Rights Discourse 2

Question 1

Liberal conceptions of right

Answer 1

individual liberty still at the core of

Question 2

liberal conception of rights

negative perception of rights

Answer 2

right to privacy, freedom of speech things that allow you to live your lives the

Question 3

Liberal conception of rights

Positive perception on rights

Egalitarians see rights

Answer 3

as being based on support

need health and education to make choices in life

Question 4

Communitarian critique

cannot justify

Answer 4

cannot justify political arrangements without reference to common our purposes and ends. It is our interaction in the community that defines use individually

therefore group rights are just as important

Question 5

Rights, on the interest theory, are claims that are based on an argument that an aspect of the right-holder’s well-being (ie their interests) is so important that there are

Answer 5

sufficient reasons for holding some other person/s to be under a duty

Question 6

On the choice theory, a right-holder can exercise

Answer 6

particular choices

Question 7

both interest and choice theories

Answer 7

are consistent with seeing rights as having special force in moral and legal arguments. Respect for rights means that the underlying interests and choices of rights holders are not simply thrown into the utilitarian calculus.

Question 8

Sandel

Communitarnism critique of rights claims

Answer 8

• Excessively individualistic;
• Ignore the importance of social and cultural groups for individual well-being;
• Promote egoism and, thereby, social conflict;

Question 9

. According to Sandel, ‘we cannot conceive our

Answer 9

personhood without reference to our role as citizens, and participants in a common life’.

Question 10

Liberals—according to Sandel—do not understand

Answer 10

how communal and social roles constitute persons or how communal and social understandings create the context in which any individual choices are made. History, language, and culture all make our individual choices meaningful, but none is within the control of a lone individual

Question 11

What is Waldron’s strategy of argument in responding to the implicit charge that rights promote an excessive form of individualism?

List 2

Answer 11

1. Assumes that participation in social life and relationships is necessary for a fulfilling life;
2. Concedes that rights do not constitute healthy relationships or social life;

Question 12

What is Waldron’s strategy of argument in responding to the implicit charge that rights promote an excessive form of individualism?

List last one

Answer 12

But argues nevertheless that it is important to recognise individual rights:

Question 13

What is Waldron’s strategy of argument in responding to the implicit charge that rights promote an excessive form of individualism?

But argues nevertheless that it is important to recognise individual rights:

how

Answer 13

• They provide a fall-back position. Their recognition addresses the question of what happens if warm bonds of communal affection disintegrate.
• They provide the social infrastructure for the creation of new social bonds. Rights are a basis for the rational, non-violent formation of new communities.

Question 14

How does Waldron make the case?

Answer 14

• Welfare rights example: yes, there are advantages for providing care for the needy (such as the elderly) within family and social structures, but what happens when these structures fail?
• Even within well-functioning communities, individuals may want assurances that needs will be met if spontaneous forms of cooperation fail.

Question 15

how does communitarians criticise liberal rights

Answer 15

for suggesting the bonds of social life are constituted solely by the rights of atomistic individuals (Waldron)

Question 16

how does communitarians criticise liberal rights

They argue we cannot

Answer 16

They argue we cannot conceive of ourselves as independents wholly detached from our aims and attachments (Sandel).

Question 17

Communitarians criticise what aspect of the liberal rights discourse

Answer 17

criticise the excessive individualism of liberal rights discourse

Our social roles and familial connections are partly constitutive of our identity and this informs our moral psychology (Sandel)

Question 18

Waldron accepts that individuals

Answer 18

Waldron accepts that individuals belong to groups and concedes that rights are not constitutive of social groups in that they are not sufficient for personal and social relationships to flourish.

Question 19

Waldron argued rights discourse is

Answer 19

reductionist of individual relationships.

Question 20

Waldron argues

we cannot rely on

because

Answer 20

on social bonds to protect our rights. Rights provide a safety net or fall-back position;

Question 21

Waldron

rights provide a fall back position

Answer 21

Communitarianism does not consider when bonds of mutual affection might collapse and are not constitutive of individual

-rights can provide social infrastructure to build communities and form new groups

Question 22

However, rights are not an accessible safety net to those

Answer 22

individuals who face cultural, social and economic barriers to realising those rights e.g. minorities, disadvantaged groups, women etc.

Question 23

Rights facilitate social mobility;

Answer 23

Individuals may move across groups and societies without hindrance and be protected by rights in these societies regardless of their social connection to these groups. Rights facilitate this dynamism of globalisation.

Question 25

How does Waldron address communitarian critique that libers excessively focus on individualism?

Answer 25

recognises there are communal values but states that the preconditions to those values are individual rights eg the right to freedom of speech (without which you would not have communitarianism)

Question 26

Communitarian critique of egoism

Answer 26

language of rights promotes selfishness claims of individual rights is a claim against a community

Question 27

Waldron respond to egoism critique

Answer 27

- rights don’t dictate that you have to be egoistic, they just give you options. - The right to property does not indicate or demand that all should go accumulate property

Question 28

Liberals are ethical individualists; they insist

Answer 28

that individuals should be free to choose and pursue their own conceptions of the good life. They give primacy to individual rights and liberties over community life and collective goods

Question 29

The individual is inseparable

Answer 29

from their society, individuals find fulfilment in society and societies rely on some common understanding of morality.

Question 30

community and morality

Answer 30

Morality is learned from our community, community shapes and strengthens my morality, if detached from my community I could lose my judgment and will be unable to flourish as a moral agent.

Question 31

Critiques of Liberalism devalue

Answer 31

Devalued, neglected or undermined community, which is an important ingredient in a good life

Question 32

quote by waldron

Answer 32

Impersonal rules and rights is a basis for individuals to reconstitute their relations to take new initiatives in social life without relying on the support of communities they belong

Question 33

Describe the Romeo and Juliet analogy

Answer 33

- the two lovers unable to have a relationship b/c of family oppositions - leave community to establish prohibited relationship

Question 34

Describe the Romeo and Juliet lesson

Answer 34

w/o rights that recognise their individual powers of separation and connection, they lack power to create their own strands. Once they leave community, they risk falling to their deaths.

Question 35

What power was romeo and juliet denied

Answer 35

to begin relationships of their own choice

Question 36

Individuals without rights lack

Answer 36

social presence without which membership in community would be impossible

Question 37

Why are rights necessary Waldron

Answer 37

Rights are then necessary toreduce uncertainty and to provide frameworks for expanding possibilities. .e.g Romeo and Juliet

Question 38

How does system of individual rights provides a fallback position when bonds of affection erode or fail give example of aged care

Answer 38

- a communitarian spirit, family's responsobility to care for the aged - if we cannot look after them, individual rights can allow the elderly to take care of themselves e.g. purchase an income for their old age, so they can rely on a pension check from a finance house even if they cannot rely on the warm support of their children

Question 39

Sandel’s criticism of liberal rights Some liberal rights theories (including utilitarianism) communicate

Answer 39

–Some liberal rights theories (including utilitarianism) communicate a preferred version of the good life and are therefore internally contradictory, and

Question 40

Sandel’s criticism of liberal rights Other liberal rights theories (including Kant) emphasise

Answer 40

– that individuals are freely choosing agents, which Sandel argues that they are not.

Question 41

Sandel’s criticism of liberal rights Secondly

Answer 41

liberalism provides no basis for for privileging the rights of tolerance and freedom of choice over the common good, ie individual human rights should not trump the common good.

Question 42

Sandel’s criticism of liberal rights what politics does he support

Answer 42

Sandel supports instead a politics of the common good (as opposed to a politics of rights).

Question 43

Sandel’s criticism of liberal rights He disagrees that politics of the common good

Answer 43

will lead to intolerance and totalitarianism. The common good enriches the public life, which encourages mutual respect and understanding. A politics of the common good needs to be valued more highly

Question 44

Sandel's criticism of liberal rights internal contradiction of liberal theories While the justification of liberal rights is

Answer 44

–While the justification of liberal rights is based on the protection of a person’s liberty to freely choose their individual version of the good life, and –While liberalism states that no government should impose a particular preferred view of the good life on individuals,

Question 46

Sandel's criticism of liberal rights internal contradiction of liberal theories A)

Answer 46

The liberalism that argues that rights theories that are justified on the basis that all morals are subjective merely hides the values that liberals defend. That is, “Toleration and fairness are values too

Question 47

Sandel's criticism of liberal rights internal contradiction of liberal theories B)

Answer 47

•Utilitarian liberalism, which argues that rights theories are justified because liberal rights promote the welfare of the largest number, are also problematic fails to secure individual rights. This particular form of the good life is what is preferred by the majority. “ so the utilitarian philosophy is an inadequate foundation for liberal principles

Question 48

Sandel's criticism of liberal rights internal contradiction of liberal theories C) Sandel argues that a Kantian model assumes that Sandel's response

Answer 48

the identity of an individual must be as separate and detached, and formed prior to the community: Sandel argues that this is not realistic. He argues instead for a vision of the self that is situated in the community, and whose ideas about purpose and ends come from the community itself

Question 49

Sandel's criticism of liberal rights internal contradiction of liberal theories C) Kantian model

Answer 49

framework neutral among ends, refusal to affirm a preferred way of life or conception of the good they comprise a fair framework within which individuals and groups can choose their own values and ends

Question 50

Sandel's criticism of liberal rights internal contradiction of liberal theories C) Kantian model right is over the good

Answer 50

1. individual rights cannot be sacrificed for the sake of the general good 2. the principles of justice that specify these rights cannot be premised on any particular version of the good life.

Question 51

Sandel's criticism of liberal : if Liberal theories cannot justify individual human rights,

Answer 51

•then human rights should not necessarily have priority over a conception of the common good.

Question 52

Sandel's crticism of liberalism step 3 •A politics of the common good:

Question 53

Sandel's crticism of liberalism step 3 •A politics of the common good: When people are seen as

Answer 53

attached” and “obligated” to one another, the common public life is valued and a sense of common involvement and enterprise, which then privileges the common good.

Question 54

Sandel's crticism of liberalism step 3 •A politics of the common good: far from ending up with “prejudice and totalitarianism’, Sandel argues that a politics of the common good

Answer 54

would lead to an enhanced respect for each other. Or, alternatively, liberal theories and a view of the unencumbered self is as likely to lead to intolerance as communitarian theory

Question 55

waldron defends

Answer 55

liberal human rights theories

Question 56

Waldron concedes

Answer 56

–acknowledges the need for community and attachments and,

Question 57

waldron rights cannot create

Answer 57

–that rights cannot create, or represent those important relationships of affection (ie while marriage is a contract the affection between the parties is not created through the establishment of legal rights), and

Question 58

In arguing rights providing a safety net,

Answer 58

–Rights are the fall back option when mutual affection disappears, in order to provide security to vulnerable parties. - rights may even be considered to be a condition which enables the development of more intense engagement

Question 59

Waldon how does rights facilitate social mobility

Answer 59

–Rights provide a legal framework that transcends communities and protects the ability of individuals within communities to leave and forge new interpersonal and community relationships.

Question 60

Waldon Affection and social mobility

Answer 60

–while rights do not replace affection, they are important because not all relationships need to be ones of affection. For eg, rights create other productive relationships between strangers, eg market relationships.

Question 61

Waldron argues individuals are not

Answer 61

–situated in a society but they are not completely determined by their society, so –They do have some capacity form a critical perspective on the common goods and the common identity.

Question 62

Rights can conflict with other individuals rights e.g.

Answer 62

The right of one individual to freedom of expression may conflict with another’s right not to have their reputation impaired, and an individual’s right to freedom of expression may conflict with the government’s interest in protecting national security.

Question 63

Conflicts of rights

Answer 63

between the rights of individuals and the government’s public policy objectives.

Question 64

* Egoism and Social Conflict?* * hegel*

Answer 64

indiviual rights reflect egoism. we are self-interested and believe our rights are better than others

Question 65

egoism

Answer 65

egoism is an attitude which considers only the self and ignores the Whole, of which the self is only a part and upon which the self depends for any meaning or significance

Question 66

*Egoism and Social Conflict?* Having a right does not mean

Answer 66

Having a right does not mean that it must be insisted on nor, where a choice is involved, that a particular choice is justified (recall, there can be a right to do wrong). If the state allows certain choices to be made, can it really be neutral about them?

Question 67

Government for liberalist

Answer 67

governments threaten freedom, which can only be achieved if intervention was kept to a bare minimum and only for fundamental matters that would help promote and maintain individual freedom

Question 68

assertion critique

Answer 68

assertion of human rights overridecommunal goals e.g. individuals assertive of rights can wreck a family

Question 69

assertion critique response by rights theorists

Answer 69

having rights and asserting rights are different. Rights can operate as a fall-back mechanism according to Waldron

Question 70

atomistic critique

Answer 70

rights take an atomistic view of individuals ignoring social dimensions of the self rights tend to be egoistic

Question 71

First charge according to Waldron

Answer 71

first charge is person has a right to something encourages them to exercise that right selfishly w/o regard to others

Question 72

2nd charge according to Waldron

Answer 72

rights are enforced in an unpleasantly self centred way

Question 73

unlike liberalism, community does not promote a

Answer 73

a universal ideal that predominates over all. It recognizes the differences in communities and thus depends on a particular society. It is an ideology which depends on particularity, rather than universality.

Question 74

iberalism detaches the individual from

Answer 74

the government and only considers individuals and how they can maintain their freedom

Question 75

. For communitarians, the "preservation of individual liberty depends on

Answer 75

the active maintenance of the institutions of civil society where citizens learn respect for others as well as self-respect."

Question 76

Government's role for liberalism

Answer 76

to protect individual's liberty only, not inflict upon them any view of good life.

Question 77

Sandel argues liberalism promotes totalitarianism but

Answer 77

totalitarian regimes have not appeared in liberal societies such as Britain, the United States, and the Scandinavian countries, but rather in nations such as Germany, Japan, Russia, and Italy in which a liberal political culture did not exist at all

Question 78

Sandel a communitarian claims

Answer 78

we cannot justify political arrangements without reference to common purposes and ends, and that we cannot conceive our personhood without reference to our role as citizens, and as participants in a common life

Question 79

liberal emphasis on individual rights undermines the ability of people

Answer 79

understand themselves as sharing the common life. pursue their own aims with too little concern for those of others or the needs of the larger community,

Question 80

the liberal state is "neutral" due to

Answer 80

llowing individuals to define and pursue their own conceptions of the good, subject to the constraint that they respect the liberty of other individuals to do so as well

Question 81

We should be suspicious of calls for “community”

Answer 81

historically such calls have been accompanied by oppressive sentiments such as nationalism, militarism, racism, and religious and other intolerance

Question 82

ommunitarians fail to understand that a community is best viewed

Answer 82

as an instrument for helping individuals achieve their chosen goals – it is something that people can freely contract into and withdraw from. Communitarians tend to view it as a good in itself - can make demands upon people.

Question 83

how do communitarians argue that community values takes precedence over individual choices

Answer 83

if we lose the traditions of family, locality, and religion, then we lose the identities and civic values that they provide. They argue that individual lives only make sense when they are involved in joint ventures

Question 84

In communitarianism it is considered meaningless to try to consider

Answer 84

the individual without considering the society to which they belong.

Question 85

Individuals in a community may differ

Answer 85

in their ideas of what the community should be like. However, they share values such as education and the health and safety of the public.

Question 86

state should not impose

Answer 86

THE STATE SHOULD NOT IMPOSE A WAY OF LIFE FOR ITS CITIZENS LET THEM CHOOSE HOW THEY WANT TO LIVE

Question 87

argument that liberalism is a misrepresentation of reality

Answer 87

in reality, we are creatures of a community

Question 88

Rawl's argument against liberalism misrepresentation of reality Counterarguments

Answer 88

everyone is the inventor of his own life BUT there are no valid criteria guiding the invention In the liberal society we are strangers to one another BUT each member of each group is born with parents having relatives and friends, thus connections