[lit-ideas] Re: "A right and an obligation"

  • From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Paul Stone <pastone@xxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2013 15:20:13 -0230

Yeah, I was waiting for that. It takes my undergrads a couple of weeks to cease
and desist from the giggling, squirming and texting re "P". It takes my grad a
and doctoral students much longer :)  (Why is that?)

"P" definitely has sexual, and thus giggling, connotations/implicatures, as in:

"I propositioned Walter in his office but he said what he really needed was
some Oban. I was, like, totally devastated and humiliated! Like, he would
prefer some Arab sheik to what he can clearly see I have to offer??! I've been
wearing low cut blouses and bending down just for him for weeks now. I'm
dropping this course, big time. And I certainly got a few things to say on the
course evaluation form too." 

And, bitte, don't say: "To P or not to P." 

Procrastinationally facing piles upon piles of final papers and final exams, 

Walter O.




Quoting Paul Stone <pastone@xxxxxxxxx>:

> I would argue (Walter) that the right to pee is in most places, not a
> right, but the obligation to pee is definitely mandatory, required, and
> morally prudent - or you have accidents.
> 
> humming Dave Matthews Band's "So much to say!"
> p
> 
> 
> On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 12:39 PM, Donal McEvoy
> <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
> 
> >
> >
> >   ------------------------------
> > *From:* John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
> >
> >  >I believe that in Australia, voters have both a legal right and a legal
> > obligation to vote. Failing to vote results in a fine.
> >
> > Well, on one way of defining these terms it might be better to say they
> > have simply a legal obligation to vote - not a 'right to vote', for they
> > have no right or power on which they exercise choice as to its exercise,
> > but simply vote as a matter of duty.
> >
> > On another way of looking at it, and defining terms, they have a power to
> > vote and a duty to vote and so both a legal right and a legal obligation.
> >
> > I am unsure it matters much unless we get confused. Nevertheless there is
> > something problematic about describing compliance with a duty as exercise
> > of a power or right - problematic in a sense in which it is not
> problematic
> > to describe as a right something that I may do though I am not under any
> > duty to do it. I have a duty not to drive negligently into my neighbour's
> > parked car, for example, but surely it would be odd to say I have a right
> > or power not to drive negligently into their car (even though, in another
> > attenuated sense, it is true I have a such a right).
> >
> > In short, I am too tired trying to format a 64gb microcard in FAT32,
> > having spent hours on this today and yesterday, to bring better analysis
> to
> > bear - perhaps Hohfeld helps:-
> >
> > "Hohfeld noticed that even respected jurists conflate various meanings of
> > the term *right*, sometimes switching senses of the word several times in
> > a single sentence. He wrote that such imprecision of language indicated a
> > concomitant imprecision of thought, and thus also of the resulting legal
> > conclusions. In order to both facilitate reasoning and clarify rulings, he
> > attempted to disambiguate the term *rights* by breaking it into eight
> > distinct concepts. To eliminate ambiguity, he defined these terms relative
> > to one another, grouping them into four pairs of Jural Opposites and four
> > pairs of Jural Correlatives.
> >      (1)      (2)      (3)      (4)       JURAL OPPOSITES
> > [image:
> GullBraceLeft.svg]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GullBraceLeft.svg>
> >  Right
> > No-right Privilege
> > Duty Power
> > Disability Immunity
> > Liability       (1)      (2)      (3)      (4)       JURAL CORRELATIVES
> > [image:
> GullBraceLeft.svg]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GullBraceLeft.svg>
> >  Right
> > Duty Privilege
> > No-right Power
> > Liability Immunity
> > Disability
> > This use of the words *right* and *privilege* correspond respectively to
> > the concepts of claim rights and liberty
> rights<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claim_rights_and_liberty_rights>
> > .
> > Hohfeld argued that right and duty are correlative concepts, i.e. the one
> > must always be matched by the other. If A has a right against B, this is
> > equivalent to B having a duty to honour A's right. If B has no duty, that
> > means that B has a privilege, i.e. B can do whatever he or she pleases
> > because B has no duty to refrain from doing it, and A has no right to
> > prohibit B from doing so. Each individual is located within a matrix of
> > relationships with other individuals. By summing the rights held and
> duties
> > owed across all these relationships, the analyst can identify both the
> > degree of liberty — an individual would be considered to have perfect
> > liberty if it is shown that no-one has a right to prevent the given act —
> > and whether the concept of liberty is comprised by commonly followed
> > practices, thereby establishing general moral principles and civil
> rights<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights>
> > ."
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_Newcomb_Hohfeld
> >
> > Does this help? Does it clear everything up?
> >
> > In the Australian example there is a sense in which we might say a voter
> > has a 'right to vote' and a 'right not to vote', except exercising 'the
> > right not to vote' gives rise to a penalty by way of a fine, whereas there
> > is no such penalty for voting. It would be different if in their system
> > there were a legal duty to vote that was specifically enforceable i.e.
> > people who tried not to vote would be compelled to:- in such a case, we
> > might say people had no legal 'right not to vote' because they are legally
> > compelled to vote. But in the Australian system there is simply a
> financial
> > incentive to vote or a financial disincentive to not vote (the
> > dis/incentive applied by way of a fine): and this may fall short of there
> > being 'no right not to vote'. And in the sense in which there is 'a right
> > not to vote' we may say there is no duty to vote either, rather that
> > exercise of the 'right not to vote' gives rise to a liability by way of a
> > fine. Or, as against the foregoing, we might say the fine means there is
> > no 'right not to vote' but rather a duty to vote, and dereliction of that
> > duty gives rise to a fine.
> >
> > My suspicion is that these issues may turn on how we define our terms and
> > this may largely prove semantic - nothing substantive may depend, for
> > example, on whether we say in Australia there is a 'right not to vote' or
> > whether we say (using a different definition of terms) in Australia there
> > is 'no right not to vote': provided we are clear as to what's-what in
> legal
> > terms. So a lawyer asked by a client in Australia whether the client has a
> > 'right not to vote' or has 'no right not to vote', might (rightly)
> > side-step a direct yes-or-no answer - and simply explain the legal
> > consequences of not voting (as against the consequences of voting). That
> > way the client may be properly legally advised - it is a question beyond
> > the remit of such advice to answer whether those legal consequences are
> > such that we should properly say there is a 'right not to vote' or that
> > there is 'no right not to vote' in Australia. That's one for the
> > philosophers - the law doesn't much worry about even using the term
> > "right", and other terms, univocally.
> >
> > Is that the time?
> >
> > Donal
> > Needing format advice
> > London
> >
> >
> >
> 


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