Rights – UGC NET – Political Science Notes

Rights

(Detailed Notes)

Political Theory (Unit 1)

UGC NET POLITICAL SCIENCE

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RIGHTS

Table of Contents

Introduction
The Idea of Rights
Negative and Positive Rights
Civil, Political, and Social Rights
Legal Rights
Moral Rights
Theories of Rights
The Theory of Natural Rights
The Utilitarian Theory of Rights
John Rawls on Rights
The Libertarian Theory of Rights
Human Rights
Some Recent Debates on Rights
Communitarian Perspectives
Multicultural Perspectives on Rights
The Feminist Challenge

Introduction

The concept that individuals have rights and that these rights mark limits on what may be done to them by the state or in the name of other conceptions is a familiar position in modern political philosophy.
The Declaration of Independence (1776) was among the first to state that certain rights were inalienable, marking the beginning of a moral movement that still impacts society today.
Simultaneously, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) developed an equivalent notion of rights.
These two documents are considered the most influential political documents of the modern age, with the notion of rights as the central concept in their political foundations.
This chapter provides a comprehensive analysis of rights, including kinds of rights, the relationship between rights and duties, and different theories of rights.
The interest in rights extended beyond the 17th and 18th centuries; the second half of the 19th century also saw a major resurgence of interest in human rights.
Rights play a central role in political life, such as the civil rights movement from the 1960s onward, which used rights as a cornerstone to rebuild society.
Issues regarding women’s rights and disadvantaged minorities have been debated in recent times.
With advances in medical technology, issues like euthanasia (right to die) have emerged as matters of discussion.
Discussions about using animals in research and testing are often framed in terms of animal rights.
Sexual choice is often framed in terms of gay and lesbian rights.
Human rights have become a major concern in recent times.
Discourse around rights has proven to be a powerful tool for moral change in the 20th and 21st centuries.

The Idea of Rights

A right is the entitlement to get one’s due, meaning to receive what is due to someone as a human, citizen, individual, or member of a group.
To have a right means being entitled to do something or to have something done, such as voting, speaking, or accessing healthcare.
Rights are different from obligations; having a right gives you the choice whether or not to exercise it (e.g., the right to vote does not oblige you to vote).
Rights and obligations are connected; when you decide to exercise a right, others have an obligation to allow you to do so.
The justification for a right arises from social membership and the legal system to which both the right-holder and right-observers belong.
Not all rights are legal; there are also moral rights and ethical rights, which are justified on legal, moral, ethical, or human grounds.
A right must be justified as something necessary for the individual to play their proper part in a social group.
A claim to a right is justified if the individual is able and willing to respect the rights of other members of the group.
Rights express a relationship between the right-holder and the right-observers.
From the right-holder's perspective, a right is permission to act, exist, enjoy, or demand.
From the right-observer's perspective, a right imposes a correlative duty or obligation, either negative (refrain from interfering) or positive (assist in the successful exercise of the right).
To have a right entails certain responsibilities.
This leads to the distinction between negative rights (freedom from interference) and positive rights (the right to assistance).

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