dazl on Nostr: At the beginning of his recent chat with jack mallers , gladstein makes a distinction ...
At the beginning of his recent chat with jack mallers (nprofile…6dtc) , gladstein (nprofile…xncl) makes a distinction between negative rights and positive rights. Or between innate rights and entitlements.
I find this a very useful frame to potentially understand where people are coming from when the topic of the right to free speech / financial privacy / private property comes up, and they tell me that these rights are "not absolute", "subordinated to the common good", "granted by the state", or other similar misconceptions.
They may be failing to make the distinction between rights, that are innate and absolute, with social aspirations, that aren't.
Worth listening to the full chat: https://fountain.fm/episode/NYbpu1Q0VDbbK7E1gRTl.
My loose transcription of the relevant part:
The Soviet Union and the United States fought over the definition of "Human Rights" after World War II. [... ]
What we would call "negative rights", that America pushed forward, are things the State can't do to you -- freedom from censorship, freedom from torture, freedom from arbitrary arrest, freedom from censorship. These are innate things that people are born with. The ability to gather, the ability to believe, the ability to think, the ability to have private property, the ability to own your labor: these are things that you are innately born with.
And then the Soviet Union was advancing what are called "positive rights" which are entitlements.
[...] If you read the UN Declaration of Human Rights you'll notice that the first half is all negative rights or civil liberties and the second half is entitlements (right to work, right to vacation, right to house, etc.) and these are nice things but the idea that they should be human rights forces a situation where all of a sudden someone else is forced to work from you.
[...] I disagree with positive rights as rights, I view them as social aspirations.
I find this a very useful frame to potentially understand where people are coming from when the topic of the right to free speech / financial privacy / private property comes up, and they tell me that these rights are "not absolute", "subordinated to the common good", "granted by the state", or other similar misconceptions.
They may be failing to make the distinction between rights, that are innate and absolute, with social aspirations, that aren't.
Worth listening to the full chat: https://fountain.fm/episode/NYbpu1Q0VDbbK7E1gRTl.
My loose transcription of the relevant part:
The Soviet Union and the United States fought over the definition of "Human Rights" after World War II. [... ]
What we would call "negative rights", that America pushed forward, are things the State can't do to you -- freedom from censorship, freedom from torture, freedom from arbitrary arrest, freedom from censorship. These are innate things that people are born with. The ability to gather, the ability to believe, the ability to think, the ability to have private property, the ability to own your labor: these are things that you are innately born with.
And then the Soviet Union was advancing what are called "positive rights" which are entitlements.
[...] If you read the UN Declaration of Human Rights you'll notice that the first half is all negative rights or civil liberties and the second half is entitlements (right to work, right to vacation, right to house, etc.) and these are nice things but the idea that they should be human rights forces a situation where all of a sudden someone else is forced to work from you.
[...] I disagree with positive rights as rights, I view them as social aspirations.