What Are Rights?
Jan 25th, 2010 by Micah Tillman | 7 Comments |
This is something I keep thinking about as the health care debate continues to drag on. This is what I’ve got so far.
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I. Quintads
II. Active and Passive, Fore and Aft
III. Transferable Duties
B. Digression on the Definition of Rights by Quintads
C. The “Same” Right Defined by Coherent and Incoherent Quintads
D. Roles and the Coherence of Quintads
V. Health Care as a Political Right
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Rights belong to “quintads.”
The basic structure of the quintad is as follows:
holder / right / action / duty /obliged
Every right is someone’s right, and every duty is someone’s duty. The person who has the right is the “holder”; the person who has the duty is the “obliged.”
Every right entails a duty, and every right/duty pair centers around the performance of an action (either by the holder or the obliged).
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II. Active and Passive, Fore and Aft
The action at the center of any quintad can either belong to the holder or to the obliged. If it belongs to the holder, then that quintad’s right is “active.” The right is the holder’s right to perform some action.
If, on the other hand, the action belongs to the obliged, then that quintad’s right is “passive.” It is the holder’s right to have someone perform some action “for her/him.”
So, there are two kinds of quintads.
If the quintad’s right is active, then the action belongs more closely to the holder and right than to the obliged and duty:
holder/right/action // duty/obliged
If the right is passive, then the action belongs more closely to the obliged and duty than to the holder and right:
holder/right // action/duty/obliged
I’m unsure what it would be best to call the two kinds of quintads. But for now I’ll call them “fore” quintads and “aft” quintads.
When the right is active, the first three members of the quintad “bunch together,” as it were. The quintad is “front-heavy,” one might say. It is a “fore” quintad.
When the right is passive, the last three members of the quintad “bunch together.” The quintad is “back-heavy,” as it were. It is a “aft” quintad.
Thus, active rights belong to “fore quintads,” and passive rights belong to “aft quintads.”
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The duties entailed by active rights are passive.
The duties entailed by passive rights are active.
That is, to have an active right is to have the right to perform some action, which places a duty on someone else to allow you to perform that action. Allowing someone to perform an action is passive. Thus, the duty to allow someone to perform an action is a “passive duty.”
To have a passive right is to have the right to have someone perform some action for you, which places a duty on someone else to perform that action for you. To perform an action is active. Thus, the duty to perform an action is an “active duty.”
Passive duties belong to fore quintads, and active duties belong to aft quintads.
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Some active duties are transferable. That is, the action they involved need not necessarily be performed by the obliged, but can be performed for the obliged by someone else.
Thus, some aft quintads can become hexads (or “expanded quintads”):
holder/right // action/duty/obliged/proxy
For example, every child has the right to an education. The person obliged by this right is the parent of the child. The parent, however, may hire a proxy to educated the child in her stead (e.g., a professional teacher).
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The obliged/proxy relationship is actually itself a quintad in which the obliged is given a passive right (by agreement with the proxy) to have the proxy perform the action that the obliged owes the holder.
The proxy’s duty is to the obliged, not to the holder.
If the proxy fails to fulfill her or his duty to the obliged, however, this means that the obliged fails to fulfill her or his duty to the holder. That is, when the proxy fails the obliged, the obliged automatically fails the holder. But the proxy does not fail the holder.
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Quintads that involve transferable duties, I shall call “expandable” quintads, and quintads in which the duty has been transferred I shall call either “expanded” quintads, or “hexads.”
To say a quintad is expandable implies that it is a aft quintad (i.e., it involves a passive right and an active duty). Not all aft quintads are expandable, however.
For example, the quintad describing a wife’s right to be loved by her husband (in the full marital sense of “loving”) is an aft quintad (since the right is passive, and the duty active).
[ holder/right // action/duty/obliged ]
wife/”To Be Loved” // loving/”To Love”/husband
However, the duty is not transferable. It would be absurd to expand the quintad in any way. For example, the following expanded quintad is, one might say, adulterous:
[ holder/right // action/duty/obliged/proxy ]
wife/”To Be Loved” // loving/”To Love”/husband/stranger
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The question of which quintads are expandable, and which are not, brings us to the topic of the coherence of quintads. For a right to be legitimate, it must belong to a morally and ontologically coherent quintad.
That is, it must be morally permissible for the person who is to perform the quintad’s action to perform that action, and it must be ontologically possible for the person who is to perform the quintad’s action to perform that action.
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For example, no right can be legitimate if its quintad’s central action is “murder.” Such a quintad would be morally incoherent. Murder cannot belong to any person either as a right or a duty. That would simply make no moral sense.
Also, no right can be legitimate if its quintad’s central action is “turning yourself inside out twice.” That action is impossible, and thus any quintad centered around it would be incoherent. “Turning yourself inside out twice” cannot belong to any person either as a right or a duty, since “ought” implies “can,” and no one can turn her- or himself inside out twice.”
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B. Digression on the Definition of Rights by Quintads
That a proposed quintad is either morally or ontologically incoherent is enough to show that the proposed right involved in the quintad is not a legitimate right.
This is because a right is defined by the quintad to which it belongs. No matter how similar one right is to another, if they belong to different quintads, they are different rights.
For example, the child’s right to privacy is not the same as the US citizen’s right privacy.
Child / “To Privacy” // Keeping Facts About Child Hidden from Parents / “To Not Invade Privacy” / Parents
US Citizen / “To Privacy” // Keeping Facts About Citizen Hidden from Government / “To Not Invade Privacy” / US Government
The persons involved in the quintads differ, and thus the rights differ.
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Furthermore, even though the name of the actions involved are very similar — both are essentially, “keeping facts about the holder hidden from the obliged” — the actions themselves differ.
For example, a very young child has the right to keep only a very limited number things about himself or herself hidden from his or her parents. An older child has the right to keep more things hidden. A grown child has the right to keep many things hidden.
A US Citizen, on the other hand, has the right to keep just about everything hidden from the US Government, no matter how old or young she/he his.
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C. The “Same” Right, Defined by Coherent and Incoherent Quintads
Each right is defined by its quintad, and thus different quintads define different rights, and incoherent quintads define no rights at all.
This does not mean, however, that the right defined by an incoherent quintad might not be similar in some ways to another right defined by a coherent quintad.
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For example, the right to an attorney, if defined as follows, is incoherent:
Accused US Citizen / “To an Attorney” // Representing in Court / “To Represent in Court” / Baby Squirrel
This quintad is ontologically incoherent. A baby squirrel could never represent anyone in court, and therefore could never have the duty to do so. Thus, any right that entailed such a duty would be illegitimate.
Nevertheless, there is a similar “Right to an Attorney” whose defining quintad is coherent, and therefore which can be legitimate. The fact that the Right to an Attorney defined by the one quintad is illegitimate does not mean that the Right to an Attorney defined by the other quintad is illegitimate too.
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D. Roles and the Coherence of Quintads
Most quintads would seem to define the holder and the obliged by roles. That is, people seem to have rights and duties, in many cases, only insofar as they have certain roles.
A wife, for example, only has the right to be loved by her husband because she has the role of wife, and the husband only has the duty to love his wife because he has the role of husband.
Thus, any test of the moral or ontological coherence of a quintad must take into account whether it is morally permissible, or ontologically possible, for a person who has the role specified by the quintad to perform the action specified by the quintad.
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A quintad that presents a certain right as entailing a duty upon mechanics to fix cars, for instance, would be coherent. Likewise, a quintad that presents a certain right as entailing a duty upon heart surgeons to perform heart surgery would also be coherent.
However, a quintad that presents a certain right as entailing a duty upon mechanics to perform heart surgery, or upon heart surgeons to fix cars, would be ontologically incoherent.
There’s nothing about the role of mechanic that would enable a person to perform heart surgery. Nor is there anything about the role of heart surgeon that would enable a person to fix cars.
Therefore, a person cannot take on a duty as a heart surgeon to fix cars, nor can a person take on a duty as an auto mechanic to perform heart surgery. Ought implies can, and heart surgeons are not trained to fix cars, nor are auto mechanics trained to do heart surgery.
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It may just so happen that a person who has the role of heart surgeon may have also learned to fix cars, and thus may be called on to fix a car in some emergency situation. But the duty to fix a car will not be brought upon her because of her role as a heart surgeon. It will be her duty because of her role as an auto mechanic.
Likewise, it may just so happen that a person who has the role of auto mechanic has also gone to med school and learned to be a heart surgeon. Therefore, it may so happen that he is called on in some emergency situation to perform heart surgery. However, that duty will not apply to him as an auto mechanic, but as a heart surgeon.
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V. Health Care as a Political Right
What I would want to argue is that claiming there is a political right to health care is like claiming that there is an automotive right to heart surgery.
US Citizen / “To Health Care” // Providing Health Care / “To Provide Health Care” / US Lawmakers
Nothing about the role of lawmaker equips one to act as a doctor or nurse. Nothing about working in a legislature makes one capable of working in an ER.
Therefore, any quintad that linked a duty to provide health care to the role of lawmaker would be incoherent.
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The only way to get around this incoherence is to claim that the activity of “providing health care” is not the activity performed by doctors and nurses, but is the activity of paying doctors and nurses to perform their activities.
US Citizen / “To Health Care” // Paying Doctors and Nurses to Provide Health Care / “To Pay Doctors and Nurses to Provide Health Care” / US Lawmakers
But then one would have to ask two questions:
(1) If the activity in the quintad is paying for doctors and nurses to do what doctors and nurses do, then isn’t the right in the quintad not the right to have doctors and nurses do what doctors and nurses do for you, but rather the right to have someone pay doctors and nurses to do what doctors and nurses do for you?
In other words, the only duty that doctors and nurses would have — if the right is a right to have the government pay doctors and nurses to do what they do — is a duty to whoever is paying them. The doctors’ and nurses’ duties would be to the government, not to the patient.
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(2) What is it about the role of making laws that obliges one to also pay doctors and nurses to perform their activities?
There’s no contradiction in the claim that the role of lawmaker and the activity of paying doctors and nurses are connected by a duty, it’s just there’s no obvious connection between the role and the activity. And if the connection between the obliged and the duty isn’t obvious, the claim that there is a right that entails the duty can only be something less than convincing.
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To make the right seem more legitimate, I think one would have to claim that the relevant quintad is not . . .
[ holder / right // activity / duty / obliged ]
Citizen/ “To Have Health Care Paid For” // Paying for Health Care / “To Pay for Health Care” / Government
. . . but is rather . . .
[ holder / right // activity / duty / obliged / proxy ]
Citizen / “To Have Health Care Paid For” // Paying for Health Care / “To Pay for Health Care” / Other Citizens / Government
That is, to make the right seem more legitimate, one might try to portray the act of paying for health care as something that we all as fellow citizens owe each other, but which we transfer to our government.
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In response to this, I would point out that we can ask the same first question as we asked above:
If the activity in the quintad is paying for doctors and nurses to do what doctors and nurses do, then isn’t the right in the quintad not the right to have doctors and nurses do what doctors and nurses do for you, but rather the right to have someone pay doctors and nurses to do what doctors and nurses do for you?
In other words, if we understand the right in terms of paying for health care, then we understand the doctors’ and nurses’ duty as being to all those who pay the doctors and nurses. And since “The People” would be paying the doctors and nurses, and doctors’ and nurses’ duties would be to “The People,” not to the patient lying on the gurney in front of them.
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In other words, if you (a) claim a right to health care, (b) frame that right in terms not of actually providing health care, but of paying doctors and nurses to provide health care, and (c) make “The People” the ones who pay the doctors and nurses, then (d) you insert “The People” between the doctors/nurses and the patient. Their duty is to an abstract collective entity, not to the concrete person who actually needs their help.
Furthermore, the doctors and nurses aren’t paid by “The People” to provide care for the patient whom the doctors and nurses have in front of them. They’re paid by “The People” to provide care for “The People.” Their job is to use the money they’re given so as to provide the best total care that they can for “The People” — even if that means not taking care of the person in front of them (because, e.g., “The People’s” money would be better spent on other patients).
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And even if you thought not of “The People” as paying the doctors and nurses, but of “every citizen” as paying the doctors and nurses, then the doctors and nurses still have a much higher duty to everyone else than to the person in front of them.
After all, the person in front of them is only one person. Everyone else is, for example, roughly 300,000,000 people (in the US). Thus, 1/300,000,000th of the duty of the doctors and nurses taking care of a patient is to the person in front of them, and 299,999,999/300,000,000th of their duty is to everyone else.
After all, they’re primarily spending everyone else’s money on this patient, not the patient’s money.
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Imagine, for instance, that a patient needs a $1,000 procedure. In the ideal case that everyone pays for everyone equally, the patient would be contributing 0.00000333. . . of a dollar to his own procedure. That’s 0.000333. . . of a cent. That’s a tad more than three ten-thousandths of a cent.
And if you truly thought that having your health care paid for was a universal human right, then in the ideal case everyone would be paying for everyone else’s health care, and thus 1/6,700,000,000th of the duty of the doctors and nurses taking care of a patient is to the person in front of them, and 6,699,999,999/6,700,000,000th of their duty is to everyone else.
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I don’t think that those who propose a right to health care would want to look at things this way. But I think it’s unavoidable.
What it teaches us, I think, is that for rights and duties to have weight, they must be immediate and personal. To funnel them through groups is to dilute them. To funnel them through groups beyond a certain size is, for all intents and purposes, to eliminate them.
To borrow Levinas’ terms, rights and duties must be grounded in the face of the Other, if they are to have any practical meaning.
Your usual clarity. One question. Your discussion seems to assume an ontological status of “The People,” which seems to disagree with a previous post of yours. “The People” can’t act, only, say a representative of the people, or …? I’m not fuzzy about this post. I’m fuzzy about why collectives are denied ontological status by you, if I understood you correctly back then.
Do I understand that the following is assumed and/or implied:
Every right possessed by a person implies a duty on the part of some other person?
On the surface, it appears that this is only true in so much as others have a duty to recognize our rights (i.e. not violate them.)
Is it merely the duty that is implied, or the fulfillment of that duty?
I’m not sure, Jeff S; I posed the question because it seems to me that there are some rights which don’t imply a duty at all on the part of others.
For example, if I have a right to bare arms, I don’t think this entails a duty for others to sell me guns.
Dr. Chase–
You understood me correctly. I neither believe in a political right to health care, nor in the existence of “the People.” But people who believe in the former also often believe in the latter. I just wanted to point out the problem with believing in a political right to health care if you also believed in “the People.”
Jeff C–
Yes, you understood me correctly. See the difference between active and passive duties, above (II.C.). The right to bear arms implies a passive duty on the part of government people to allow you to bear arms in public.
This is why it’s a political right, and not a religious right or a filial right, for instance. If it were a religious right, it would be the duty of the Church to allow you to bear arms during worship (or something like that), and if it were a filial right, it would be the duty of your parents to allow you to bear arms in the house (or something like that).
That’s also why the Church can keep you from bearing arms during worship, and your parents can keep you carrying a gun around the house, without violating your (political) right to bear arms. Only the governmental people are bound by your right.
O.K… Our rights exist within the context of our membership in a group. It is an obligation of others (either all of the others, or the ruling members) within that group to recognize this right.
Your explanation, and noting that some of the /’s are single and others are double helped me work some of this out. Thanks.
Group membership can be an important factor. Good point. However, it may not always be.
For instance, a baby has the right to be fed. The duty entailed by that right binds the baby’s parents. Now, you could read this either as a person-to-person relationship issue, or as a group issue.
That is, you could say the child’s right binds the parents to a particular duty because the parents are the parents of this child. It is because they have the person-to-person, parent–child relationship that the parents are bound by this particular right of the child’s.
Or you could say that the child’s right to be fed binds the parents to a particular duty because the child and parents both belong to the same family, and the parents are the ones who happen to be responsible for the well-being of the members of that family.
I’d prefer the former reading to the latter, but I think both would work.
Now, the right to be fed is a passive right, and hence entails an active duty. Things might be different with active rights, and their entailed passive duties. There, it may always (or more often) be an issue of group membership (that is, the question of who is bound by the passive duty may always be an issue of group-membership).
The right to free speech, for example, is a political right, and hence I have it as an American citizen (which we can read as an issue of group membership); and it places a duty upon the people in my government to allow me to speak in public — but a pastor would be within his rights to demand that I not speak in her or his church.
A wife, however, has the passive right to be loved by her husband, however, not because they both belong to the same family, and he happens to have the husband role, and she the wife role in that family, but because she happens to be his wife, and he happens to be her husband.
Therefore, it might be helpful to speak about group membership when determining who is bound by to which duties by which rights, but it might also be possible to describe the same right–duty combos without reference to group membership.