On Rights

There appears to me to be a lot of confusion surrounding our concept of Rights, and much of this seems to me to have to do with a failure of understanding and communication, both individually and collectively. Because there seems to me to be a great deal of imprecision when people refer to Rights, with regard to their unstated ideas and definitions, to the ways they understand such concepts in spite of not overtly giving voice to them. Confusion appears to stem from the improper mixing together of a number of distinct things that have different principles associated with them. In so confusing these separate things, we similarly improperly attribute these principles to the wrong things, to things where such principles no longer hold. And so discussions of Rights become more difficult, at times impossible, where apparent disagreement may in fact stem from our attempts to express something that no longer makes sense on account of such confusion. My intention here is to break down such distinctions as I understand them in the hopes of adding clarity to what I believe is something hugely important for us to better understand and for us to come to better agreement on within society.

Rights, as I see them, can be divided into several distinct things that function in greatly different ways, with fundamentally different principles between them. To differentiate between them should assist in a more general understanding of Rights, and so I’ll go through them all in turn to discuss the makeup of each, as I understand it. And I’ll take a focus on the expected benefits and requirements of different parties involved in the provision of these different Rights, as I feel this is the clearest way to help us understand the respective principles that govern them.

The first kind is a Basic Human Right. To belong to this distinction is to be a basic requirement for survival. Food, water, clothing, and shelter are the specific examples that fall into this category to me. Due to their nature, that none of us can survive without them, everyone should be entitled to them, at least at some fundamental level.ⁱ These Rights are the only ones, in my eyes, that should never be able to be taken away. No one should be expected to earn their basic requirements for survival, and nothing anyone does, no matter how criminal or heinous it may be considered in society, should be enough to take these away from them. The duties associated with Basic Human Rights fall upon society more generally, as upholding these Rights in the fashion I’m describing requires nothing of the individual to deserve these Rights, while it’s up to the rest of us within society to provide them to those who fail to obtain them for themselves. The most obvious benefits of Basic Human Rights are given to the individual, especially one in the meanest state of life, who is given the basic means of survival, but society also stands to benefit from their provision, most apparently to me through the added safety and the improving ease of governing in a society where individuals in its midst, whether citizens or not, remain free of the desperation that comes with trying to obtain the basic means of survival that are otherwise withheld from them.

The second kind of Right is a Societal Right. These are the Rights that come from association with others within society. The clearest examples I can think of are security, freedom of movement, freedom of economic exchange, and freedom of speech.ⁱⁱ These are Rights that require something of the individual in exchange for the Rights—duties or responsibilities. The requirements typically involve some expectation around behaviour to allow the individual to participate in society in a way deemed acceptable, which makes perfect sense to me, for it would be unfair or unjust to expect society to furnish you with security when you behave in a way that needlessly risks harm to yourself, or to expect the right to freedom of movement when you use it to harm others, for example.ⁱⁱⁱ However, I feel that we’ve been poor to clarify these specific expectations in our society. Some things are vaguely agreed upon: Following the laws or refraining from violence, perhaps some measure of etiquette or respect toward others, but, even with these, there’s enough disagreement across society to want for great clarity of expectations. I suspect that most of us will generally agree that laws must be followed in exchange for Societal Rights, but what about laws we individually feel are unjust, or those that we may feel lack in relative importance, such as speed limits? With regard to the latter, perhaps some smaller enforcement or discouragement, such as a fine, is enough of a response without also requiring further loss of rights, although this view may change depending on the severity of the infraction or with repeat offences. Acting violently toward another is probably sufficient cause for revoking at least some Societal Rights in many cases, but there will be instances where this may not hold true, such as when defending oneself against another violent person. Further complicating the picture is our association within smaller groups. When we identify with the smaller group, it becomes easy to lose sight of greater social associations. We may not feel the need to interact with the same etiquette or respect toward those from outside the smaller group as we would for members of the group, and we may uphold expectations that are commonly held within the group even though they aren’t held in greater society, and even if they clash with greater social expectations. In either instance, is there a point where the greater, social infraction is viewed as harmful enough to society for the individual to lose any Societal Rights? While we are unlikely to fully eliminate uncertainty with regard to the expectations inherent in Societal Rights, we can likely at least reduce it through open discussion.

The benefits of Societal Rights are likely, similarly to their responsibilities, more difficult to understand and describe than those of Basic Human Rights, but it will presumably benefit us to attempt to do so. To the individual, the provision of Societal Rights effectively removes them from a state of conflict with others. The Rights themselves allow individuals to better do things like focus on limited tasks and exchange for many things that would otherwise fall on their own shoulders to provide, or to engage with others, to gain access to perspectives and information that solitary existence would cause to be withheld. All this comes together to give the individual the best chance to learn and grow, to have better potential to live their happiest and best existence. And the very act of upholding the duties required in exchange for Societal Rights works alongside the benefits themselves to better encourage safety and cooperation, which effectively makes all the above easier. More generally, society very obviously has the benefit of the increasing ease of governing that comes with increasing safety and cooperation, but there are also numerous benefits that aren’t as immediately easy to grasp—at least those requiring additional thought from myself to perceive properly. Of note, cooperation allows individuals to work in concert, in a way that provides value to society well above and beyond what could be produced by solitary individuals.^iv And the free exchange of information fostered by Societal Rights in a positive environment fostered by the responsibilities that come with them encourages innovations of all kinds, encompassing numerous domains, which ultimately serve to benefit society. Even just because of the potential to benefit individuals and greater society when we have a thoughtful and clear understanding of the expectations and the tangible Rights received in exchange, it feels to me like making better sense of Societal Rights and all these related ideas is an urgent matter for us all.

The third kind of Right I’ll call a Privilege.^v What falls into this category to me are Rights that are by nature unequal in Society. In my eyes, Privileges are Rights that are beneficial to the individual, but are entirely tied to need. Included are things we more commonly see as tied to need, such as accommodations for those with disabilities, but also things we more generally detach from needs, such as benefits that go to those with a sufficient social position, for example the parking spot closest to the door belonging to the professional rather than to those with mobility issues. Privileges should be intended to make things more fair when accounting for individual limitations, rather than being employed in ways that make things more unequal. In this way, Privileges can work in concert with Societal Rights to allow more people to participate productively within society. And it’s important to bring up individuals with need rather than to add limitations to those with natural gifts or talents to attempt to bring about this equality, for reasons that strike me as relatively straightforward. For, to do the former benefits those with need without causing any harm to others; the latter is not only unjust in that it requires harm of the talented, but it also harms society, which more greatly benefits when as many are as strong and capable as possible. To disconnect Privileges from need, however, would be antisocial. To allow the naturally talented, the strong, the wealthy, or the powerful to obtain Privileges when they can, as they see fit, is to cause individuals to compete in order to accumulate advantages, to bring society back to a state of conflict, which not only loses out at least partially on the benefits that come with cooperation but also from the loss of the effective participation of those with unmet needs. Even simply understanding Privileges in this way serves to simplify problems that are commonly associated with this sort of Right. For instance, there seems to be great anxiety around the envious and lazy wanting or getting undeserving Privileges. To tie Privileges to needs handles the issue in a straightforward manner: To demonstrate a need is sufficient to gain a useful Privilege; to fail to do so means that one doesn’t, even if one feels deserving or thinks it’s unfair. Privileges as they exist can also be tied to things we don’t want or don’t easily account for; it may actually benefit us, even more selfishly, to consider our needs when deciding if we should accept Privileges, and to perhaps more frequently decline when these Privileges strike us as “superfluous.”^vi

The fourth and final kind of Right is a Political Right. This encompasses Rights to power and authority with regard to governing and lawmaking. These Rights are in my estimation the most poorly understood, at least in contemporary North America. And this is highly unfortunate, as these Rights obviously hold such weight and importance in shaping our lives; to misunderstand them is to misapply them, which leads to a host of problems—not just in politics, but throughout the makeup of our society. While it’s probably tempting to view these Rights as belonging to the category of Societal Rights or as something of an extension of it, this strikes me as an important mistake. For, there’s more to this idea than simply being able to cast a vote or having the right to run for public office by nature of being a citizen. Voting does constitute a Political Right, as it allows the voter to exert some power and authority over political matters, but it only should be viewed as a minor Right in and of itself, due to the very limited nature of its power and authority when utilized by a regular individual. A common voter lacks the ability to enforce their individual choices. This changes through a number of factors. Organization of voters to vote in a bloc effectively adds pressure on political decision makers that adds power to these wants, for example. But, organized voting efforts of common individuals still lack a great deal of power in political matters, in large part due to the limitations of voting. Average voters are still presented with severely limited choices of representatives and their policies and only have severely limited opportunities to even interact with political decision makers to make only severely limited versions of their views heard. On top of this, political decision makers frequently use their political power and authority to further limit the political power of average voters.^vii Greater political power comes from things that are out of reach of the common individual. Individuals and organizations with greater sway over which candidates gain the support of their respective parties hold greater political power than the rest of us. Lobbyists who are afforded increased access to politicians to more fully express political demands of the groups they represent while also having a strong enough economic weight behind these demands to make the consequences of a politician’s choices immediately and tangibly felt by them and their parties also hold more political power than the rest of us.

Political Rights in our society are unequal. To some extent, this may be an unavoidable part of them^viii and, to some extent, this may not be a bad thing. It would do us well in society to have the best politicians possible at the helm, and so it theoretically would do us well to afford unequal power over selection to different individuals, so long as we were ever able to understand what traits or conditions of the voter allow them to more consistently judge our politicians well. And, for the politicians themselves, there are likely similar traits that render them more or less suitable for public office. Historically, some have looked to social class to attempt to differentiate people in this way, such as Edmund Burke, the Enlightenment-era British politician, who suggested that the “natural aristocracy” is the source of “superior men of wisdom and ability,” who are better equipped to govern, and that it is similarly important to only allow a limited group of men, presumably from the same class, to select these rulers, as “it takes an elite group of voters to select the most elite rulers.”¹ Rather than social class, the Liberal ideology existing in both England and America around the same time put stress on property ownership as a requirement to vote, “on the basis that property is the best rough index of capacity, stability, and good will in the individual.”² Similarly, I recall the science fiction author Robert Heinlein suggesting that some length of military service should be required before individuals are allowed to vote, with the justification that military discipline shapes the character of the individual into that of a more responsible voter. All of these have what I feel are obvious flaws if our goal is to more consistently end up with better politicians, but I think the third hits closest to the mark of what we could more reasonably expect to yield better results. Even though the requirement of military service has the problem of creating a homogeneous voting population both biased and limited in its thinking on account of the nature of its collective education, it pulls from a population of individuals who gave of themselves in a tangible way for the presumable benefit of its respective society. And, while this may be wishful thinking, it doesn’t strike me as unreasonable to suspect that individuals who give something real and needed in society, something that requires effort or actual, personal cost, will be more likely to view social and political issues from a less individualistic perspective, that they will be able to look past their own desires to the benefit of the collective. Even if this doesn’t translate to selflessness, even if the individual who gives something of substance maintains their selfish outlook, one would hope that they would still wish for the collective project to succeed, if only so that their contribution doesn’t go to waste—although I’m sure it can also be suggested that selfishness could go farther yet, in that the individual who already gave of themselves may feel that they gave enough and society now owes them something. So, perhaps this speculation doesn’t help us until we can be more confident in what could actually yield results.

Maybe such a requirement doesn’t need to be complicated. In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith argues that American representation in British parliament should increase “in proportion to the produce of American taxation,” that an American should have equal representation and strength of his vote in comparison to the British subject only when his monetary contributions to the Empire through his taxes are equivalent, per capita. This was suggested in part to entice Americans to pay their fair share of the added expense that came with the military defense of America, but also because requiring something of the Americans in exchange for these Rights serves to theoretically cause them to be more responsible in how they administer them, that this can better pull Americans into the Empire, helping that colony to become a more unified part of it, all while having the practical benefit that “the number of people to be managed would increase exactly in proportion to the means of managing them.”³ This scheme seems to me to show another way that we can see a tangible way an individual gives something to society, something needed by society. It also has the benefit of a sort of limit to inequality, where it’s not simply that the strength of your Political Rights are proportional to your level of wealth but, rather, that you go from some standard Rights that you have on account of being a member of the nation to having increased, but limited, power that comes with upholding a straightforward duty. So maybe it’s enough to expect people to pay their fair share of taxes in exchange for these Rights. However, if we eventually determine what more consistently makes for a responsible citizen or voter, I suspect we’re less likely to look to military service or a specific level of monetary contribution and more to some amount of labour or participation, not in something like a political party or lobbying group, but in real communities, or in a way that directly benefits society more generally, including in the creation of works or ideas of value.

And perhaps this kind of requirement should be less directed at those who select our politicians and more toward the politicians themselves. To be trusted to directly govern or make laws should require the strictest expectations. Because to entrust this task to anyone who doesn’t understand its importance, who doesn’t respect the nation and its citizens, who lacks intelligence, who lacks integrity, who lacks insight and imagination, who has no eye to liberty or justice, and who lacks the courage and strength to do the right thing is dangerous. None of us in society outside very small groups of selfish individuals benefit when we get this wrong. With this in mind, Political Rights for the governor or lawmaker should be viewed more strongly as responsibilities than as something particularly beneficial to them. Yes, politicians will gain the benefits that come from the satisfaction inherent in seeing the fruition of their actions and ideas or from the measure of goodwill and respect coming from fellow citizens for properly administering these Rights, but these benefits should not include the provision of Privileges or other selfish ends. It would do us well to require some proof of a candidate’s fitness, as suggested above, before running for public office—some proof that they give of themselves or contribute to society in a positive fashion, that they actively participate in their community, that they are respected by community members. This makes better sense to me in the case of politicians than with voters, even if these things don’t consistently equate to any specific proof of character, as it can still ensure us of some measure of connection to or consent of the people they will be governing. It would similarly do us well to be willing to revoke these Rights from those who fail to behave appropriately—from those who show sufficient dishonesty, for instance. And perhaps we need to have better provisions to protect whatever upstanding politicians we find from corrupting elements, such as the self-serving powers that seem to accompany concentrated wealth. But to fail to hold some greater measure of control over those we admit to office is to admit the wrong people, including those who take up their important task for the wrong reasons, including those who see it simply as a path to financial gain, including the worst of us. And if we allow the worst of us to govern, we invite oppression upon us, and to allow them to make our laws is to subject us to injustice.

*

That’s my take on Rights, both generally and more specifically. I will accept that my perspective is ultimately my own, that not all suggestions I have here will be shared by everyone, especially since my idealized view of Rights as they should be are far different than the way they’re instituted in the real world. There will also be points of blur and overlap between the kinds of Rights that exist, where not everyone will agree on the specific domains such an example will belong to, and we won’t always agree on what should be required in exchange for such Rights. However, it’s our job in society to have open discussions on the subject so that we can come to reasonable agreement on what constitutes these domains and where their distinctions truly lie. In this way, though we may never come to firm agreement, we may at least better approach agreement of some kind. Then, and only then, does our more difficult task begin: to better approach these ideals in reality.

Notes

i. This doesn’t mean fancy food; this doesn’t mean anything above rudimentary clothes or shelter; and this only means enough to survive, not more or less.

ii. I see the “human rights and fundamental freedoms,” as laid out in the Canadian Bill of Rights,⁴ falling into this category.

iii. Where the Right to security falls in this system of classification is a bit difficult for me to suggest with assurance. It’s needed on some, basic level for our survival, and I don’t believe it’s correct to revoke it from someone even in cases where others may more commonly feel that you should. (For instance, harming the security of another—violently attacking or robbing them, for example—will require some revoking of their freedom of movement and association to protect others’ Rights, but these restrictions need not put the culprit’s life at risk once we get away from the acute event.) And some level of risky behaviour may be considered acceptable or necessary within society in various circumstances—risking one’s life to save another, for example. In this way, it shouldn’t necessarily cause society to revoke this Right when the individual exposes themselves to risk. That said, I suspect that there’s probably a point where society no longer has a responsibility to protect the individual—one who’s deemed needlessly risky, or risky in a way that has the potential to lead to greater harms to society, for instance. (As an example here, I believe there’s likely a point where even a nonviolent individual who does something to incite violence loses at least some Right to their own protection.) As such, even though some level of security should probably be viewed as a Basic Human Right, it feels to me like it more properly belongs to this category.

iv. Says Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: “Two hundred grenadiers stood the obelisk of Luxor upon its base in a few hours; do you suppose that one man could have accomplished the same task in two hundred days?”⁵

v. I worry about likely upsetting people because of my term of choice, but I couldn’t think of anything that better encompasses everything that fits together in the way I’m describing.

vi. What most immediately comes to mind are the fancy dinners I frequently am invited to as a pharmacist, educational dinners put on by drug manufacturers, with the typical goal of influencing the attendees, biasing them toward increased use of the medication they’re promoting. In my experience, I don’t often need the education they’re providing, as I can frequently engage in my own learning from other sources that are far more disinterested. I never need the free meal and, should I still want the meal, I’d probably avoid things I don’t want—like my corruption—if I just pay for my own meal at a different time.

vii. This includes methods to better secure incumbencies, such as electoral redistricting. Such a method redistributes the borders of electoral districts so that they become increasingly uniform, ideologically. This better drowns out individual votes that go against the overarching ideological current of the district, making it harder for dissenting individuals to effectively make their voices heard. Strategies to limit power to voters also include ways politicians limit information that gets to voters. Methods such as strategic packaging of legislation, the combining of multiple unrelated provisions into a single bill, can serve to both sneak unpopular provisions into law and obscure responsibility for unpopular positions. And the intricate public communications machinery of major political parties serves important, related, goals: impeding the public’s understanding of issues and disrupting the formation of public opinion of a higher quality. This all makes it harder for the individual to vote sensibly, and it makes it easier for politicians to ignore average voters when making policy decisions.

viii. Proudhon makes the argument that, so long as we respect property rights in society, property rights bring with them Political Rights above and beyond the Rights of those who don’t own property, and proportional to the value of the property that they own. This is because to respect property rights is to respect the owner’s right to do with their property as they see fit, but to grant equal Political Rights to citizens regardless of the property they own “is to pretend that the nation has a right to dispose of the property of individuals without consulting them; which is contrary to the right of property. In a country where property exists, equality of electoral rights is a violation of property.”⁶ And, therefore, to state it a bit differently, a nation which respects the right of property will inevitably have unequal electoral rights. (Although keep in mind that this is argued from the perspective that property rights should not be respected.)

References

1. Fenichel Pitkin H. The Concept of Representation. University of California Press, 1972. pp. 169-171.
2. Ibid., pp. 190-191.
3. Smith A. The Wealth of Nations. BookRix, 2014.pp. 959-966.
4. Government of Canada. “Canadian Bill of Rights.” S.C. 1960, c. 44,  https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-12.3/page-1.html. Accessed Oct 5, 2024.
5. Proudhon PJ. What is Property?. Critical Editions, 2022.p. 86.
6. Ibid., p. 150.