danw@oliven.UUCP (danw) (10/09/84)
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LIBERTARIAN THEOLOGY
All rights imply duties. If you have a right to life,
others have a duty not to kill your , (the first would be
meaningless without the second). But the duty involved is a
NEGATIVE duty: it requires no positive action on the part of
those having the duty, only their non-interference with the
right (this is sometimes called the "duty of forbearance").
Your right to life does not involve the positive duty of others
to support you.
There is also a distinction in ethics between general
and specific rights. The rights to life, liberty, and property
are general rights : they apply to all human beings. Contractual
rights, by contrast, are specific rights: If I borrow money
from you and agree to pay it back, I have the duty to pay as
agreed. This is a positive duty (it requires a positive action
on my part). The positive duty arises as a result of the contractual
agreement between us , not mankind in general. By contrast,
your GENERAL right to freedom of speech does not require my
positive assistance (granting you TV time or a column in my
newspaper),only my noninterference with your right.
The Randian position on rights, and the Libertarian
position in general, is that there are NO POSITIVE GENERAL RIGHTS
all general rights are negative rights.
"I am not now nor have I ever been a lawyer "
"nor have I ever knowingly joined any organizations of lawyers "
"I do not even know any lawyers "
danw