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richardhutnik on 17 August 2012
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badgenome said:
richardhutnik said:

If you want to say that negative rights ethical system has a duty, the duty is arguably as little as possible, and be fullfilled by just rolling over and dying.  It is all about leaving others alone, and you don't even need to do anything to help anyone else. You don't even need to be aware of others.

No, it's all about human interaction being on a voluntary basis. There isn't just one ethical system based on negative rights, since anyone can start from that basis and build off of it in a different direction. Locke was a proponent of such a system, but he also believed in a god and thought that man's duty was to live his life to God's delight. This is why merely rolling over and dying isn't sufficient in the Lockean view, and why he was opposed to suicide. The inalienable right to life in Locke's view meant just that: you literally can't get out until God releases you. I'd disagree, since I think a person wholly owns himself and isn't beholden to a god who may or may not exist, and if he wants to end his life he should be able to. I don't think suicide is always an ethical choice, though. It's a remarkably shitty thing to do if it means absconding from your responsibilities to your kids, for example.

Can you show that Locke stood for negative rights alone?  I believe Locke also argued for the concept of a social contract, which restricted some liberties, so that a person can enjoy the greatest good.

And if you look at the preamble to the U.S Constitution, you end up find cause for a case of positive rights:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

 

Promote the general welfare lends right into a case of positive rights.  And then, with these positive rights will come duties.  The issue with a negative rights alone argument, or the right to not be bothered, is that an individuals have the right to not exercise their rights.  One can refuse to exercise certain rights.