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the priority list of individual rights
determining which right of which person takes priority.

the priority list of individual rights

alliop
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Posted 04/27/08 - 04:42 PM: Subject: the priority list of individual rights	#1
In many discussion about abortion I have heard the prolife crowd claim that the child has a right to life while the prochoice crowd claims the mother has a right to privacy and control over her own property (in this case her body). Lets just assume for a moment that both are right and that each party (in this case the mother and child) would have certian rights violated by either decision the legislators make (yet again in this case the childs right to life being violated by the mothers going into to get an abortion and the mothers right to privacy and property being violated by legislators making abortions illegal and unavailable). I am in no way trying to start a discussion about abortion it just seems like the best example to use to state this question. Are certian rights more important than others or do they all carry equal weight? If they do not carry equal wieght, which are more important and how do you determine which are more important. If they do carry equal wieght how do you determine who's rights are preserved in cases in which both parties involved will have their rights violated by any decision made?

Floyd
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Posted 04/27/08 - 07:12 PM:	#2
It varies from political philosophy to political philosophy and from moral and religious views to other moral and religious views. Anyway, I think a more clear example than abortion is eviction. Consider a landlord who evicts a dependent tenet who will die if the landlord does not charitably let the tenet say in the rental home even if the tenet cannot pay the rent or support him or herself. It will be hard to agree on abortion without agreeing on evictions. The right to life and other rights granted to legal persons may be dependent on how much the alleged right-holder is actually considered a person. Embryos, plants, animals, human children, crazy human adults, and sane human adults are all usually given different status regarding how much of a person they are by most moral and political philosophies. In those cases it is not so much an issue of how rights interact with each other but rather whether the supposed victim actually has the rights.
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Tad
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Posted 04/29/08 - 12:39 PM:	#3
Perhaps if there is a conflict between two or more valid claims (rights), then we ought to refer to a mini-ride principle. The mini-ride principle states that in the case of conflicting claims, we ought to act as to minimize the violation of the claims in question. For example, during a mine collapse two caves are formed. In one, there sits 10 miners, in the other sits 1 miner. If the rescuers drill into and rescue the 1 miner, then the other 10 miners will die, and vice versa. All of the miners have valid claims (rights) to be saved. But it is obvious that all of them cannot be saved. Applying the mini-ride principle gives us an answer: We respect the claims of the 10 miners, and violate the claim of the single miner. If on the other hand we choose to save the 1 miner, we would be violating the claims of the other 10 miners. As for the abortion case when the rights are vis a vis eachother, we ought to be guided by the insight that death is a function of the opportunities for satisfaction(s) it forecloses. Therefore, we ought to honor the claim of the infant over that of his or her mother. What opportunities for satisfaction are foreclosed by her as a result of having the child cannot outweight those of the unborn child. This appears somewhat intuitive to me, and more aggreable than other treatments given to the subject. I want to know what you guys think. Edited by Tad on 04/29/08 - 08:56 PM
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Thoughtless
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Posted 04/30/08 - 10:05 AM:	#4
Tad wrote: Perhaps if there is a conflict between two or more valid claims (rights), then we ought to refer to a mini-ride principle. The mini-ride principle states that in the case of conflicting claims, we ought to act as to minimize the violation of the claims in question. For example, during a mine collapse two caves are formed. In one, there sits 10 miners, in the other sits 1 miner. If the rescuers drill into and rescue the 1 miner, then the other 10 miners will die, and vice versa. All of the miners have valid claims (rights) to be saved. But it is obvious that all of them cannot be saved. Applying the mini-ride principle gives us an answer: We respect the claims of the 10 miners, and violate the claim of the single miner. If on the other hand we choose to save the 1 miner, we would be violating the claims of the other 10 miners. As for the abortion case when the rights are vis a vis eachother, we ought to be guided by the insight that death is a function of the opportunities for satisfaction(s) it forecloses. Therefore, we ought to honor the claim of the infant over that of his or her mother. What opportunities for satisfaction are foreclosed by her as a result of having the child cannot outweight those of the unborn child. This appears somewhat intuitive to me, and more aggreable than other treatments given to the subject. I want to know what you guys think. But does a fetus have the right to be born? Does a fetus have any rights?
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Tad
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Posted 05/01/08 - 03:05 PM:	#5
I draw a distinction between fetus and infant. A fetus is not morally relevant, but an infant is. I would say an infant exists in the later stages of pregnancy. Where the draw the line is always going to be contentious though. But we are still able to say people are tall and people are short regarding height, so I think the same common-sense approach is applicable here as to whether what is morally relevant and what is not.
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