Chapter Three of "Animal Rights, Human Wrongs"

Nature and Importance of Rights

What makes right acts right? What makes wrong acts wrong? Some moral philosophers believe that the best answers to these questions require the recognition of moral rights. This is the position I favor and the one I will try to defend in subsequent chapters. It will therefore be useful to say something about the nature and importance of rights, the better to frame the discussions of other positions that differ from mine.

The idea of the "rights of the individual" has had a profound and lasting influence, both in and beyond Western civilization. Among philosophers, however, this idea has been the subject of intense debate. Some philosophers deny that we have any rights (moral rights, as they are commonly called) beyond those legal rights established by law; others affirm that, separate from and more basic than our legal rights, are our moral rights, including such rights as the rights to life, liberty, and bodily integrity. The framers of America's Declaration of Independence certainly believed this; they maintained that the sole reason for having a government in the first place is to protect citizens in the possession of their rights, rights that, because they are independent of, and more basic than, legal rights, have the status of moral rights.

People can agree that humans have moral rights and disagree over what rights are. They can even agree that humans have moral rights, agree about what rights are, and still disagree when it comes to saying what rights humans have. For example, some proponents of moral rights believe humans possess only negative moral rights (rights not to be harmed or interfered with), while others believe we also have positive moral rights (rights to be helped or assisted). The on-going national debate over the right to universal health care illustrates the difference.

We begin with this fact. Naturally occurring diseases or illnesses, such as cancer and diabetes, do not violate anyone’s rights. This makes a difference for proponents of negative rights. Since no one’s rights are violated, those who suffer from these conditions have no right to medical assistance. Proponents of positive rights take a different view. Because these conditions detract from a person’s quality of life, people who need assistance have a right to receive it, even if they cannot afford it.

Which (if either) view is correct? Impressive arguments, often both lengthy and complex, have been presented by both sides. Fortunately for us, these debates, as important as they are, lie outside the scope of our present interest. The questions central to animal rights concern which if any nonhuman animals have negative moral rights (rights not to be harmed or interfered with). For this reason, we can table discussion of whether animals (or humans, for that matter) have any positive rights and concentrate throughout on negative moral rights (henceforth “rights”). My purpose in this chapter is not to argue for our rights, let alone for the rights of animals. Rather, I want to explain why the idea that humans have rights, and why the possibility that animals have them, are the important ideas they are.

"NO TRESPASSING"
Possession of moral rights (by which, again, unless otherwise indicated, I mean negative moral rights) confers a distinctive moral status on those who have them. To possess these rights is to have a kind of protective moral shield, something we might picture as an invisible "No Trespassing" sign. If we assume that all humans have such rights, we can ask what this invisible sign prohibits. Two things, in general. First, others are not morally free to harm us; to say this is to say that, judged from the moral point of view, others are not free to take our life or injure our body as they please. Second, others are not free to interfere with our free choice; to say this is to say that others are not free to limit our choices as they please. In both cases, the "No Trespassing" sign is meant to protect those who have rights by morally limiting the freedom of others.

Does this mean that it is always wrong to take someone’s life, injure them, or restrict their freedom? Not at all. When people exceed their rights by violating ours, we act within our rights if we respond in ways that can harm or limit the freedom of the violators. For example, suppose you are attacked by a thief; then you do nothing wrong in using physical force sufficient to defend yourself, even if this harms your assailant. Thankfully, in the world as we find it, such cases are the exception, not the rule. Most people most of the time act in ways that respect the rights of other human beings. But even if the world happened to be different in this respect, the central point would be the same: what we are free to do when someone violates our rights does not translate into the freedom to violate their rights without justifiable cause.

MORAL WEIGHT: TRUMP
Every serious advocate of human rights believes that our rights have greater moral weight than other important human values. To use an analogy from the card game Bridge, our moral rights are trump. Here is what this analogy means.

A hand is dealt. Hearts are trump. The first three cards played are the queen of spades, the king of spades, and the ace of spades. You (the last player) have no spades. However, you do have the two of hearts. Because hearts are trump, your lowly two of hearts beats the queen of spades, beats the king of spades, even beats the ace of spades. This is how powerful the trump suit is in the game of Bridge.

The analogy between trump in Bridge and individual rights in morality should be reasonably clear. There are many important values to consider when we make a moral decision. For example: How will we be affected personally as a result by deciding one way or another? What about our family, friends, neighbors, fellow Americans? It is not hard to write a long list. When we say, “rights are trump,” we mean that respect for the rights of individuals is the most important consideration in “the game of morality,” so to speak. In particular, we mean that the good others derive from violating someone’s rights (by injuring their body or taking their life, for example) never justifies violating them.

MORAL STATUS: EQUALITY
Moral rights breathe equality. They are the same for all who have them, differ though we do in many ways. This explains why no human being can justifiably be denied rights for arbitrary, prejudicial, or morally irrelevant reasons. Race is such a reason. To attempt to determine which humans have rights on the basis of race is like trying to sweeten something by adding salt. What race we are tells us nothing about what rights we have.

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