A Reply to Carl Wellman

Abstract

Carl Wellman's comments on Wrong Rights are those of a sophisticated rights theorist, and I find them both astute and welcome. Since my paper didn't support to give a sustained and general attack on rights or expound a theory of rights (for which it is not nearly scholarly enough) and since Wellman would not defend the widest applications sometimes made of rights, it's possible for us to be in much agreement. He is reassuringly in sympathy with the overall thrust of my argument, toward increased wariness with respect to the invocation of rights, and shares my uneasiness with some of the troublesome examples that I cite. On specifics, both of us support differential rights for pregnant women; neither of us wants to grant that fetuses have rights; we agree that rights are spoken of much too loosely and more care in their use is in order. Our disagreements nonetheless concern important issues that need to be carried further. What I argue is that certain applications of rights suggest that we need to use more common sense, and should keep one eye on their suitability to any given kind of injustice. My broadest claims were that (a) we have a reflex tendency to deal with wrongs in terms of violations of rights; (b) this tendency reflects some of the assumptions of atomism; and (c) we do this partly in the belief that a reason for wrong is always needed, and a violated right appears to supply such a reason. I offered a few instances where addressing a wrong by referring to a right seems to me illogical and incongruous. Let me turn now to the main disagreements between Wellman and me. 1) On the connection of rights with I do not say that it is one of entailment-that rights follow from the assumptions of those of the independence, autonomy, equality and competitiveness of individuals. And obviously atomism doesn't follow from rights: you needn't be an atomist to hold a doctrine of rights, though without atomism the theory would be very different. What I said was that individual rights is a natural adjunct to atomism, meaning that there is a logical affinity between the language of rights and these assumptions' (1987, 28). Individual rights fits neatly with atomism's assumption of human independence and equality, and support our preference for rights that are equal. Wellman shows his attachment to equal