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- Theory-building activities:
Right claim justification framework
- Essential: To say that a right is essential to autonomy is to
say that it highlights a capacity whose exercise is necessary tothe general exercise of autonomy. For example, autonomy is based on
certain knowledge skills. Hence, we have a right to an education todevelop the knowledge required by autonomy, or we have a right to
the knowledge that produces informed consent. In general, rightsare devices for recognizing certain capacities as essential to
autonomy and respecting individuals in their exercise of thesecapacities.
- Vulnerable: The exercise of the capacity protected under the
right needs protection. Individuals may interfere with us in ourattempt to exercise our rights. Groups, corporations, and
governments might overwhelm us and prevent us from exercising ouressential capacities. In short, the exercise of the capacity
requires some sort of protection. For example, an individual’sprivacy is vulnerable to violation. People can gain access to our
computers without our authorization and view the information wehave stored. They can even use this information to harm us in some
way. The right to privacy, thus, protects certain capacities ofaction that are vulnerable to interference from others. Individual
and social energy needs to be expended to protect ourprivacy.
- Feasible: Rights make claims over others; they imply dutiesthat others have. These claims must not deprive the correlative
duty-holders of anything essential. In other words, my rightsclaims over you are not so extensive as to deprive you of your
rights. My right to life should not deprive you of your right toself-protection were I to attack you. Thus, the scope of my right
claims over you and the rest of society are limited by your abilityto reciprocate. I cannot push my claims over you to recognize and
respect my rights to the point where you are deprived of somethingessential.
Types of duty correlative to a right
- Duty not to deprive: We have a basic duty not to violate the
rights of others. This entails that we must both recognize andrespect these rights. For example, computing specialists have the
duty not to deprive others of their rights to privacy by hackinginto private files.
- Duty to prevent deprivation: Professionals, because of their
knowledge, are often in the position to prevent others fromdepriving third parties of their rights. For example, a computing
specialist may find that a client is not taking sufficient pains toprotect the confidentiality of information about customers.
Outsiders could access this information and use it without theconsent of the customers. The computing specialist could prevent
this violation of privacy by advising the client on ways to protectthis information, say, through encryption. The computing specialist
is not about to violate the customers’ rights to privacy. Butbecause of special knowledge and skill, the computing specialist
may be in a position to prevent others from violating thisright.
- Duty to aid the deprived: Finally, when others have their
rights violated, we have the duty to aid them in their recoveryfrom damages. For example, a computing specialist might have a duty
to serve as an expert witness in a lawsuit in which the plaintiffseeks to recover damages suffered from having her right to privacy
violated. Part of this duty would include accurate, impartial, andexpert testimony.
Source:
OpenStax, Modules linking to computing cases. OpenStax CNX. Jul 26, 2007 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col10423/1.2
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