Legal Rights and Moral Rights

Rights may be legal or moral. Legal rights are rights which are limited to the particular
jurisdiction of a legal system from which such rights are derived. Legal rights are rights that are
formally recognized and enforced by society. Moral rights are rights possessed by all human beings
by virtue of their being human.

Classes of Rights

 Moral Natural Rights

- Are rights of all human beings by virtue of their being human.
- Moral rights are also known as human rights.

1. Moral rights are universal

- Moral or human rights are rights that human beings enjoy regardless of their nationality,
creed, gender, age and color.
2. Comparable rights of others limit moral rights
- The right of a person to free speech is limited by the rights of others against malicious
and slanderous accusations.
3. Moral rights imply moral duties
- The right against inhumane treatment implies duty to treat others humanely and the
right to be treated fairly implies the duty to treat others fairly.
4. Moral rights impose limitations to the overwhelming power of the State
- Moral rights safeguard man from abuses and misuses of political authority.

 Constitutional Rights
- Rights which are conferred and protected by the constitution, the fundamental law of
the land.
- Derived from legislation directly from the people. As such, the State cannot alter or take
them away from the individual
- Includes, the right to property, the right to just compensation, the right to freedom of
speech, self- expression, the right to self-association, the rights to worship and religious
expression
 Statutory Rights
- Derived from legislation from the people’s representatives.
- The law-giving body of the State confers statutory rights
- Includes, the right to a minimum wage and to additional compensation for additional
work.
RIGHTS AND DUTIES

 Principle of Reciprocity
- One of the basic principles that govern the relationship of rights and duties
- Our right to be treated in a particular way by others implies our duty to treat others in
the same way
- “Do unto others what you want others to do unto you”
- Applies also to the rights and duties of citizen’s vis-à-vis the rights of the state.
- If a particular citizen has the moral right to be protected and respected by his State, then
he has the moral duty to protect and respect his State by respecting its laws and
protecting its interests
- If the State has the right to command respect from its citizens, then the State must
observe its duty to respect its citizens by respecting their rights and dignities

RIGHT TO LIFE AS MOST FUNDAMENTAL MORAL RIGHT

- The right to life is man’s highest right

- It means the right to a material existence worthy of human dignity
- The duty to maintain a healthy way of life
- Includes, the right against arbitrary treatment and inhumane punishment, the right to
work and to a just remuneration, the right of privacy, freedom of thought and belief,
freedom of religion, etc.

RIGHTS AND WORKPLACE REALITY

- The right of an individual to be treated with dignity is an essential aspect of ethical standard
based on rights
- It measures the moral goodness of an act based on how it values human dignity regardless
whether the act promotes the greatest happiness or not
- The government should exert more effort in protecting helpless workers who are subjected to
abuses and human rights violations in the workplace everyday

ETHICAL STANDARDS BASED ON JUSTICE

- Based on justice evaluate institutions and behaviour in terms of how equitably they
distribute benefits and burdens among the members of the group (i.e. firm, society,
humanity)
- Under this ethical standard, any policy or act is ethical if it observes fairness and justice in
distributing benefits and burdens among persons, and unethical if it does not.
- Justice, means giving what is due a person, or giving what a person deserves
Kinds of Justice

1. Retributive Justice
- Refers to the just imposition of punishment such as fines, imprisonment and even death,
upon those who do wrong
- one of the major issue, is the morality of death penalty as the ultimate form of punishment
 lex talionis
- a school of thought supporting death penalty employs the popular principle of retributive
justice
- It states that there must be equality between punishment and crime, worst punishment for
worst crime

Arguments that support death penalty:

1. Religion supports death penalty

2. Death penalty values human life
3. Criminals forfeit their right to life
4. Criminals, because of their actions, cease to become members of humane humanity

Arguments that oppose death penalty:

1. Self- defense is not sufficient to justify the death penalty.

2. Deterrence argument is scientifically unfounded.
3. Death penalty involves the risk of executing innocent persons.
4. Death penalty defeats the purpose of punishment.

2. Distributive Justice
- Concerns the fair distribution of society’s (or any of its social institutions) benefits and
burdens among its members

Three Major Theories of Distributive Justice

1. Egalitarian Theory of Justice

- This theory claims that everyone should be given equal share of society’s benefits and
burdens
- Most controversial doctrine of this theory is the equality of property: No one should have
more, no one should have less
 Equality
- Refers to both economic and political equality.
a. Political Equality
- Refers to equality in political rights regardless of social status.
- e.g. right to suffrage: all individuals regardless of economic status have the right to vote,
and are all entitled to one vote.
b. Economic Equality
- Refers to equality in distribution of income and wealth.
- Includes equal opportunity to work regardless of status (e.g., right of disabled persons to
work, and right of women to work), right to equal renumeration for equal work rendered
(e.g., equal pay for equal work between men and women, equal opportunities for promotion
 and equal fringe benefits), and equal access to means that enhance opportunity to work
(e.g., right to education).

 Social Justice – is social equality

- No one is above and below others
- A minimum standard of living means a standard quality of life where an individual can satisfy
his family’s daily basic needs- in short, a decent life appropriate for human beings.

The Capitalist Theory of Justice

- Claims that any benefit should be distributed according to the contribution each individual
makes to achieve the aims of his or her group.
- The amount of wealth a person accumulates indicates how well he contributes to society’s
economic pool of goods.
- Contribution means participation in productive endeavors of society.
- Stresses the value of thrift and frugality. It is not enough for people to work hard, people
should also know how to save for their future.

 Capitalist Theory
- describes man as a selfish creature driven by desire to trade and to barter-this means that in
anything that man does, his ultimate motive is to profit.
- Essential to concepts of freedom and individuality
- Man is free to pursue his interests, and as long as he does not harm anyone in the process,
should be left alone in his pursuits,
- Does not set limits to the amount of wealth one can accumulate
- Man is free to define himself and to determine the way he exists in the world: he is the
master of his destiny.
- Emphasizes man’s desire to pursue better material conditions, and it tries to provide a basis
for man to pursue such desire freely.

Socialist Theory of Justice

- This claims that work burdens should be distributed according to people’s abilities, while
benefits should be distributed according to people’s needs.
- Largely based on the two great works of Karl Marx, namely, Communist Manifesto and Das
Kapital
- According to Marxist Theory, social justice means nothing more than the fair distribution of
wealth. Those who labor more should get more, those who labor less should get less.
 Social Justice (Lenin)
- is reversed in capitalist workplaces
- Laborers exhaust themselves in factories, but get less (e.g., low wages, inadequate fringe
benefits, poor working condition, etc.), while bourgeois employers spend all their time in
airconditioned offices but get much of the economic benefits.
 - Marx believed that labor is the true and the only source of wealth constitutes the only title
to property. Wealth must be derived from labor- the fruit of the blood, sweat and tears of he
who labors. Rent, profit and interest are examples of wealth generated not through labor.
- According to Marx, private property is the source of all inequality and injustice, and if social
justice is to be made possible, private property must be abolished. The bourgeois controls
capital, and it is that kind of property that exploits wage-labor. However, the abolition of
private property is not abolition but liberation of capital. Capital is not a personal power, it is
a social power.

OTHER ETHICAL STANDARDS

 Situation Ethics
- Contemporary theory of morality
- Stresses the importance of considering the situation or the morally- significant conditions in
which a moral act is performed, and not the application of moral law in making moral
judgments
- Sets what is good or evil as relative to the nature of the situation.
- For example, in a situation, the act of fulfilling a promise (e.g., to meet a person at a
particular time and place) is ethical; but in a situation which calls for saving a person in
distress (e.g., a drowning child), the act of fulfilling a promise- that is, to meet a person at a
particular time and place- becomes unethical if it leads to the failure to save a life. By
thoroughly assessing the situation, we can discern what is the most ethical course of action
we ought to take.

Ethical Standards Based on Religion or Religious Doctrines

- These standards view the morality of an act neither on its motives or consequences, but
solely on whether the act is in accordance with the articles of faith.
- Thus, an act is ethical if it observes the principles held by the Church, unethical if it does not.
- A good example is the ethical standard based on Protestant ethics.
 Protestant ethics
- Where the principles of thrift, discipline, hard work, and individualism are based.
- The adjective, Protestant is explained by the fact that these qualities have been especially
encouraged by the Protestant religion, especially those denominations based on the tenets
of Calvinism.

PROBLEMS CONCERNING ETHICAL STANDARDS

Ethical standard is not laid down by authoritative bodies is not imposed through the use of force.

- Ethical standard, by itself, has no legal power to command adherence.

- It is largely imposed by human conscience and not through force.
- Severe sanctions and punishments await those who violate the legal norms.
- Emotions like guilt and shame are the usual costs of violating ethical norms.
Ethical standard rests on ethical theory, but no fixed, common or universal theory could provide
basis for a fixed, common or universal ethical standard.

- Ethical standard is based on ethical theory or theories which compete with other alternative
theories or systems of conduct for recognition and authority.
- In cases when ethical standards conflict, no common judge may preside or decide
authoritatively but the people themselves.
- This unfortunately provides room for disagreements or disputes in the interpretation of
what is ethical or good, which logically leads to disagreements on the formation of
authoritative ethical or moral judgments.

People tend to use ethical standards as tools to justify their actions in pursuing their various
interests.

- It is a common observation that some people observe different, essentially contradictory

ethical standards in pursuit of their different interests.
- They tend to shift from one moral standard to another, as long as this suits their purpose for
the time being.