Right, Duty and Obligation/Responsibility: a Search for Ethical

Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement. Rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to legal systems, social convention, or ethical theory.

Ethics can be defined as "the conscious reflection on our moral beliefs with the aim of improving, extending or refining those beliefs in some way." (Dodds, Lecture 2) Kantian moral theory and Utilitarianism are two theories that attempt to answer the ethical nature of human beings. This paper will attempt to explain how and why Kantian moral theory and Utilitarianism differ as well as discuss why I believe Kant's theory provides a more plausible account of ethics.

Cohen defines rights as “a claim that one party may exercise against another”(339). He explains that there are many different types of rights: some moral, some legal; some held by a single person, others held by groups; all differing in what the right entitles one to. Above all this, however, Cohen stresses that rights are a concept rooted in morality. They arise out of the necessity for self-governance among a community, providing standards of conduct that beget personal protection and safety. Therefore, the argument continues that the holders of rights must only be those who are capable of comprehending such concepts as morality and duty and right against wrong. After all, standards can only be held to subjects capable of understanding and achieving them. Because humans are the only

In a world in which people have fundamental disagreements regarding the substance and purpose of human existence and what constitute ‘the good life’, it is a question how should human rights be installed within a nation’s legal system. This essay argues that because we cannot ascertain without doubt what human’s nature is, and in order to prevent atrocities as those in the Second World War: all humans should enjoy, as members of the human species, fundamental rights to secure their existence. Hence, within a nation’s legal system, those are known to be civil rights. Further, political rights should be ensured firstly to the citizens of that nation, but, due to the rapid globalization and the growing fluidity of boarders (for example in Europe)

He believed that in order to understand law, one must first realize what law’s purpose is. He, like Thomas, argued that law’s purpose it to benefit society by creating a morally sound order to human action and conduct. He detailed seven goods that he believed to be intrinsic and universal, and argued that laws should be enforced under the stipulation that they adhere to the enhancement of these goods, because they are what determines a fulfilling life. They are: life, knowledge, play, aesthetic experience, sociability, practical reasonableness, and religion. The goods that relate to the thesis of this paper the most are knowledge and sociability, as the result of the case has a direct benefit on them and is, therefore, moral and legitimate. Legal positivists, however, disagree that morality has any place in determining what legitimate law is.

Kant had a different ethical system which was based on reason. According to Kant reason was the fundamental authority in determining morality. All humans possess the ability to reason, and out of this ability comes two basic commands: the hypothetical imperative and the categorical imperative. In focusing on the categorical imperative, in this essay I will reveal the underlying relationship between reason and duty.

a right is an entitlement to act or to have others act in a certain way.

The conventional accounts of Justice normally begin by stating a fundamental rule of Aristotle – Justice is to treat equals equally and unequals unequally, and that unequal treatment should be in proportion to the inequality. In everyday life though, justice is seen as an attribute of law, while all laws are not necessarily just. Many great socio- political movements of the world have focused from time to time on unjust laws eg Apartheid laws in South Africa and Caste laws in India. Impartiality and fairness are understood to be the two aspects of justice. But it would be misleading to suggest that Justice refers solely to the fair application of a rule.

7. Kant’s ethics gives us firm standards that do not depend on results; it injects a humanistic element into moral decision making and stresses the importance of acting on principle and from a sense of duty. Critics, however, worry that (a) Kant’s view of moral worth is too restrictive, (b) the categorical imperative is not a sufficient test of right and wrong, and (c) distinguishing between treating people as means and respecting them as ends in themselves may be difficult in practice.

Therefore, doing the right thing is not driven by the pursuit of individual desires or interests, but by the need to follow a maxim that is acceptable to all rational individuals. Kant calls this the categorical imperative, and he described it thus, “act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” (Kant, 2008). This basic condition through which the moral principles guiding the relations between human beings is expected of all rational individuals, and determines how they express their moral autonomy and equality. All rational individuals who are morally autonomous willingly comply with the categorical imperative. They then use it to determine the form and scope of the laws which they will institute in order to safeguard these important conditions that form the basis of human rights (Denise, Peterfreund & White, 1999). According to Kant, human beings have the capacity to exercise reason, and this is what forms the basis for protecting human dignity. This exercise of reason must meet the standards of universality, in that the laws formulated must be capable of being accepted universally by all equally rational individuals (Doyle, 1983). Various accounts documenting the historical development of human rights overlook Kant’s moral philosophy, but it is very clear that, through the categorical imperative, he provides the ideals of moral autonomy and equality

today we call them human rights" (McShea 34). The issue of whether or not to

The doctrine of human rights were created to protect every single human regardless of race, gender, sex, nationality, sexual orientation and other differences. It is based on human dignity and the belief that no one has the right to take this away from another human being. The doctrine states that every ‘man’ has inalienable rights of equality, but is this true? Are human rights universal? Whether human rights are universal has been debated for decades. There have been individuals and even countries that oppose the idea that human rights are for everybody. This argument shall be investigated in this essay, by: exploring definitions and history on human rights, debating on whether it is universal while providing examples and background

Utilitarianism is the belief that a moral act is the one that help the greatest number. PharmaCARE actions with the respect of the indigenous people of Colberia would be ethical because of the marketing slogan “We CARE about YOUR health” and We CARE about YOUR world. Although PharmaCARE offer free and discounted prescription drugs to low-income consumer, free healthcare education and scholarship. PharmaCARE believe that their moral actions were to save and enhance millions of lives in the African nation of Colberia and around the world.

German philosopher Kant was first to introduce the Kantian ethics; hence, the named after him. According to Professor Elizabeth Anscombe, Immanuel Kant was Unitarianism’s rival; he believed actions that are taboo should be completely prohibited at all times. For instance, murder should be prohibited. Even though nowadays a person cannot be punished if death is involved as a self defense, from Kant’s perspective this is still prohibited, although sometimes these actions bring more happiness to the big majority of people than sorrow. Kant stated that before acting, one should ask his/her self: am I acting rationally and in a way that everyone will act as I purpose to act? Is my action going to respect the moral law or just my own purpose? If the answer to those questions is a no, the action must be abandoned. Kant’s theory is an example of the deontological theory that was developed in the age of enlightenment. According to Elizabeth, these theories say that “the rightness or wrongness of actions does not depend on their consequences but on whether they fulfill our duty.”( Anscombe, 2001) Kant said that morality is built based on what he called “Hypothetical Imperatives”, but rather principles called “Categorical Imperatives” he referred to it as the supreme principle of morality. (Texas A&M University, n.d.) Cavico and Mujtaba reported on their book that Kant stated that morality

In order to fully answer the question we must be able to fully define rights and discover how they relate and help democracy. Rights can be broken down into a number of sub categories and in this essay we will discuss the meaning of Civil and political rights but first and fore most “rights” are a number of civil, juridical and ethical rights of entitlement or liberty and are a set of regulating rules that allow people entitlement or to be owed to them. Rights are fundamental to many disciplines such as law and ethics. Civil and political rights are a branch of rights in which we will discuss, Civil and political rights are used to