Phil 160
Joel Feinberg “The Nature and Value
of Rights”
Reductio Ad Absurdum:
• RAA is an argumentative method with the
following steps:
– Make an assumption
– Figure out the implications of that assumption (if
that assumption is true, what else has to be true?)
– If the implications of the assumption are absurd,
then the assumption is false.
Feinberg’s RAA
• Feinberg asks the reader to assume there is a
place that has no concept of rights at all (he
calls this assumed place “Nowheresville”)
• He will contend that this place is devoid of a
very important moral category.
• The conclusion is that if we can’t get a very
important moral concept without rights, there
must be rights.
Nowheresville (not to be confused
with Garden City, KS):
• Just to be charitable, and to give the idea that
there could be a moral place with no rights its
strongest possible representation, Feinberg
asks us to assume the following:
Benevolence
• Assume first, that in Nowheresville, people do
actions just to be kind to each other. There’s
no idea that they owe it to each other to be
kind, but nevertheless there’s even a higher
proportion of kind acts in Nowheresville than
in the real world.
Duty
• Of course, Nowheresville cannot have the
kinds of duties to one another than imply
rights, but they can have a weaker sense of
‘duty’. This weaker sense of duty does not
have them do anything because they owe it to
anyone, but just because they feel that they
should.
Legal and Social Order:
• Feinberg claims we can even have a kind of social and
legal order in Nowheresville that is just exactly like that
found in the real world if we adopt the following two
principles:
– Weak personal desert: This is the sense of people
deserving things that does not obligate anyone else to
action, but allows people to reard others for good services,
etc. (like the classic sense of gratuity, where it is optional,
not obligatory)
– Sovereign rights monopoly: This is the Hobbesian idea that
some abstract higher power (i.e. the sovereign, or God)
has all the rights, not individuals. So one person cannot do
wrong to another, but each could do wrong to the abstract
higher authority.
What Nowheresville is missing:
• Feinberg points out that though such a society
might look even better in some respects than
the real world, it leaves something to be
desired.
• The biggest difference between Nowheresville
and the real world is that Nowheresville is
entirely missing the kinds of claims to moral
good that we call rights.
A right is a claim to a moral good
• When we say that we have a right to freedom of
expression, we meant that we have a claim that binds legal
authorities to refrain from punishing any peaceable
expression.
• When we say we have a right to our own property, we
meant that we have a claim that binds others to respect
out decisions with regard to what is our own.
• When we claim a right to life we have a claim that binds
others not to kill us.
• Feinberg argues, through his example, that the mere
appearance of moral behavior is not enough, we must
recognize that people have binding claims on one another's
behaviors. We call such claims ‘rights’.