| Slimebeast said: Is there a synonym for a rights-based ethical system? Because I'm not familiar with the term. |
No, I think it is (more or less) a term richardhutnik made up ...
What I think he is really trying to describe is that he sees a problem with negative rights and favours positive rights.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
Rights considered negative rights may include civil and political rights such as freedom of speech, private property, freedom from violent crime, freedom of worship, habeas corpus, a fair trial, freedom from slavery. Rights considered positive rights, as initially proposed in 1979 by the Czech jurist Karel Vasak, may include other civil and political rights such as police protection of person and property and the right to counsel, as well as economic, social and cultural rights such as food, housing, public education, employment, national security, military, health care, social security, and a minimum standard of living. In the "three generations" account of human rights, negative rights are often associated with the first generation of rights, while positive rights are associated with the second and third generations.
Negative rights essentially describe freedoms you have from other people's actions, positive rights essentially describe entitlements that other people have to provide you. Using his right to life argument, the negative right you would associate with this is that you have the right not to be murdered regardless of the actions you take, the positive right would be that the government must provide you with healthcare to prevent your death. The logical extreme of the negative right is that even a sexual predator can not be murdered, whereas the logical extreme of the positive right is that a smoking, drinking, overweight 95 year old is still entitled to a heart transplant paid for by taxpayers.
