What Are Rights? Duty & The Law | Philosophy Tube

What are human rights? Wesley Hohfeld’s philosophical analysis is the tool we use to understand legal and moral duties to one another.

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Recommended Reading:
Wesley Hohfeld, Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning and Other Legal Essays

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[brandonmiles]

When I was younger I was arrested a good handful of times, and ironically, they never read me my rights, except for once. My lawyer then informed me that it didn't matter, because it was my word against theirs, and they're cops, so their word carries more weight than mine, because I'm apparently actually guilty until proven innocent.

[cshahbazi]

Aaaaargh! You ended the video where it got interesting. What doesn't fit?

Also I personally much prefer the positive/negative rights distinction merely because it's easier to understand and I've been using that for a much longer time. It also helps as it is more useful for prioritizing different rights and what needs to be focused on in society.

[alfieashdown]

Hey Olly. I know this wasn't the focus of your video, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on it? Where do rights come from, especially if don't believe in supernatural beings/aren't religious? I'm definitely a philosophy novice, but I would call myself secular, and an existential and moral nihilist. Like the concepts of currency or justice, morality and human rights are human constructs as far as I can tell. Unless you believe in a higher being (the assumption of which has its own problems), I don't see a legitimate source of human rights other than the human imagination. It seems to be part of a general trend of the conception of inherent value, which I understand but think it misguided. What do the great minds of philosophy have to say about the origin of human rights? Where does inherent rightness or wrongness in certain behaviors come from? Are there good books or essays which argue that the conception of morality and human rights are results of evolutionary psychology and that it's biologically advantageous for humans to think that way? Or is there something I'm not considering at all? Anyway, keep up the great work. I love your videos. Cheers!

[matthijsdejong]

Wow, this is interresting! Being far more interresting in logic and analytic philosophy, this make social philosophy a lot more interresting!

[michaelberg]

I'm mostly interested in the 'non-falsifiable'-argument.
Because there is a separation:
the claim-duty relationship: 'you have a duty because i have a claim' is indeed non-falsifiable.
As it is the definition of 'claim' (at least within the model): 'claim: the right to impose a duty on another'.
A similar (or rather, the same) argument holds for the liberty-no claim relationship (and the concept of 'pick one')
the concepts of 'liberty', 'no-claim' and 'the liberty- no claim relationship' can have 2 of them defined in terms of the others.
(all 3 defined in terms of the others, would be circular reasoning, which can be internally consistent (in which case it would be merely useless) or not (in which case it is simply false.) )

The statement 'ALL rights can be broken down into this system' can either be the definition of the word 'right' (i assumed common consensus on this and then re-watched the video (less common than i thought.)) or it IS falsifiable.
Simply because the model is 80% definition, doesn't make the whole thing 'non-falsifiable'


Even if a counter-example arises (making the model 'technically incorrect') it still remains a really convenient tool for explaining most rights.

The thing most models are for.

[rekall]

oOooO... i find the Hohfeldian analysis to be quite elegant

[albertoE]

Hey Olly (or Ally?) I admire your work very much, good job! I'd love to see you doing some stuff related to languages in the future, since language is basically a really big part of our lives

[theshells]

Content as ALWAYS was exceptional - hissing background music made this clip difficult to listen too ...

[welwitschia]

And now I'm off to think how to understand Thomas Pogge's institutional model under a Hohfeldian paradigm.

[PhilNEvo]

2 things I thought of, of the top of my head.

1) How does this relate to parent/children relationships? We accept that children do have some liberties, but that parents have claims over these in a lot of instances. This could also apply to people with mental dissabilities or others who might need some sort of assistance.

2) Can one use his or her liberty, to remove ones own claim? Let's say that we live in a country where euthenasia is illegal. But if a person wants to die, wants to give up their claim on life or whatever claims creates the duty of others not to kill that person. Does that mean that these people shouldn't be prosecuted?

I am biased cause I'm pro-euthenasia. But it seems like a dodgy line.

[marquisewilliams]

Awesome video. Maybe it's just me, but I do think the first order rights can contradict each other depending on what rights a person has. Here's my example:

-Claim: I have a right to life.
-Duty: It's your duty to not kill me.
-Liberties: I have a right to kill myself since it's my body (a bit morbid I know)
-No-Claim: You cannot stop me from killing myself.

If I were to commit suicide, would I be infringing upon one of my basic human rights even though my suicide itself is another right that I have? Would I myself have a duty not to kill myself?

Maybe it all boils down to choice. If someone else were to murder me, then it wouldn't be my choice to die. But if I did it, then it would be my choice. Can my own free will (or supposed free will) override my rights?

[robertwofford]

Do you have a video on falsifiability theory? if not would you please make one?

[mikec]

When applying Hohfeld's analysis to rights, does it specify certain types of rights or "sects" of rights? For example, everyone knows the fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but what about someone with a second level ability to affect those? Does that technically mean the president or any form of governmental power can impede those whenever and we have the liability to follow that? And does that also affect the way Hohfeld's analysis is seen as either moral or legal if things most consider moral can or cannot be taken away?

[katieschmid]

What does that mean from a Hohfeldian perspective? Does someone else have a duty to provide me with work? If so, who? Is it the government, or is it my fellow citizens? Or, as you said in the video, is it a moral right, meaning business owners have a moral obligation to not only their current employees, but to their potential employees as well?

(Personally, I would say that yes, absolutely they do, and that therefore the "right to work" laws in several states are violating workers rights. But that's just, like, my opinion)

[timthompson]

You only have a right if you can keep it yourself. If you can't its not your right, but the right of the person that allows you to have the right. Max Sterner Gang

[nienke]

In order to have a claim to something, you must also be at liberty not to use it; to do the opposite.

A claim to life is only a right if you equally have the liberty to end your life; if you only have the option to live, it is a duty rather than a claim.
Thus the claim can't just be part of a pair, but it must come in a quartet:
-A claim to continuing your own life
-A duty to not end another's life
-No claim to the continuation of another's life
-The liberty to end your own life

The liberty can however exist as just a pair with the no-claim. Having the liberty to end your own life does infer that others do not have a claim to the continuation of your life, but it does not necesarily grant you a claim to continuing your life or a duty for others not to end it.

I'm not sure whether a duty neccesitates a claim either. If you are imposed a duty to continue living your life, that duty doesn't seem to have a claim of anyone in particular to you continuing your life. Maybe the government, in which case I suppose the government is at liberty to end your life (again: otherwise they don't really have a claim to it) and you have no claim to the continuation of your own life. Considering however that plenty of situations exist where neither you, nor the government, nor anyone else, is at liberty to kill you; it seems like duties can exist without granting anyone a particular claim to it; instead all parties (including yourself) have a duty not to end your life.

Similarly I don't see the no-claim as neccesitating a liberty. If I have no claim to consensually marrying another woman, that doesn't provide anyone with any additional liberty

[Pfhorrest]

Also worth mentioning that liberties and powers are classifiable as "active" rights, while claims and immunities are "passive" rights, and that all of this is separate entirely from positive and negative rights. Almost all of the discourse on positive and negative rights is implicitly about first-order passive rights (claims), and only discusses active or second-order rights by implication of those claims.

[bastiatintheandes]

It feels like the problem arises from a semantic (or lexical) limitation which names different (and often incompatible) incidents (to use your own term). I do not think that essential (or natural) rights are the same "phenomenon" that the duties, or claims that arise from contracts.

[KarolaTea]

Now I'm curious about those alleged limitations... hope there'll be a video on those too.

[ChristianGonzalezCapizzi]

Pleased is video on where rights come from!