Talk:Negative and positive rights

This article was created by merging the previously existing articles negative right and positive right. The discussion records from their respective Talk pages may be found at:

• Talk:Negative and positive rights/Negative right talk archive (includes a long and detailed discussion on the practical meaning and usefulness of the positive/negative distinction; please read this archive before making any comments regarding this controversy)

• Talk:Negative and positive rights/Positive right talk archive

New Discussion

• My understanding of negative rights is that they necessarily do not conflict with one another. Any thoughts? - Brer_Vole Jan 26 2006
• What would a list of negative rights be? (The list of positive rights seem endless....) - Brer_Vole Jan 26 2006

Moved from article

Critics draw attention to the issue of enforcement of negative rights. They argue that negative rights need to be enforced, and this enforcement requires positive action - for example, the right to private property implies that some action must be taken, either by the owner or by an agency such as the government, to repel anyone who attempts to steal that property (or to recover the property after it has been stolen). This has led to the idea that, in practical legal terms, a "negative right" is just a positive right to be provided with police protection against certain actions by other persons.[1]

Another criticism holds that any right can be made to appear either positive or negative depending on the language used to define it. For instance, the right to be free from starvation is considered positive by libertarians on the grounds that it implies a starving person must be provided with food through the positive action of others. On the other hand, according to James P. Sterba:

"What is at stake is the liberty of the poor not to be interfered with in taking from the surplus possessions of the rich what is necessary to satisfy their basic needs. Needless to say, libertarians would want to deny that the poor have this liberty. But how could they justify such a denial? As this liberty of the poor has been specified, it is not a positive right to receive something, but a negative right of non-interference."

I think we have some clear neutrality, citation, and original research concerns. My feeling is that we'd be doing ourselves (and the readers) a service if we simply deleted this page, and merged/redirected negative and positive rights to Positive Liberty and Negative Liberty. Sam Spade 23:28, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I completely disagree. For one thing, how exactly do we have any citation concerns? Both those criticisms are well cited. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 23:30, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

The quote is cited to one James P. Sterba. The "critics" are not cited however, but i assume they include Sterba and Stephen Holmes? Do you have an example of either of them using the phrase positive, or Negative rights? If so i'm not sure it justifies this article (which i feel should be deleted and the contents of positive and negative rights merged into postive and negative liberty), but at least it would justify the inclusion of their POV in this article. My assumption is their talking about positive and and negative liberties. Sam Spade 23:35, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Ummm, have you read the quote through? The last sentence says: "As this liberty of the poor has been specified, it is not a positive right to receive something, but a negative right of non-interference." -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 23:38, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have noted that, and was hasty in moving the content to talk. Ok, so these terms are used by mr. sterba, and presumably others. Can you clear it up for me how they differ from positive and negative liberties? Sam Spade 23:41, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I would say that rights are more of a legal concept, while liberties are more of a philosophical one; also, any right can be seen as promoting some liberties at the expense of others. For example, if you have a right to life, this promotes all the liberty you gain from being alive while restricting someone else's liberty to kill you. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 23:52, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Excellent! You've completely clarified our difference of opinion. Your equate rights with laws. I, on the other hand generally dislike and disrespect laws, seeing them as guidelines involuntarily foisted upon me and others. A Right, on the other hand, I see as something holy, related intrinsically with the word Righteousness, and the concept of "doing what is right". I am beginning to see the value of separate articles, altho Postive and Negative Liberties should be discussed here in detail. Now we just need to articulate what a balanced assortment of expert personages feel about these terms (rather than only the 2 critics ;) Sam Spade 00:00, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

If you, for example, think that it's immoral for someone to come along and attack you when you're not harming anyone (regardless of whether it's legal or illegal), then you think that you have a moral "negative" right to not be attacked (and as a corallary, a right to defend yourself from the attacker). Maybe you don't think you have a moral claim to your life --i don't know, but that's the idea of moral rights. So, in the context of ethics (which is usually what one is talking about when it comes to negative and positive rights), you can have a right to not be attacked by others at the same time as not having a right to force others to defend your life. And, if someone attacks you, it doesn't mean you suddenly lost that your right during the attack but simply that your right was violated. This is what Jefferson is talking about when he says individuals have "inalienable rights" --no matter what the law is, people have a moral right not to have their liberty forcibly obstructed by others. If government makes a law to enslave all blacks for example, blacks haven't lost their moral right to liberty --it's just that that right is violated. Their justification for escaping from bondage is a the immorality of their domination --just because slavery is legal it doesn't make escape immoral. This quote from Jefferson makes the point: "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’, because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." RJII 20:26, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Hence Natural law. Moral relativism be damned, there is such a thing as absolute right and wrong! Nice touch w the Jefferson quote btw, he and Theodore Roosevelt are my favorite presidents :D Sam Spade 23:36, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

There certainly is such a thing as absolute right and wrong (in my opinion), but it does not involve rights. I am a utilitarian. Anyway, the Jefferson quote is about rights, but how is it about negative and positive rights? -- Nikodemos (f.k.a. Mihnea) 00:52, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Different conceptions of rights

Our article rights is largely about rights as a legal concept. Probably we should have more there about morally and theologically derived theories of right, such as those of the School of Salamanca. I'd suggest laying some solid groundwork in that article—not another rehash of people's personal views, but some decently cited material—then coming back here and building on that foundation. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:53, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree, the personal opinions were just for fun, and to get a better idea of what the hell we were talking about, and where we agreed and disagreed. Mihnea (niko) has mentioned he plans to add more cites, but since his 2 so far are of a similar POV, I think we should hunt about for opposing views to cite as well. Sam Spade 16:08, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

An example of a well-written, well-sourced article on rights.

Human Rights at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy might serve as a good model for where we should be heading with this, although we don't need quite that level of detail, I wouldn't think. It might also be a good source for citable authorities that aren't book reviews. They refer to "positive rights" and "negative rights" as "claim rights" and "liberty rights" respectively. I agree that this article here, as it stands now, contains borderline original research. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:03, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

This article desperately needs citations

This article desperately needs citations. Right now it is mostly a duelling opinion-fest. By rights (so to speak) someone could cut almost the entire article to the talk page. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:15, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

And this has only gotten worse in the days since I wrote that, with the insertion of more uncited opinion as to what people of political views (in this case, libertarian) would say. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:07, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I have removed the uncited opinion - this, however, only gets us back at square one. -- Nikodemos (f.k.a. Mihnea) 09:57, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Since which it has again gotten worse: "Some theorists ... On the other hand, critics ... " - Jmabel | Talk 05:56, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

True. Even worse, the criticisms are poorly made. I understand NPOV, but it's not served well simply by including criticism when the criticism is logically invalid. For example, the issue of enforcement is brought up, but clearly an individual can STOP other people from messing with them for negative rights, but must clearly mess with other people to get their positive rights. RussNelson 07:24, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

a libertarian thing?

I removed the edits in the article that were said that the conception of negative and positive rights was a "libertarian" thing (e.g. "Belief in a distinction between positive and negative rights is usually maintained, or emphasised, by classical liberals and libertarians on the political right who oppose the provision of positive rights.) It's not true. It's a common concept in political philosophy. Libertarians even don't think positive rights exist, so why would they be putting forth such a position? Those who advocate welfare are the ones that argue there is such a thing as positive rights (usually called secondary rights). Libertarians would probably like the idea of "positive rights" to disappear. RJII 03:35, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I hope I'm just having a bad dream

Positive rights - negative rights ? Who came up with these outageous concepts and terms? 'Positive rights' sounds like plain mumbo jumbo. 'Negative rights' sounds like something out of Nineteen Eighty-Four, like "war is peace" or "love is hate". Shannon^{duck talk} 04:54, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

This article and the whole twisted concept of positive rights and negative rights is making me ill in it's obvious attempt to gain control of people's minds and get them to believe that socialism is good (positive), and freedom in a government with little meddling (the one the U.S. was intended to have by the patriots) is bad. Yechhh. Shannon^{duck talk} 16:02, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I think you're misinterpreting this subject. The theory of negative and positive rights is primarily important to classical liberals, Libertarians and philosophical individualists, who use it to respond to arguments based on (for example) a theoretical right to education, health care, social security or a minimum standard of living; by dividing proposed rights into those that they say involve the removal of coercion (in other words, negative rights, since they remove something) and those that they claim require active intervention (a positive right, since it requires providing something), they are able to reject or question the latter class while embracing the former. Socialists et all, who define coercion more broadly, would not find the distinction as meaningful. --Aquillion 21:20, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I concur totally with Aquillion on this. You will never find people on the left making this distinction (unless you count some libertarians as on the left, which doesn't change the matter). - Jmabel | Talk 17:15, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

BTW, another way the advocates of this distinction might put this is that a "negative right" is the right to be left alone, "positive right" is the right to receive something; they would argue along the lines that the latter are illegitimate because they create a positive obligation on others, violating their right to be left alone. - Jmabel | Talk 17:18, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

"Libertarians and classical liberals"

"…although generally considered negative by libertarians and classical liberals": since the word can mean quite a few things, who are the classical liberals who are not libertarians whom this refers to? Or is "and classical liberals" a redundancy here? - Jmabel | Talk 06:56, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

have to say them both, because libertarian == leftist in Brazil, and liberal == leftist in America. Yes, horribly confusing. RussNelson 07:27, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Claim about libertarians

The recently added paragraph in the Criticism section claiming that libertarians say there is no obligation (except by means of contract) on anyone to protect someone else's negative right, and that positive rights arise only from contract, was originally quite poorly written; I believe I've cleaned it up without altering the intended meaning. But it all strikes me as a dubious, uncited, and possibly scurrilous claim about libertarianism. I have never heard any but the most extreme libertarians claim, for example, that the poor are not entitled to police protection because they cannot pay for it, and I have never heard even the most extreme libertarian argue that a parent has no inherent obligation either to feed, clothe, or house a newborn infant or (if they will not or cannot do these things) to give up custody of that child.

In any event, this is not cited. Is there a citable basis for this? -- Jmabel | Talk 01:29, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

That's basic libertarianism. Everything has to be voluntary. People don't have a right to force others to provide them with things. Libertarians believe that there are no positive rights. You're bringing in the subject of children, but that's a different story. Of course there are different standards for adults and children, especially if it is one's own child. Here is a citation about positive rights: "Libertarianism therefore radically limits people's duties. it insists that people only have negative rights and no positive rights, and correspondingly that they have only negative duties to refrain from interfering with other people's actions, but no positive duties of assistance." [2]

Also, "Some writers [e.g., Shue] claim that the negative/positive distinction is ill-formed or fake, on the ground that negative rights require police and courts for their enforcement, and yet those things are positive acts that somebody would be required to do. This is mistaken, however. The question of what the right is a right to do, and who if anybody will enforce it, are separate. If our rights are purely negative, it will also mean that no one has the duty to enforce them, as such, although everyone has the right to use whatever means he can avail himself, with the cooperation of others who also have no duty to do so, to secure his rights. The distinction between negative and positive is quite robust." [3] Beyond the classroom 01:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

All I really can say is "wow". Or at least that is all I can say politely. - Jmabel | Talk 06:50, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

That's why libertarianism implies anarchism, that is, a completely non-violent voluntary society. No one has a right to force anyone to do anything. Force can only be legitimately used to stop people from initiating force and fraud against others. And that means you can't force anyone to protect you from those who would initiate force against you. That has to be voluntary as well (therefore conscription is opposed). Any welfare system has to be voluntary as well. That's why taxation is opposed. Beyond the classroom 07:15, 28 November 2006 (UTC)