Thinking little thoughts...

[ailbhe]

I have been thinking little thoughts lately (ok, since this afternoon) about a couple of rights that I don't think people actually have. But the thoughts are very small.

The right to judge other people and act on that judgement.
The right to withold assistance.

Now, I think that these are rights that people take or are sometimes given, but I don't think - at least, I think that I don't think - that they are automatic rights which everyone can assume they have, unlike, say, life, which most people assume is theirs by right, rather than by privilege.

I need to noodle this out a bit more, but I thought I'd throw it into the fray...

Goodbye, little thinkling. Have fun.

Comments

[firecat]

I have trouble imagining where "the obligation to render assistance" (implied by not having the right to withhold it") stops.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

The right to judge other people and act on that judgement.

That's what society does when it jails certain categories of criminals, isn't it? I think the question is what aspects of a person I have a right to judge. I suspect, although this is pre-caffeine, that the answer is along the lines of "those of their actions which affect me to a non-trivial extent". What action I'm entitled to take on the judgment is more difficult to generalise about. The minimum necessary to render the effect acceptable? The action which is least intrusive on the other person's territory?

The right to withhold assistance.

I think the default is that everyone has that right up to the point where they accept an obligation to the person who is (actually or potentially) in need of assistance. To the extent that I can give it, and in the ways that are appropriate to the relationship, I believe I have an obligation to assist my family, my workmates and so on. I also think that at the level of an entire society, society has an obligation to extend assistance to its members, as part of the quid pro quo for the authority to legislate for them. I don't think any individual citizen has an obligation to assist every random stranger who happens to be a member of that society, though. If they do, that's great, but I think it's a random act of kindness rather than an obligation.

[ailbhe]

I have great trouble working out where it stops. To the extent that sometimes I feel guilty for not giving all my worldly goods to charity and going to work with AIDS victims in Africa, for example, and sometimes I pass homeless people on the street and don't give them anything.

[ailbhe]

1) Yes, that's what society does. I have never worked out how much of it I'm happy with.

2) I really don't know where this one goes. No-one, afaics, has the right to Walk On By. But I'm not sure anyone has the obligation to Stop And Help every time, either.

There's a happy medium to be met for both, but I can't pinpoint it.

[firecat]

Exactly. "Oh d*mn, here I go posting to livejournal again, when I should be off working at the soup kitchen!"

Ultimately I don't like to feel that level of cognitive dissonance about what I do / what I should be doing, so I end up deciding that I do in fact have the right not to render assistance. I still feel that I have an obligation to render some assistance somewhere but that's quite different.