Corrigendum
to «The `Right' Approach»
by Ronald A. Cordero
[SORITES, Issue #01, April 1995, pp. 46-50]
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All that I do wish to deny here is the likelihood of any rights theory being agreed upon by social philosophers at any time in the near future. Accordingly, I shall not argue here for what I take to be the correct theory of rights.<81>Foot note 5_4 To do so would only be to add to the theoretical disagreement, and I can see no present practical value in doing that. Perhaps I am being overly pessimistic, but the history of theoretical disagreements in rights theory does not inspire much optimism.
The nature of the trouble I see with basing advocacy of social change on a reference to rights should now be clear. When differences arise over the existence and importance of rights, there simply is no means at our disposal of resolving them in a rational manner. And inasmuch as the need for social change in many areas is absolutely imperative, I submit that we would be well-advised to find a basis for advocacy that is more readily amenable to rational agreement. It may not be a case of Rome burning while the theorists theorize -- and then again, it may be even worse than that.
The next question then is whether it is possible to discuss the improvement of society in a vocabulary that does not include rights. Can we deliberate about changes in the social order without referring to rights as the bases for the changes advocated? I submit that we can -- and that this should involve no great difficulty, since it has been done before.
The classical Greek philosophers, if you will remember, were not given to framing their theories of the ideal polis in terms of rights. It is not, of course, that they could not speak in those terms. Plato, for example, certainly seems to be using the concept of rights when he describes, at Republic 549, the kind of father likely to produce a timocratic son...
a brave father, who dwells in an ill-governed city, of which he declines the honors and offices, and will not go to law, or exert himself in any way, but is ready to waive his rights in order that he may escape trouble.<82>Foot note 5_5
The point, though, is that the classical Greek social theorists did not tend to phrase their own political ideas in terms of rights. And in fact we today have little difficulty in explaining their theories on the improvement of society without invoking that concept. They tended rather to think about political matters in terms of an end in view. Aristotle thinks of the polis as having the particular purpose of enabling people to achieve eudaemonia -- and proceeds to reason out how things ought to be ordered with that end in mind. And Plato identifies «our aim in founding the State» as «not the disproportionate happiness of any one class, but the greatest happiness of the whole....»<83>Foot note 5_6
Perhaps it would not be wise to dwell on the Greeks, for many of us today might want to reject certain of their specific suggestions about the arrangement of society.<84>Foot note 5_7 There is, however, no need to suppose that their method of approaching the problem leads inexorably to their particular conclusions. We might even be able to argue against certain of their proposals on the grounds that these can now be seen not to be conducive at all to the end in question. But be that as it may, the possibility clearly exists that we can conduct our own discussions about improving society as they did -- with reference to some end in view that is not specified with reference to rights.
If we could agree upon such an end, then we would be able to reason empirically about how to obtain it. The question of whether or not a particular change in the arrangement of things in society would be conducive to that end would be a factual question of the sort we know how to handle. With a certain amount of determination and a lot of trial and error, we could find out whether a suggested change would be an improvement or not.
The major problem here, of course, lies with the specification of the end. Is it possible -- if we cannot agree on basic human rights -- that we can find some description of society which we can all accept as what we would like to see? If there are many different lists and rankings of human rights, are there not likely to be just as many different conceptions of the kind of society toward which we are working? I believe that, in fact, most of us do already share such a conception of the end in view. We may have widely divergent notions about the specific steps essential to reach it, but I think we agree -- at a sufficiently high level of abstraction -- on what we are trying to attain.
Suppose, for example, that we learn in some way of the existence of a small planet inhabited by intelligent beings somewhere in the far reaches of the galaxy. Suppose we learn further that the inhabitants of Planet X have arranged things in their society in such a way that they are able to lead extremely satisfying lives. The present generation there rates their society as a smashing success, and there is every reason to believe that succeeding generations will be equally satisfied. Suppose now that we know nothing else about this society -- nothing whatsoever about the particular nature of their social arrangements -- their customs, laws, and regulations. All we know is that because of whatever arrangements they have, they are heartily satisfied with their existence.