contractualist OP t1_j747n8x wrote on February 3, 2023 at 11:12 PM

Summary: What are rights? They are entitlements paired with duties. But how can these rights be practically specified in the real world? How should we prioritize rights against one another? And where do these rights come from? Traditional libertarian rights theories fail to answer these questions of specification, prioritization, and genealogy. But a social contract analysis does.

I'd appreciate any feedback and criticism on this theory of rights so I can develop it further. I'd be happy to address any questions.

doireallyneedone11 t1_j74znep wrote on February 4, 2023 at 2:46 AM

Aren't rights simply social constructs, just as true as morality and religion?

Yeah, I do get their (all of them) practical importance though.

contractualist OP t1_j76o2i1 wrote on February 4, 2023 at 2:17 PM

They are constructed in the sense that they derive from the hypothetical social contract, where free people accept certain reasonable non-rejectable principles (as described here). All of ethics is constructed in this metaphysical sense.

Yet rights exist in that we have certain rights that can be violated, as in reference to the social contract. The piece discusses this in the last section.