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An Essay on Rights
This book addresses the perennial What is justice? The usual answer draws on ideas such as fairness and impartiality. Hillel Steiner departs from this he seeks an answer through an exploration of the nature of rights.
People standardly express their demands for justice in terms of rights, the items created and parceled out by just principles. So, the author argues, it must surely be possible to learn something about justice by identifying the characteristic features of rights - and something more by discovering how two or more rights can indeed, a central part of his argument is that for a set of rights to be just they must at least be mutually consistent.
Every one is commonly thought to have rights to freedom and to some kind of equal treatment. The tensions between these claims have long exercised the minds of philosophers, moralists, economists, jurists and others. And they have informed the issues at stake in ideological conflict, wars and revolutions. How these tensions are handled in law, politics and economic activity affects relations between individuals, not least as members of different societies and generations. Their resolution is found here in a set of rights that is at once libertarian and redistributive in its demands.
The author clarifies and analyzes the role played by ideas of liberty and rights in legal, moral and economic reasoning. He then moves to formulate a coherent set of original rights that is at once appropriate for persons' external property and for their bodies, and which takes account of differences between their locations in time and place and their genetic endowments.
This original and important book will appeal to readers concerned with central problems in moral, political and legal philosophy, the history of ideas, and theoretical aspects of economics and social policy. Its trenchant argument is accessible, even on technical issues, and is illustrated throughout with real and hypothetical examples. It is also written in an engagingly colloquial style.
People standardly express their demands for justice in terms of rights, the items created and parceled out by just principles. So, the author argues, it must surely be possible to learn something about justice by identifying the characteristic features of rights - and something more by discovering how two or more rights can indeed, a central part of his argument is that for a set of rights to be just they must at least be mutually consistent.
Every one is commonly thought to have rights to freedom and to some kind of equal treatment. The tensions between these claims have long exercised the minds of philosophers, moralists, economists, jurists and others. And they have informed the issues at stake in ideological conflict, wars and revolutions. How these tensions are handled in law, politics and economic activity affects relations between individuals, not least as members of different societies and generations. Their resolution is found here in a set of rights that is at once libertarian and redistributive in its demands.
The author clarifies and analyzes the role played by ideas of liberty and rights in legal, moral and economic reasoning. He then moves to formulate a coherent set of original rights that is at once appropriate for persons' external property and for their bodies, and which takes account of differences between their locations in time and place and their genetic endowments.
This original and important book will appeal to readers concerned with central problems in moral, political and legal philosophy, the history of ideas, and theoretical aspects of economics and social policy. Its trenchant argument is accessible, even on technical issues, and is illustrated throughout with real and hypothetical examples. It is also written in an engagingly colloquial style.
- GenresPhilosophy
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
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January 15, 2018
Steiner's book is a tour de force of political philosophy. It is the most systematic treatise written from the left-libertarian position, according to which extensive individual liberty and an equal appropriation of natural resources should go hand in hand: it thus argues for laissez faire liberalism constrained only by the common ownership of nature. It draws radical conclusions from the equal freedom principle, according to which the freedom of each individual should be constrained by the equal freedom of everybody else. This synthesizes into a powerful and iconoclastic argument about the nature of justice. The book challenges the reader through its 300-plus pages to rethink some of the fundamental questions around rights, duties, liberty, morality, economics and redistribution.
Each section contains something fascinating to take away from it. For example, the early chapters introduce the Leibnizian concept of "compossibility", which has become a key concept in legal philosophy. Steiner argues that in order for rights to be sufficiently robust ("vested"), they need to be distributed in a way that each right can co-exist with all the other rights. It is embedded into an argument about the way nature should be sliced into spatio-temporal spheres of action in the form of property rights. Without compossible property rights, people are said to have no real rights.
The main argument about redistribution is a variety of Georgism (or left-Lockeanism), according to which natural resources and land - everything which is "given" and not the product of anyone's labour - should be treated as equally belonging to all of humanity in common. Anybody who appropriates more than his or her fair share (i.e. an unequal share) is a thief. The allocation of the spatiotemporal spheres of action in the form of property rights, Steiner argues, should attempt to institutionalize the equal co-ownership of nature married with a libertarian system of rights. It should thus attempt to institutionalize the abolition of theft and the securing of equal freedom.
Outside of the main argument, there are also plenty of more minor shocks for the careless reader. Please bring your own body bag in case you drop dead from astonishment. For example, Steiner argues against the right of bequest in a powerful passage that almost made this reader's blood boil. Even more scandalously, he argues for the inclusion of genetic information into the commonly owned part of the world, and thus for the taxation of the parents of genetically well-endowed children. His argument, in these sections and others, are persuasive. Even if you do not end up following him all the way to the dire conclusion, you will wake up a different (wo)man.
There are many hurdles to be overcome for the wider acceptance of Steiner's views. The writing style is a bit dry, despite the occasional joke and witticism. The contents are likely to be unpalatable to both sides of the political spectrum: the intuitive insight of the left is to be skeptical of markets, and the intuitive insight of the right is to be skeptical of redistribution, but Steiner's sagacious system shuffles the deck by advocating for both. The method is uncool: the rationalist quest to explain the necessary and sufficient conditions of rights might seem a bit abstract and distant (as the author readily admits). Utilitarians, Rawlsians and Marxists are unlikely to jump on board - especially since the conclusions to be drawn are, for most people, outlandish. But the overall project is inspiring as well as innovative. The notion that compossibility is a necessary condition for any system of rights seems unassailable. The Georgist challenge to the right-libertarian approach to the appropriation of natural resources seems hard to refute. All libertarians who want to believe in the equal freedom of all individuals need to incorporate resource equality into their own doctrines.
The elusive quest for justice is akin to Ahab's quest in search of the majestic whale. Whether one ever ends up harpooning Moby Dick or not, the outrageous insights contained in the various sections of the journey more than justify the dangers of falling head first into the dark waters of the abyss. If you follow Steiner's trail, you will likely bring home some truly impressive lifeforms.
Each section contains something fascinating to take away from it. For example, the early chapters introduce the Leibnizian concept of "compossibility", which has become a key concept in legal philosophy. Steiner argues that in order for rights to be sufficiently robust ("vested"), they need to be distributed in a way that each right can co-exist with all the other rights. It is embedded into an argument about the way nature should be sliced into spatio-temporal spheres of action in the form of property rights. Without compossible property rights, people are said to have no real rights.
The main argument about redistribution is a variety of Georgism (or left-Lockeanism), according to which natural resources and land - everything which is "given" and not the product of anyone's labour - should be treated as equally belonging to all of humanity in common. Anybody who appropriates more than his or her fair share (i.e. an unequal share) is a thief. The allocation of the spatiotemporal spheres of action in the form of property rights, Steiner argues, should attempt to institutionalize the equal co-ownership of nature married with a libertarian system of rights. It should thus attempt to institutionalize the abolition of theft and the securing of equal freedom.
Outside of the main argument, there are also plenty of more minor shocks for the careless reader. Please bring your own body bag in case you drop dead from astonishment. For example, Steiner argues against the right of bequest in a powerful passage that almost made this reader's blood boil. Even more scandalously, he argues for the inclusion of genetic information into the commonly owned part of the world, and thus for the taxation of the parents of genetically well-endowed children. His argument, in these sections and others, are persuasive. Even if you do not end up following him all the way to the dire conclusion, you will wake up a different (wo)man.
There are many hurdles to be overcome for the wider acceptance of Steiner's views. The writing style is a bit dry, despite the occasional joke and witticism. The contents are likely to be unpalatable to both sides of the political spectrum: the intuitive insight of the left is to be skeptical of markets, and the intuitive insight of the right is to be skeptical of redistribution, but Steiner's sagacious system shuffles the deck by advocating for both. The method is uncool: the rationalist quest to explain the necessary and sufficient conditions of rights might seem a bit abstract and distant (as the author readily admits). Utilitarians, Rawlsians and Marxists are unlikely to jump on board - especially since the conclusions to be drawn are, for most people, outlandish. But the overall project is inspiring as well as innovative. The notion that compossibility is a necessary condition for any system of rights seems unassailable. The Georgist challenge to the right-libertarian approach to the appropriation of natural resources seems hard to refute. All libertarians who want to believe in the equal freedom of all individuals need to incorporate resource equality into their own doctrines.
The elusive quest for justice is akin to Ahab's quest in search of the majestic whale. Whether one ever ends up harpooning Moby Dick or not, the outrageous insights contained in the various sections of the journey more than justify the dangers of falling head first into the dark waters of the abyss. If you follow Steiner's trail, you will likely bring home some truly impressive lifeforms.
February 6, 2018
I dipped in and out of the first few chapters, and more out than in, but i read thoroughly chapters 7 and 8 and it's one of the most impressive arguments I've read and I really resonate with its sentiment about highlighting genes as natural resource and running with that idea to its outcomes.. shame about the cost of the book but I suppose can't be helped. It's available online for free however!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews