The Priority of Duties

2017

There cannot be 'innate' rights in any other sense than that in which there are innate duties, of which, however, much less has been heard." 1 I. INTRODUCTION: WHAT HAPPENED TO DUTIES? Human rights are, simultaneously, legal, moral, and political claims. 2 Equally important, however, is the fact that human rights are fundamentally claims about relationships. 3 To have any practical meaning, human rights must be recognized  We thank

Using a comprehensive database of global constitutions and original archival materials, this study makes several key findings about the origin, nature, and diffusion of "human duties" - the obligations of individuals that parallel universal human rights. These duties appear in a majority (60%) of the world's written constitutions and are becoming more common over time. They have deep roots in human rights history, and they featured prominently in early drafts of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Duties continue to play a central role in regional human rights regimes, particularly through the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. In addition, this article argues for a renewed focus on human duties in contemporary discussions of human rights theory. We argue, in particular, that human duties highlight the relational quality of human rights. This relational model supports, in turn, a networked model of rights and responsibilties that transcendes traditional political boundaries. Understood in this way, human duties offer a potentially powerful conceptual vocabulary that can help us address transnational legal questions, including the continuing challenge of global climate change.

Ethics, 2013

This essay advances and defends two claims: ðaÞ that rights cannot be inalienable and ðbÞ that even if they could be, this would not be morally justifiable. Many declarations of rights and constitutional documents proclaim certain rights-more precisely, certain claims and immunities-to be inalienable, in the strict sense of being absolutely and unconditionally unwaivable by those vested with them. These are rights to the relinquishment of which their bearers cannot give valid consent. For although those bearers can forfeit those rights by engaging in some act of serious wrongdoing, what they lack the authority to do is simply extinguish other persons' duties and disabilities to respect those rights. 1 Innocent bearers of inalienable rights are, necessarily, stuck with them. Can rights really be inalienable? The belief that they can be obviously is, and has long been, so widely shared that evidential support for its existence is utterly superfluous. Of course, that belief does not entail a belief that there actually are inalienable rights. Much less does it entail a belief that all rights-moral or legal-are inalienable: no one, indeed, entertains that latter belief. And many who do believe that there can be inalienable rights would nonetheless deny that there actually are any. A primary aim of this essay is to show that there aren't any because there can't be any. Or, more precisely, I aim to show that the conceptual or analytical cost of affirming the possibility of inalienable rights is exceptionally high, inasmuch as it entails the denial of what are commonly taken to be core properties of normative codes ðlegal or moralÞ including the Hohfeldian deontic logic of rights discourse. In the light of that find

Studies in Global Justice, 2017

The present study aims to demonstrate the importance of a renewed focus on duty in normative discourse. The dominance of what has been labeled “rights talk” leads to the neglect of duties without corresponding rights (i.e. duties of virtue) and stimulates the proliferation of questionable human rights. In order to remedy these problems, this dissertation argues for the adoption of a duties-based perspective on morality in order to, firstly, salvage duties of virtue, and, secondly, counter the trend of rights proliferation by providing some conceptual clarity concerning rights and duties that will enable us to differentiate between genuine and spurious claims to the status of “right.” The argument for this duties-based perspective is made by elaborately examining two particularly contentious duties, namely our duties to aid the global poor and our duties to the community. These two duties serve as case studies and are explored from the perspective of various disciplines, including human rights law, political theory and moral philosophy. The argument is made that both duties can only be adequately defined and allocated if we adopt the perspective of duties, as the predominant perspective of rights either does not recognize them to be duties at all, or else leaves their content and allocation completely indefinite. The point of this renewed focus on duties is emphatically not to detract anything from the importance of rights. Rather, the duties-based perspective on morality will have a salutary effect on our human rights discourse by distinguishing more strictly between genuine and inauthentic rights. Furthermore, a duties-based approach enlarges the moral playing field, by recognizing both duties of justice and duties of virtue. The latter include such fundamental duties as duties to aid the global poor and civic duties, which function as indispensable complements to the duties prescribed by the sphere of justice.

The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 1978

Onora O'Neill's thesis that, in a world like ours, institutionalization is a necessary existence condition for typical universal welfare rights -the "institutionalization thesis" for short -is often criticized but rarely understood. This controversy has gained new actuality in the light of a recent UNESCO initiative to have severe poverty recognized as a violation of a presumed human right not to suffer severe poverty. The following is an attempt to clarify O'Neill's argument. I shall try to show that the institutionalization thesis is based on her "classical" understanding of rights, which stresses their essential duty-implying character. From the point of view of the agent, the duty to aid is only "imperfect" unless it is perfected by means of setting up the required institutions. By and large, the institutionalization thesis stands and falls with the classical theory of rights. My suggestion is that what is really at issue between O'Neill and at least some of her critics is the proper understanding of the concept of a right. 1 1 The classical view of rights For theorists like O'Neill, rights arising from promises and similar interpersonal interactions

Political Studies

Can human rights impose positive duties to act, as well as negative duties constraining action? At first glance there seem to be strong reasons for wishing human rights could impose positive duties – such reasons include the promotion of welfare rights and the positive protection of liberty rights (e.g. police protection against assault). However, any attempt to construct rights-based positive duties threatens to dissolve hallmark features of rights. In this article the duty-properties possessed by uncontroversial rights-based negative duties are comprehensively analysed. Drawing on this analysis, a range of key properties is developed, including ‘regime-level right-holder universality’ and ‘many-to-one directedness’, as well as a ‘centres of pressure’ vision of rights, by which it is argued that positive duties can accord with the keystone commitments of rights-based moral theories. In so doing, a conceptual space for rights-based positive duties is defended.

Political Studies, 2014

Can human rights impose positive duties to act, as well as negative duties constraining action? At first glance there seem to be strong reasons for wishing human rights could impose positive duties-such reasons include the promotion of welfare rights and the positive protection of liberty rights (e.g. police protection against assault). However, any attempt to construct rights-based positive duties threatens to dissolve hallmark features of rights. In this article the duty-properties possessed by uncontroversial rights-based negative duties are comprehensively analysed. Drawing on this analysis, a range of key properties is developed, including 'regime-level right-holder universality' and 'manyto-one directedness', as well as a 'centres of pressure' vision of rights, by which it is argued that positive duties can accord with the keystone commitments of rights-based moral theories. In so doing, a conceptual space for rights-based positive duties is defended.