Why rights must be absolute or not exist at all

When i debate the theory of rights with people, I always run into the same deadlock. I will argue for an absolutist conception of rights (the rights being the right to life and property), and my opponent will say, "But rights don't have to be absolute. Sometimes, we should limit people's rights for the common good".

The problem with this theory is that in the very act of setting limits on an individual's rights for a reason other than the protection of other individual's rights, one is abandoning rights altogether.

The theory of rights is a deontological (rules-based) rather than a consequentialist (consequence based) politico-ethical theory. When I say that someone has a "right" to autonomy in some sphere, I am establishing a rule that is intended to exist regardless of the immediate consequences of obeying this rule. By contrast, a consequentialist might say, one should violate the autonomy of others whenever doing so has positive consequences for everyone living the area.

The reason I would establish a right, a political guarantee of autonomy in one's choices, would be to shelter an individual from the consequentialist calculations of other individuals, whether these individuals comprise a government or are fellow civilians. In establishing this right, I am declaring that, as matter of principle, every individual should be able to develop his creative faculties, because doing so is what gives meaning to a human life; what follows from this is that individual A may not infringe on individual B's ability to develop his creative faculties in order to produce some consequence that individual A has deemed desirable.

The relative freedom of a society can be judged by the degree to which individual members are able to develop free from the consequentialist calculations of others; in other words, the more people's rights are respected, the freer a society is.

When I judge that I am entitled to "limit" another person's rights in order to produce some desirable consequence, I am not really placing a "limitation" on the framework of rights; rather, I am denying the existence of this framework altogether. Because the sole purpose of a right is to protect an individual from the consequentialist calculations of others, one can not establish the principle that rights should be respected insofar as respecting them yields a beneficial social consequence.

In order to counter an absolutist--that is, consistent theory of rights, one must deny that rights exist at all.


One possible consequentialist objection to my absolutist theory of rights might be the following:

"As a consequentialist, I believe that there are two different ways to calculate consequences. First, I can say that executing a particular action is justified because in a particular circumstance, the consequences will positive. Second, I can say that executing a particular action is justified because doing so contributes to the stability of a system of rules that in the long run generates positive consequences.

"So, for example, a government official might censor the press during a war that threatens to destroy all human life within a given geographical unit, because doing so will bring about the positive consequence of keeping most inhabitants of the area alive. however, that same government official should not censor the press during less extreme times for such short term consequentialist reasons, because in the long run, having free and open debate sustains a democratic culture. In these two situations, the government official employs two different types of consequentialist reasoning; the second type is conducive to the long-term freedom secured by your system of rights, since freedom, operating in the context of a democratic society, produces beneficial consequences in the long run.

Thus, your stated goal of preserving freedom "to develop one's creative faculties" can be accomplished with a consequentialist framework. However, consequentialism is superior because it prevents individual freedom from upsetting the very framework of society, by, for example, leading to the destruction of society during war due to unbridled exercise of free speech."

I would first object to this counter-argument by asking, by what standard do you judge the long-run consequences of the maintenance of a particular system of rules in to be good? What's so great about a Democratic culture? Advocates of Divine Right absolutism used to say that murdering political dissidents was a good idea because, in the long run, doing so maintained the hierarchical monarchical order, in which due place was given to the glory of the monarch and to the obedient nature of every one else.

The democratic system you defend maintains one view of the good society, that in which people elect fellow citizens to serve the public interest and; on the other hand, the divine right absolutist claims that a good society is one in which a strong dynamic of subservience and dominance is preserved.

The formulation of these differing social theories is itself an act of creativity. You are giving expression to your creative impulses by creating society in order that it mirror your subjective whim--you have a non-rational desire for egalitarianism, and your opponent a non-rational desire for hierarchy. I can't rationally choose between these two preferences, which do not have rational foundation, but I can identify an implicit point of agreement between you two, by which i can come to a rational conclusion about what type of political order both of you ought to accept.

As I argued in my previous post on libertarian ethics, the fact that people possess fundamentally incompatible values is itself a justification for libertarian rights. Just as the parties in disagreement must respect each other's argumentative sovereignty in order to engage in formal debate,the two parties must respect each other's sovereignty of action when they persuade each other by the example of their differing actions, which are themselves arguments regarding the best way to live one's life.

In orderto guarantee that the monarchist, who lives according to his value of the greatness of dominance and obedience(which he might do by, for instance, organizing a private organization in a hierarchical manner) can live side by side with the democrat, who lives his life according the the values of democracy (social equality and and popular sovereignty), there must exist a framework of rights. These rights guarantee the absolute freedom of all to develop their creative potential and live how they choose, free from the consequentialist calculations of others, which are always without ultimate rational justification, but rather based on subjective whim.