Volume 21, Number 1
January 2022
ARTICLE

Positive Rights: Two-Person Cases

Volume 21, Number 1, January 2022, Pages 114–131
https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v21i1.1551
PDFPDF

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze the simplest type of case in which need-based positive rights to aid are often attributed. In such “two-person cases” there is just one agent and one patient, and the agent can aid the patient. Two questions are asked about such cases: (1) Why does the agent in such a case lack a negative right he would normally have? (2) Why does the patient have a positive right he would not normally have? The main focus in on question 1, though an answer to question 2 is briefly sketched. The paper presupposes a view of negative rights as the authority to make demands of others. To explain why such authority is lacking in two person cases, it is suggested that such authority requires being able to demand non-interference “decently.” This idea of a “decent,” or non-selfish, demand is then elucidated, and an argument is offered for the suggested explanation. Finally there is a brief look at two-person cases involving significant cost to the agent.
Copyright © 2022 David Alm
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.
|

Must States Do It Themselves? A Rights-Based Theory of Delegating State Coercion

Vincent Chiao

Liberty, Equality, Authority

David Owens

The Weight of Authority in War: Comments on Renzo

David Estlund

Soldiers and Moral Tragedy: Comments on Renzo

Christopher Kutz

Against Deference to Authority

Travis Quigley

Who Do You Speak For? And How? Online Abuse as Collective Subordinating Speech Acts

Michael Randall Barnes

The Limits of Instrumental Proceduralism

Jake Monaghan

Disagreement, Unilateral Judgment, and Kant’s Argument for Rule by Law

Daniel Koltonski

The Enforcement Approach to Coercion

Scott A. Anderson

Well-Being and Virtue

Daniel M. Haybron

First Force

William A. Edmundson

First-Person Authority over Gender: Metaphysical, Ethical, and Epistemic, but Nonabsolute

Fiona Woollard

Portico