What are positive rights?

[unknown]

Are there also "negative" rights?

 

[Occam's Banana]

What are positive rights?
Are there also "negative" rights?

So-called "positive rights" are claims upon things to which one is supposedly entitled, and which are required to be supplied by others if one lacks them. If others do not supply such a thing, then they may be coerced into doing so (in order that your "right" to that thing is not violated). Examples of positive rights include the rights to food, housing, health care, education, a "living wage", etc.

So-called "negative rights" are claims upon things to which one is supposedly entitled, but which are not required to be supplied by others if one lacks them. If others do not supply such a thing, then they may not be coerced into doing so. Examples of negative rights include the rights to free speech and to keep and bear arms. (Your right to free speech does not require anyone to give you a soapbox if you don't have one, and your right to keep and bear arms does not require anyone to give you guns if don't have any.)

IMO, it would be better to refer to "negative rights" as "liberties" rather than as "rights" [1]. That is, it would be better to say that people have the "liberty of free speech" (or to keep and bear arms, or so on) rather than to say that they have the "right to free speech" (or to keep and bear arms, or so on). This is because the concept of "rights" evolved in the context of things to which individuals are (or are not) entitled. Outside the context of voluntary contractual obligations, the concept of rights was easy to hijack by the "positive rights" crowd. If they had to speak in terms of things like a "liberty of education" (instead of a "right to education"), they'd be less able to get away with their rhetorical shenanigans. Speaking of a "liberty of education" does not seem to imply an involuntary obligation by anyone to provide an education to someone else -but speaking of a "right to education" does seem to imply such an obligation (or can easily be construed to do so).



[1] At same time, "positive rights" would just be called "rights", and would only arise from voluntary contractual obligations. For example, if I agree to buy your car for $1000, and you give me your car, then you have a (positive) right to get $1000 from me.

 

[GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged]

Is my right to a COVID vaccine or booster positive or negative?

 

[GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged]

If healthcare is a positive right why must a person pay anything for it?

Why do God given rights cost money?

 

[CaptUSA]

"Positive rights" are anything you want them to be because they do not exist. They require other humans to act on your behalf for your benefit.

Negative rights are natural rights. They require that other humans do not do things that would harm you or your ability to take care of yourself.

So, if you accept that "positive rights" are real, you are in effect saying that negative rights do not exist. Because in order to obtain your "positive right", you have to harm someone else to get it.


We all have a negative right to health care for example. No human should deprive another human of their natural right to take care of their own health. We do not have the right to demand someone else take care of our health.

 

[Matt Collins]

https://youtu.be/3QMSDJn2wSU






https://youtu.be/GXVG2oaJ1c0







https://youtu.be/4orlWZeF6sg





https://youtu.be/1uTR3qNW70w




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48LOny1eBd8

 

[axiomata]

Right to a lawyer and jury of peers.

 

[unknown]

Right to a lawyer and jury of peers.

After reviewing the above, this might actually be one, I think.

 

[TheTexan]

I positively have a right to negative rights