[Avodah] Rights in halakhah

[Ken Bloom]

On Wed, 2010-02-10 at 14:28 -0500, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 01:00:13PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
> :> 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.
> 
> : On the contrary, those are negative rights.  I can't imagine how you
> : understand them to be positive rights.
> 
> "Right to life" not "Right not to get killed".

The "right to life" is convenient shorthand for the "right to not get
killed" either by murder or by an arbitrary determination of the
government. If you wanted to cast the right to life as a positive right,
would entail the right to medical treatment (even if you don't have the
means) and possibly the right to miraculous intervention when one's
ailment is beyond the capability of the medical profession to cure.

The "right to property" is a negative right for one's property not to be
stolen or confiscated by the government. The right to property, if
recast as a positive right, would require others to provide tzedakah to
this particular person if he were poor, and maybe require others to
fulfill this person's every desire.

--Ken