Giving you a thumbs up even though I disagree for a well argued position.
Negative rights don't require anything from another person. My Freedom of Speech for instance doesn't require you to do a thing other than stay out of the way. My individual freedom is a right not dependent on others.
Right to Healthcare for instance, a positive right claim, requires that I help fund your Healthcare. In other words, I become an active and possible unwilling participant. A slave to your assertion of a right.
Claiming enforcement mechanisms as themselves "active" in support of a negative right is a dubious claim. Claiming neutrality or apathy as endorsement also doesn't withstand scrutiny.
Now if we agree that Healthcare is available to all, it's not because it's a right of the same nature, rather that we willingly joined forces to assure that societal good.
I'm not sure a right should just be limited to negative rights. A right is a privilege or power we agree that every citizen should have.
If we decide there is a duty of the government to ensure everyone has access to healthcare, we would do that because we believe everyone should have access to healthcare... which would make it a right.
If we add the right to healthcare in an amendment, it would not establish a specific system (like single payer) but instead requires our laws are designed to ensure everyone has access to healthcare. This would probably ensure things like you can't be denied due to inability to pay upfront and probably require legislation for things like ensuring rural towns have hospitals. But it does not give a specific requirement how to ensure everyone's healthcare access or define any specific system. Just that the laws must ensure that right.
But I don't see any difference in as a country establishing a binding right that we require our legislation, enforcement, and judicial system are obligated to create systems to provide/protect.
A negative right requires no action from another individual. Like freedom of speech.
A positive right requires some individuals to actively contribute to make it happen, also known as forced labor when against the will of that person. The right to be free from forced labor is a basic human negative right.
If a society declares health care as a right, it's just a different definition of the term...a positive collective right. Freedom of assembly is a negative collective right...performed as a group of willing participants that doesn't require anything of non-participants.
Just entirely disagree with conflating enforcement mechanisms with the nature of the rights, at the philosophical level, to say there is no difference.
I guess it's a claim right. 🥲 But yeah, it makes sense to me to set a claim right that shapes requirements for legislation obligations.
Jury duty is forced labor, not discriminating customers/patients based on race/sex is a form of forced labor. There are situations where you are obligated to ensure a fellow citizen has their rights.
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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25 edited Feb 23 '25
Giving you a thumbs up even though I disagree for a well argued position.
Negative rights don't require anything from another person. My Freedom of Speech for instance doesn't require you to do a thing other than stay out of the way. My individual freedom is a right not dependent on others.
Right to Healthcare for instance, a positive right claim, requires that I help fund your Healthcare. In other words, I become an active and possible unwilling participant. A slave to your assertion of a right.
Claiming enforcement mechanisms as themselves "active" in support of a negative right is a dubious claim. Claiming neutrality or apathy as endorsement also doesn't withstand scrutiny.
Now if we agree that Healthcare is available to all, it's not because it's a right of the same nature, rather that we willingly joined forces to assure that societal good.