Negative and positive rights
Additionally, they may include economic, social and cultural rights such as food, housing, public education, employment, national security, military, health care, social security, internet access, and a minimum standard of living.
Positive rights are often guaranteed by other laws, and the majority of liberal democracies provide their citizens with publicly funded education, health care, social security and unemployment benefits.
Most modern societies insist that other, very serious ethical questions need to come into play before stealing can justify killing.
For example, one could easily justify failing to help, not just one, but several injured children quite ethically, in the case of triage after a disaster.
[1] Nineteenth-century philosopher Frédéric Bastiat summarized the conflict between these negative and positive rights by saying: M. de Lamartine wrote me one day: "Your doctrine is only the half of my program; you have stopped at liberty; I go on to fraternity."
These are features of any human society that arise naturally, even while adhering to the concept of negative rights only.
Robert Nozick discusses this idea at length in his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia.
In controversial areas such as abortion and assisted suicide, medical professionals may not wish to offer certain services for moral or philosophical reasons.
[6] This controversy over positive and negative rights in medicine has seen an ongoing public debate between conservative ethicist Wesley J. Smith and bioethicist Jacob M.
[7] In discussing Baxter v. Montana, Appel has written: Medical licenses are a limited commodity, reflecting an artificial shortage created by a partnership between Congress and organizations representing physicians—with medical school seats and residency positions effectively allotted by the government, much like radio frequencies.
Much as the government has been willing to impose duties on radio stations (e.g., indecency codes, equal time rules) that would be impermissible if applied to newspapers, Montana might reasonably consider requiring physicians, in return for the privilege of a medical license, to prescribe medication to the dying without regard to the patient's intent.
Philosopher Henry Shue believes that all rights (regardless of whether they seem more "negative" or "positive") requires both kinds of duties at once.
The negative positive distinction may be a matter of emphasis; so a right will not be described as though it requires only one of the two types of duties.
Dealing with a threat like murder, for instance, will require one individual to practice avoidance (e.g. the potential murderer must stay calm), others to protect (e.g. the police officer, who must stop the attack, or the bystander, who may be obligated to call the police), and others to repair (e.g. the doctor who must resuscitate a person who has been attacked).
Shue further maintains that the negative and positive rights distinction can be harmful, because it may result in the neglect of necessary duties.
He writes: What is at stake is the liberty of the poor not to be interfered with in taking from the surplus possessions of the rich [emphasis added] what is necessary to satisfy their basic needs.
