RIGHTS

Concept of a right:

A right is an entitlement. A person has a right when a person is entitled to act in a

certain way. The entitlement may derive from the legal system; the entitlement is then
called a legal right. Those rights that are legal rights are limited to a particular
jurisdiction.

Entitlements can also derive from moral standards independent of a particular legal
system. Such rights, called moral rights or human rights, empower the individual to
do something or something done to him. Moral rights unlike legal rights are universal.
Some examples of human rights are freedom of expression, freedom of association,
right not to be enslaved, right to safe and decent working conditions, right to unionize.

Question: Whether to promote human rights in a foreign environment where a

multinational firm operates is a violation of political neutrality?

A right enables a person to choose freely.

A right covers a variety of situations:

 Absence of prohibitions against pursuing some interest or activity.

 To indicate that a person is authorized or empowered to do something either to

secure the interests of others or his own interest.
.
 To indicate the existence of prohibitions or requirements on others that
enables the individual to pursue certain interests or activities. These are the
activities or interests that the individual is empowered to pursue, or must be
left free to pursue or must be helped to pursue, as he or she chooses, ……
within the boundaries specified by the rights.

Three important features that define the enabling and protective functions of moral
rights:

 Moral rights are correlated with duties. Thus moral right impose correlative
duties on others- either duties of noninterference or duties of positive
performance.

 Moral rights provide individuals with autonomy and equality in the free
pursuit of their interests. That is, a right identifies activities or interests that a
person is left free to pursue or not to pursue as they chose.

 Moral rights provide a basis for justifying one’s actions and for invoking the
protection or aid of others.

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Because moral rights have three features that provide bases for making moral
judgments that differ substantially from utilitarian universal standards:

 Moral rights express the requirements of morality from the standpoint of the
individual, whereas utilitarianism expresses the requirements of morality from
the point of view of the society as a whole. They promote the individual
welfare, and protect the individual from the encroachment of the society.

 Rights limit the validity of appeals to social benefit and to numbers.

Although rights generally override utilitarian standards, they are not immune to all
utilitarian considerations. If the utilitarian benefits or losses imposed on society
become great enough, they may be restricted or even overridden for the sake of
“the public welfare”.

Negative and Positive rights:

Negative rights are defined in terms of the duties others have to not interfere in certain
activities of the person who holds a given right (e.g. right to privacy, property rights).
This type of rights came to the foreground in the 17 th and the 18th centuries. “Right to
life” in those days meant not to be killed.

In contrast, positive rigths do more than impose negative duties. They also imply that
other agents (it is not clear who) have the positive duty of providing the holder of the
right with whatever he or she needs to freely pursue his or her interests. Positive rights
were not emphasized until the 20th century. From the point of view of the positive
rights “right to life” assumed another meaning as the right to be provided.

Contractual Rights and Duties:

Contractual right and duties are sometimes called special rights and duties or special
obligations are limited to rights and correlative duties that arise when a person enters
an agreement with another person. Distinguishing aspects:

 Only specific individuals are involved.

 Contractual rights arise out of special transactions between particular
individuals.
 Contractual rights and duties depend on a publicly accepted system of rules
that define the transactions that give right to those rights and duties.

The existence of a system of social obligations ensures that the individual fulfill these
agreements by laying on them the public institutions that all agreements carry.

The system of rules that underlies all contractual rights and duties: (1)both parties
must have full knowledge (2) neither party to a contract should intentionally
misrepresent (3) neither party must be forced to enter the contract under duress or
coercion (4) the contract must not bind parties to an immoral act.

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A Basis for Moral Rights: Kant

Foundation for moral rights is provided by the ethical theory developed by Immanuel
Kant (1724-1804). Kant attempts to show that there are certain moral rights and duties
that all human beings possess regardless of any utilitarian benefits that the exercise of
those rights and duties may provide for others.

Kant’s theory is based on a moral that requires that everyone should be treated as a
free person equal to everyone else (categorical imperative). Kant provides two ways
of formulating this moral principle; each formulation serves as an explanation of the
basic meaning of this basic moral right and correlative duty.

First formulation of Kant’s categorical imperative:

An action is morally right for a person in a particular situation if, and only if the person’s
reasons for carrying out that action is a reason that he or she would be willing to have every
person to act on, in a similar situation.

The first formulation of the categorical imperative incorporates two criteria for
determining what is right or wrong:

Universalizability: The person’s reason for acting must be reasons that everyone could act on
at least on principle.

Reversibility: The person’s reason for acting must be reasons that he or she would be willing
to have all others use, as a basis of how they treat him or her.

Kant’s categorical imperative focuses on a person’s interior motivations, not on the

consequences of one’s external actions. A person’s action has a moral worth only to the
degree it is also motivated by a sense of “duty”, that is the right way for all people to behave.

The Second Formulation of Kant’s Categorical Imperative:

An action is morally right for a person if, and only if, in performing the action, the person
does not use others merely as a means for advancing his or her interests, but also both
respects and develops their capacity to choose freely for themselves.

Both formulations come to the same thing: People treat each other as free and equal in the
pursuit of their interests.

Kant’s categorical imperative might be used in establishing positive, negative, and contractual
rights.

There are certain limitations to Kant’s theory:

One difficulty lies in trying to determine whether one would “be willing to have everyone to
follow” a certain policy. It is also difficult to determine whether one person is using another
“merely as a means”.

Also some critics claim that, although we might be able to agree on the kinds of interests that
have the status of moral rights, there is substantial disagreement concerning how each of these
rights should be balanced against other conflicting rights.

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Source: Velasquez, M.G. (2014), Business Ethics: Concepts and Cases, Seventh
Edition, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.