RIGHTS IN MORAL PHILOSOPHY

I come to the notion of rights, any rights, animal rights, human rights, rights wherever claimed, with a great deal of skepticism. I described my initial take in a short note recently to my discussion forum and then decided to start this page to house various on-line materials which I hope will be useful to others in exploring the issue of philosophical rights.

• This seems a wonderful place to begin.    This brief article in the internet encyclopedia gives a brief definition of rights then has two useful links, one to an analysis of the classical discussion of rights and another to a more contemporary discussion of rights. Highly recommended as a beginning.

• This is the main home page of the Meta-Encyclopedia of Philosophy.    From here you must first search rights. The first item which comes up will Chapter Seven of The Ethics of Rights: Contemporary Theories. If you go there you will find four justifications of rights examined. These are quite useful.

• Natural Rights: A Philosophical Argument based on "Because"    This essay by Lazarus Long attacks the notion of rights as being more than something which arise in agreement rather than rational necessity.

• A DEBATE OVER RIGHTS: PHILOSOPHICAL ENQUIRIES     A review by Jack Wade Nowlin of this book by Matthew H. Kramer, N.E. Simmonds, and Hillel Steiner.

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  Bob Corbett corbetre@webster.edu