capitalism

Individual Rights 245
libertarians appeal—such as John Locke, Immanuel Kant,
and Herbert Spencer—placed doctrines of individual
rights at the core of their political philosophies. Similarly,
most of the recent theorists to whom libertarians appeal—
such as Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, and Robert
Nozick—have grounded their libertarian conclusions in
robust affirmations of individual rights. That common
appeal to individual rights is not surprising, because affirmation
of individual rights manifests the core individualism
of libertarianism and of the philosophical traditions
on which libertarianism draws.
Indeed, among libertarian advocates of individual rights
and among their philosophical predecessors, the ascription
of protective individual rights reflects a deeper belief in the
separate importance of each individual’s person, life, happiness,
or life projects. Advocates of significant protective
rights do not think of persons and their lives (or their happiness
or life projects) as important merely as a means to
some collective end (e.g., the collective end of social happiness
or social equality). Rather, those advocates think of
each person and his life (or his happiness or life projects) as
something that has its own independent importance.
Advocates of individual rights take seriously the separate
importance of persons (or their individual lives, happiness,
or projects) by asserting the existence of moral fences that
protect each person against incursions that treat the individual
as a mere means to others’ ends. It must be emphasized,
however, that advocates of individual rights are divided
among themselves about precisely which features of human
existence give rise to persons’ possession of rights. They
also are divided about precisely how claims about the rights
of individuals are grounded in the features of human existence
that give rise to each person’s possession of rights.
Rather than pursue these philosophical controversies, we
turn to a more precise delineation of individual rights and
the role of individual rights within libertarian theory.
If an individual possesses some right against another
moral agent, the second person is morally required to constrain
his action toward the first in certain ways. For
instance, if we possess a right to life, then others are
morally required not to threaten or destroy it. On most
accounts of rights, because we may demand that others act
in accordance with our right, we may enforce our rights
against others or we may authorize some third party to
enforce those rights. Thus, part of what is distinctive about
this dimension of morality is that it is legitimately enforceable.
Rights are the heavy artillery of moral discourse. If I
have a right to someone else’s acting in a certain way, it is
not merely praiseworthy that that person act in that way;
morally speaking, he must act and may be made to act in
accordance with my rights.
The fact that rights are morally demanding also may be
appreciated by noting that, in general, rights and obligations
are correlative. That means that, in general, if I have
some right against you, then you have a corresponding
obligation to me. If I have a right against you that you not
take my life, then you have an obligation toward me not to
take my life. Your forbearing to take my life is not merely
praiseworthy; it is obligatory and properly subject to being
enforced. However, to say that rights and the obligations
correlative to those rights constitute the enforceable dimension
of morality is hardly to say that that is the only dimension
of morality. Indeed, a great part of the point and value
of a regime of enforced individual rights is that it frees
people to act on their broader moral understanding of what
is good and virtuous and what is bad and vicious.
Because rights mark off those moral claims of individuals
for which respect may be enforced, and because political
and legal institutions are instruments of enforcement, rights
provide guidelines for legitimacy in political and legal institutions.
The use or threat of force by political and legal institutions
will be morally acceptable—and those institutions
will be legitimate—only insofar as force or the threat of
force is used to secure respect for the rights of individuals.
Insofar as political and legal institutions use force or the
threat of force for ends other than securing the rights of individuals,
they act wrongfully and lack legitimacy.
Because rights are the heavy artillery of moral discourse,
rational fear of bombardment counsels us to be highly selective
in which assertions of rights we accept. A too-ready
acceptance of alleged rights leads to an oppressive list of
enforceable obligations. As the list of others’ rights grows,
each of us is subject to a growing burden made up of the
obligations correlative to those rights; correspondingly, the
ability of rights to be protective of individual choice dissolves.
Moreover, as the list of rights grows, so too does the
legitimate role of political and legal institutions, and the libertarian
case for radically limiting the scope and power of
such institutions withers away. Libertarian theories of rights
avoid generating an oppressive list of obligations through
the employment of two crucial distinctions—the distinction
between negative and positive rights and the distinction
between general and special rights.
If an individual possesses a negative right against others,
then others are merely required not to act in a certain way
with respect to the rights holder. In contrast, if an individual
possesses a positive right against others, then they are
required to perform some action with respect to the rights
holder. For instance, my right to life construed as a negative
right is tantamount to a right not to have my life destroyed
or threatened. All that an individual’s negative rights can
require of other people is that they leave that individual
alone—that they leave him to the peaceful enjoyment of
what is legitimately his. In contrast, my right to life construed
as a positive right entails that I have a right to be provided
with life (i.e., to be provided with the necessities of
life). If I have positive rights against another, then his
merely leaving me alone violates my rights.