[lit-ideas] Re: "A right and an obligation"
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2013 16:31:20 -0400 (EDT)
In a message dated 4/7/2013 2:40:03 P.M. UTC-02, donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx
writes:
Well, on one way of defining these terms it might be better to say they
have simply a legal obligation to vote
....
surely it would be odd to say I have a right or power not to drive
negligently
Part of these problems (if problems they are) are, er... Gr-c-ian.
One could argue that
i. He has a right.
ii. He has an obligation
are indeed correlative, alla Hohfeld (as cited by McEvoy)
Notably, it seems
ii ⊃ i
-- where "⊃" is a logical horseshoe, rather than a real one.
--- Or, as I prefer, using Frege:
ii ⊢ i.
In symbols, if O(A) is "obligation to do A" and R(A) is "right to do A",
then surely
O(A)
ENTAILS R(A)
---
But I say the problems are Gr-c-an in spirit in that, as McEvoy notes,
"better to say they have simply a ... obligation"
since "right AND obligation" sounds indeed slightly otiose, seeing that an
obligation entails a right.
Similar problems were noted by Burton-Roberts concering H. P. G.'s account
of alethic modalities: "Surely, if S MUST be P, then S MAY be P", but why
leave it at the less informative "S MAY be P", when the utterer is in a
position to make the stronger claim that "S MUST be P" (And note that SURELY,
"S MUST be P" ENTAILS "S MAY be P".
Re: McEvoy's
>surely it would be odd to say I have a right or power not to drive
negligently
One has to be careful of the implicatural consequences of talking of things
which are "odd" to say -- for the issue may reside, as I'm sure I grant,
NOT on distinctions of 'senses' between the moral and the legal (for O. K.'s
paradox seems to result on just sticking with, say, the 'legal') but ON
implicature.
The implicature being what 'saves the phenomena' of something which is "ODD
TO SAY", to use McEvoy's colloquial phrase, YET *VERY* TRUE.
Cheers,
Speranza
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