[Avodah] Rights in halakhah

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 11:08:26AM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
: >My belief is that duty-to-another based law can too easily decay into totalitarianism
: >and that rights-based law too readily decays into a culture of
: >entitlement. (Because a culture of getting guaranteed rights naturally
: >leads to wanting more and more things guaranteed.)
: 
: Except that in rights-based philosophies, at least those in the category
: of "natural law", recognise only negative rights; i.e. each person has
: the right *not* to have anyone else do certain things to him...

Locke wrote about the (positive) rights to Life, Liberty and Property, it
is his philosophy which shapted the US, and I'm saying that that's a major
piece to the prevelance of the culture of entitlement in these parts.

(Similarly, a monarchy needn't decay into a totalitarian dictatorship.
But it often did, and there is a reason why.)

I could be wrong, but the concept of shared responsibilities toward a
common beris does avoid the pitfall -- whether or not it uniquely does.

the U
: the same as imposing a prohibition on all others from doing those things
: to anybody without their consent.  This has limited potential for getting
: out of hand.  To get to your scenario one would have to introduce the
: idea of positive rights, i.e. an obligation on all others to do something
: for a person, or to give him something, which essentially turns all others
: into his slaves.
: 
: 
: -- 
: Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
: zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people?s money
:                                                     - Margaret Thatcher
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Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow
micha at aishdas.org        man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries
http://www.aishdas.org   about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                       - Rav Yisrael Salanter