believed to be ours when we leave our society and go to a different one and realize it was never ours to begin with. If it was ours to begin with, just for being born, nothing could take that away but that is not the case. So DO absolute rights exsit or SHOULD they exsit?

To answer Ernie's question, Is most of our legal rights discourse really a veiled discussion about moral rights? I think yes and that is the percise reason that our rights are not never fully guarenteed because as a society our morals are always changing. Something that may have once been considered just may not be considered just today, i.e. slavery. Or something that was considered unjust may now be considered just by some, i.e. abortion. I think that this is what Wellman is talking about when he is mentioning the "core". As MLK Jr. said in his "Letters From a Burmingham Jail", an unjust law is no law at all. This is why are laws are always changing, and our legal rights are always changing because morals of society are always changing and majoity rules. When the law no longer protects a right it is no longer really a right and that is it's "assoiciated elements". The problem is when laws don't really do what they are meant to, Wellman gives the examples of child laws that don't protect children and harrasment laws that no longer prevent harrasment. So I don't think that he is saying that those laws are unimportant but when you have a proliferation of legal rights and no way to protect them it compromises the moral right and the morality of the society that it represented in the first place and its correlation to it.

Chapter 1

W.D. Ross states that humans have a moral and legal obligation to treat animals humanley (1). Now, I understand that humans have a moral obligation not to treat animals poorly and legal obligations because people can be punished for poor care. Then he goes on and says that many philosophers believe that animals have moral rights. What exactly does it mean for animals to have moral rights? Since we have moral rights not to be harmed then so do the animals? I truely believe that humans have a moral obligation not to harm the animals and the animals have a right not to be harmed but if certain animals weren't here just to be eaten, what exactly is there "purpose" for being alive? Pigs are used for ham and bacon but other than that, what true need is there for an animal that plays in mud all day? Then, that will take you into deeper questions about why some animals it is more acceptable to eat and others it is not.

This goes into rights of animals and our human responsibilities to these animals. If we are not to eat them, then what would happen to them? Farmers take these animals, take care of them, and provide food for many people when the animal is fat enough. I see it as animals are guided by the farmer, or leader. This leader takes care of them and watches over them until the animals time on the farm is fulfilled. Couldn't that be related to religion, in the sense that a supreme being is watching over its people and when each persons time on earth is fulfilled, the supreme being ends his/her life? More or less that is the same thing. Back to moral rights and legal rights, what do we as humans have? If someone belives in a supreme being, how many rights do you have? You don't decide when you die or when you are born or anything. Therefore, people don't have rights.

The last thing in the reading that really caught my attention was the part about abortion. "The rhetoric of right-to-life groups has incited some extremeists to bomb a number of clinics that provide prenatal medical services and occassionally to murder physicians known to have performed abortions."(3-4). My one concern with this statement is that there are women you have abortions and that kills babies, BAD. So to take action against these groups the extremists go and bomb a place with doctors and PEOPLE inside or kill doctors and that seems to be ok in their minds. Killing a baby through abortion is bad but killing a doctor who performs abortion ok? This seems to not make much sense because they kill babies and now the extremists are stooping to their level and killing people.

The problem that I saw in the first chapter was between moral and legal rights. Who defines a moral or legal right? The government defines legal rights but what about moral rights? Wouldn't moral rights come from what each individual person believes? Then, only few people or certain groups are going to have similar moral rights; then the only thing really "controlling" people's actions would be the legal rights that are set in place by the government (people we elect).

How Many is to Many?

As citizens of a democratic society when we travel outside the country (perhaps even inside the country) and we are not treated “fairly” we feel our rights have been violated. We are told we have all these rights concerning every issue on the board from free speech to health to lawyer and so on. Our lives have become dependent on rights and the way we think things should be because we have rights. That once we encounter problems where people have not been given the same “rights” we have, that we automatically feel we are entitled to something much more then the rights before us. The entire proliferation of rights has gone far beyond what rights humans should have but who actually has these rights.

Within his opening statements Wellman talks about vegetarians and environmentalists; who argue that it is inhumane when humans raise animals for the mere fact of slaughtering them and fulfilling our own selfish appetite and that trees and forests have legal rights. When it comes to these two issues perhaps a better solution would be that we as occupants of the earth have a duty and responsibility to each other and ourselves to take care of the earth and treat animals in a humane way. But to argue that animals and TREES have legal and even moral rights is in question. We may have a moral obligation not raise animals in inhumane ways but do the animals actually possess these rights as humans do? And if they do, does the environment such as trees and flowers possess rights? Where does this stop?

One question to think about is, have the vegetarians and environmentalists ever met? The vegetarians argue that they will not eat meat because of the way society raises animals, but what about the environmentalists who are trying to protect the environment. Aren’t the vegetarians destroying plants for the mere fact of fulfilling their selfish appetite? What about gardens are they not like the plants where animals are being raised for slaughter? The vegetables do not even have a chance.

too many laws, too many idiots.

"A Human right is something of which no one may be deprived without a grave affront to justice..." (Maurice Cranston).
The quote may be suspiciously vague, but it is a definition that I am willing to work with as a standing definition to what, loosely, a human right is. If all human beings were rational, clear thinking, individuals, rather than manipulative, looting collectivists, the rights question of whether or not we have too many and why would be a very clear answer to all.... (the answer would be yes.............). Unfortunately, societies are not perfect, and we do indeed find ourselves stuck with individuals who will take and take from the law their “rights” without doing their part to the government who lawfully gives “rights” to them in the first place.

On this note, I agree with Wellman when he seems to lean toward the side of the argument that says the proliferation of laws is getting out of hand. He specifically brings up worker’s strikes- an example I will use for the time being to further my point that the more laws there are, the more chances there are for people to manipulate them. Does someone a position of such importance as a teacher truly have a moral right to go on strike from her class, who obviously did not do anything to breach the claim they have on her for her to teach them? I believe that for a teacher to go on strike is more or less a manipulation of a law set in place to give other types of employees opportunities to argue their points in a manner that will get across quite bluntly to their adversaries. Teachers, on the other hand, should have other measures besides sacrificing the well being of her or his class. Manipulation.

Another act of people manipulating moral and legal laws? I shall move on to the touchy subject of abortion. The legalization of abortion was ideally set in the right place, more or less giving a legal right, and TRUSTING citizens with that right, to mothers over their own bodies. Ideally, this law would let mothers make the tough decision of whether or not the situation truly called for an extinguishing of another human life- the government trusts mothers to think rationally, for their childs best interest in mind (more or less), but sadly, this trust is always going to be breached and manipulated by those mothers who have such a terrible sense of consciousness that they would actually abort their child for the good of their own selfish desires.

Selfish desires. More law lends itself to more and more selfish desires, selfish rights, and the unwillingness to concede such rights to the good of a better and more moral cause than oneself. The more rights the government chooses to give me, the less I feel I deserve to give up. The more I feel entitled to these elusive “rights”, whether it’s the right to not be sexually harassed, or the right to breathe clean air in a bar. Rights and society must exist in a series of checks and balances- for society to work, I can be given the right to free speech, but I will NOT be given the right to slander/ libel.

In cases of law, there are always outstanding circumstances. The legality of certain laws are always highly individualistic: there will always be those who will manipulate it, and always be the ones who NEED it to subsist successfully on this earth (Ex: abortion legality causes some individuals to kill needlessly, but it also allows others to make the hard decision that they could not possibly be a mother at this certain moment.) Because of this, it is hard to make any of these moralistic laws illegal. What will happen to the innocent who need it to live their lives in a better way? That’s why, in my personal, naïve, opinion, I am a strong believer that law should only PROTECT the health and safety of my living being. Other than that, in a society as big as ours, we must surrender to trusting those we give the legality of the law to, to make the correct, rational decisions.

Ch. 1

What came first, the desire to find a picture that demonstrated the theme of the class or your desire to use a picture of the dogs?

How do we ground legal rights? How do we want legal rights to be grounded? I think, more often than not, the average college-educated person is hesitant to express a desire for law (and therefore rights) to be grounded in morality. Many are jaded by claims from the right about the immorality of homosexuality and other social practices. Thus, we argue, keep morality and legality separate. Is it not actually the case, though, that we are upset because we think morality has been inaccurately dictated? When I make an argument for welfare policy, for example, I am clearly making a moral claim. There is a certain baseline standard of living that all people deserve. The counterargument generally makes an appeal to one's moral right to the fruit of their labor. Is most of our legal rights discourse really a veiled discussion about moral rights?

There are some interesting concerns raised in this chapter that complicate the issue for me. Wellman references the principle that there are sometimes too many cooks in the kitchen in magical legal rights land--that we have overlapping protections (4). He also argues that perhaps rights lead to unintended negative consequences. Are rights utilitarian? That is, does the basis of a legal (or moral) right stem from the benefits it confers or from some other source? If it is true that we have certain rights in virtue of being human, do those rights go away when they are no longer utilitarian for the individual? Perhaps Wellman's example is just poor. Do we really feel like the right to sexual harassment is poor because it could potentially lead to conflict between employer and employee? I think, in most instances, sexual harassment is more definable and intentional than Wellman does. This sentence is just odd to me: "the legal rights against sexual harassment perverts what often could and always should be a cooperative and congenial personal relationship in the workplace" (5).

It is also new to be to conceptualize the politicization of ights. Wellman seems to suggest that it might be a poor decision to invoke the language of rights even if a right is being violated (6). At the very least, it seems, he believes the "proliferation of rights discourse" should be done only if it is utilitarian. I understand his contention and appeal to the U.N. Declaration as an example of the unnecessary proliferation of rights (and the use of rights language). Does it not also cheapen the concept of rights to ignore a discussion of rights when one could be had?

I'm sort of surprised that this chapter (and class) didn't really address what we understand a "right" to be. Wellman discusses what a legal right is but not much on the more general concept of moral rights. I guess I do think of rights as entitlements, claims--against other people, against ruling bodies. It protects something htat shouldn't be violated. In legal terms, it means that I should be able to make a claim to prevent its violation. It is both freedom "from" and freedom "to." How does everyone else understand the concept of a "right?"

Right to Free Speech

So, here's an interesting article relevant to our class about revealing the names of people who donated money in support of California's Proposition 8 (to make marriage btwn people of the same sex forbidden). The law currently requires the availability of the names of people who donate more than $100 to some political cause and the folks who donated to this cause are now being harassed, boycotted, etc. for their support of the Proposition. What I find particularly interesting is that a lawyer arguing on behalf of all these folks wants the names to be kept secret because revealing the names violates their right to free speech. The question for us, as we embark to become conversant in such topics, is what the right to free speech is a right to and does revealing these names violate such a right.

If you're inclined to share an opinion now, feel free.

Here we go!!

Well, here's the blog for us to fulfill our blogging obligations for this class. I will set things up so that everyone in the class is able to post and then, well, off we go.

I hope that your break has gone and continues to go well.

I'm looking forward to next semester.

JMc