Rights and Duties

Abstract

We have now to consider social rights and duties as they appear to the individual. Morality is a matter of having one’s preferences governed by principles, one’s own or another’s; and such governance may be by oneself or another. Thus it is true as Reid said that when actions are regulated (and I would add also when thoughts are induced and feelings generated) always either interest or duty is involved; although the distinction between them is not usually so clear, since it is possible, for instance, that on some occasions if not on all one might want to do what one has to do; might, in short, be drawn toward something toward which one would otherwise be compelled. In the pursuit of preferences under principles, expedience turns into prudence. However, it is not prudence which can be expected to bring interest and duty together but, because the governance is by principles, reason; the prudence should have operated earlier in selecting the principles. In the course of pursuing the moral life (inescapable for the individual in any society) there are goods which may be expected and rules which must be observed. The former are called rights and the latter duties. Rights are the goods which the individual can conventionally expect to receive from society. Duties are the goods which the individual can conventionally be expected to give to society. The use of words here is not entirely consistent, however. Rights are often spoken of as though the term covered duties also. I will use the term, rights, here in both senses. Both rights and duties are meant to indicate certain actions which the individual can perform and which he in fact will perform if he wishes to behave morally. In most studies of ethics duty has traditionally been accorded more attention than rights, but rights stand on an equal footing.