Friday, January 16, 2009

A lack of understanding of the concept of rights



This article on Liberal Conspiracy draws attention to a speech by Dominic Grieve. He seems to think that 'undeserving' people should not be able to use rights legislation. By saying this, he shows that he does not understand that rights are not privileges. What makes a right a right is that it is universal.

Now, Grieve may agree with Bentham that talk of rights (because they can only be enforced if society as a whole is willing to enforce them) is 'nonsense' and natural rights are 'nonsense on stilts'. If so, he should be honest enough to say so. To say that people can have rights but only if they are 'deserving' of them makes a mockery of the concept. If dependent on the government of the day, then these are not rights, but privileges.

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