Morally or Legally Constraining or Binding

The first contrast concerns whether or by what means (e.g. only by confiscation) the right of the individual can be withdrawn; the second, whether the law belongs to everyone; third, whether the claim to the right is to receive something or simply to be left alone; and the fourth with the question of whether it can ever be just (morally acceptable) to override the claims of this right. Remember what makes a claim a moral right: If there is a moral justification for a claim, then that person has a moral right. From this definition, we see that for a person to have a moral right, all that is needed is that the person`s claim is morally justified. If you are bound by a rule or law, you are metaphorically bound by it—that is, you are obliged to obey it. The idea of binding links the word to its Latin source, ligÄre, which means “to bind, to bind”. However, in the most common modern uses of obliging, the idea of attachment is somewhat masked: it is applied when someone is bound by a debt for a favor or service, as in “We are very grateful to you for help”, but in the phrase “happy to oblige” it simply expresses the will to do a favor to someone, as in “They needed a trick and we were happy to do it.” A person`s request is (usually) still morally justified, even if that person waives this right in certain circumstances. The decision to waive a right in some circumstances does not mean that it is waived in other cases. For example, students in the United States have the legal right to see recordings of their performance. A student may waive the right to see a particular letter of recommendation, but the common law remains in force and can be exercised in relation to other documents.

However, some rights, such as the legal right to prevent others from entering your country, will expire if you do not exercise this right for a period of time. If a person not only has the right to do something, but is also morally obligated to do so because of a role assumed or an agreement, we say that the person has an ethical obligation or duty as well as a right to do the thing in question. An ethical duty or obligation is a moral requirement to follow a certain action, that is, to do or refrain from doing certain things. For example, many technical codes of ethics provide that engineers have a moral right to deal with misconduct issues outside their organization, but they are also required to do so when public health and safety are at stake. The philosopher Annette Baier points out that people of every human group with every social organization make claims and give moral justifications. Therefore, in every society there are claims with moral justification. Since rights are legitimate claims, there is an equivalent to the concept of right in all societies, even in those that do not have a ready-made term for legitimate claims. Cultures that see fundamental moral considerations regarding responsibilities, virtues, obligations, and duties have the equivalent of moral rights because the moral demands they recognize provide moral justification for certain claims made by individuals. The Declaration of Independence is clearly based on the assumption that human rights exist: all human beings are created equal, because all are endowed with certain “inalienable rights”. In the strongest sense, the declaration means that a right is inalienable, that it cannot be withdrawn by others, exchanged by the person or confiscated as a result of the person`s actions.

In a weaker sense, this means that the right cannot be withdrawn or implemented, but could be lost through the actions of the person. In the United States, for example, a convict loses the right to vote, even if it is considered wrong for others to disenfranchise a person, and any renunciation of the right to vote is considered morally invalid. In the weakest sense, the assertion that a right is inalienable only means that others do not have the right to eliminate or revoke that right. Thomas Jefferson and the authors of the Declaration of Independence considered these criminal sanctions to be prison sentences and just executions, even if they involved loss of liberty or life. What species, if any, would be ethically acceptable to use in such experiments? Is it morally relevant whether they are mammals? Would the intelligence be morally relevant to the decision, and if so, how? Would the presence or absence of a complex social system in which members care for other members of the species be a morally relevant factor to consider? Would it be morally relevant for one candidate species to have a more human face than another? Would it be relevant that some people in particular were once human pets? If so, would it be better or worse to use these people? What are the relevant considerations in determining whether it is morally justifiable to conduct animal experiments? The first consideration is what happens to the animal – whether it interferes, kills or causes pain. Moreover, it depends on whether the obligation not to inflict severe pain on animals if one`s own welfare is not promoted is an absolute obligation or only prima facie. If it is prima facie, the justification would depend on the relative strength of the comparisons that matter for measures that would cause pain, for example, the benefits to humans from an action that would inflict pain on the animal.