Rights
A right is a claim that others, including the state, are required to respect. Rights are commonly divided into negative rights, which require others to refrain from interfering, and positive rights, which require others to provide something such as schooling or medical care. A further division separates legal rights, which exist because a particular legal system says so, from moral or human rights, which are claimed to hold whatever any legal system says. Disputes about which rights exist are usually disputes about which of these categories a claim belongs to.
Why it matters
Rights are the usual vocabulary for saying what a majority may not do to a minority, so the shape of the concept sets the shape of the limit.
Where it comes up
Read about Rights on Wikipedia
Sources
- Rights Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 1789 The Avalon Project, Yale Law SchoolA short primary document worth reading in full to see the concept being put to work.
- Rights Wikipedia
