Transcript
My name is Gaylen Byker, and I'm the president of Calvin College, and I have the pleasure of welcoming you to the fourth of the 1998 Stone Lectures. On behalf of Calvin College, I'd like to thank Princeton Theological Seminary for the opportunity to participate in this lecture series as co-sponsor of the Associated Conference on Kuyper's legacy. It's a real honor for Calvin to be involved in this centennial of Kuyper's lectures. We sometimes talk of Abraham Kuyper
as the patron saint of Calvin College, somewhat tongue in cheek to use that term, and it's not without some recognition of the ironies that that entails. But for many generations, Kuyper's Stone Lectures was required reading for most of Calvin College's students. And I'm impressed to note that more than 50 Calvin College and Seminary faculty, administrators, and alumni are here with us for these lectures and the conference. There's considerable history of connection between Princeton and Calvin College
and some attitudes about those connections that are hard to change. I'd like to tell you a little story about one of those connections. It seems there was a young Dutch immigrant to Michigan named Geerhardus Vos who studied at Calvin Seminary in Grand Rapids in the 1880s, and then at Princeton, and then spent some three years studying theology in Europe. And he was very heavily recruited by Abraham Kuyper to teach at the then new Free University in
Amsterdam, but declined because his parents insisted that he come back to Grand Rapids. He taught at Calvin for a number of years. And then in 1892, Princeton Theological Seminary faculty established a new professorship in biblical theology, and he was invited to assume that position, but he declined. In his recent history on Princeton Seminary, Daniel Calhoun describes how Dr. William Henry Green, a contemporary of B. B. Warfield, wrote to Vos and chided him for this decision. Green
compared Vos to an engineer at work in a minor job in the interior when his services were needed at the coast. He said that there was a major break in the dikes, and it threatened the entire country with devastating floodwaters. Green wrote, and I quote, Remember that the master under whose orders you serve rules the whole field of battle, not one corner of it merely. Is he not calling you to a point where you can do
his work more effectively and where there is more pressing need than where you are now? This time Vos accepted. And he said he did not accept because Princeton had a larger student body, and he did not accept because he thought Princeton of more strategic importance on the American theological scene. He accepted because he could concentrate on biblical theology and serve with Princeton's strong faculty. And he stayed for an illustrious career spanning nearly 40 years. But as
I say, some of the attitudes about the interior are hard to change. Calvin College is very proud of Professor Nicholas Wolterstorff who was an alumnus of the college and taught at Calvin for 30 years. I had the great privilege of taking his very popular aesthetics course in the early 1970s. Nick will be speaking tonight on justice and rights. He has authored various articles on these topics and a book entitled Until Peace and Justice Embrace. He has
worked long and hard on issues of justice and rights in South Africa and as part of the Palestinian Human Rights Commission. Please join me in welcoming Professor Nicholas Wolterstorff for the fourth 1998 Stone Lecture. Thank you, Gaylen. I begin with the opening of Psalm 72. Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king's son. May he judge your people with righteousness and your poor with justice. May the mountains yield prosperity for the
people and the hills in righteousness. May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor. After describing in my opening lecture what I call the double duality of the Christian's location in the space of society and politics, I devoted the next two lectures to the attempt to achieve some understanding of that peculiar location. I discussed in the second lecture the nature of the divine rule and in
the third one last night the relation of the divine rule to ordinary political authority. A great deal more could and should be said about this double duality of the Christian's social political location. There ought, for example, to be a discussion of the way in which Christ's authority is manifested in the church, not just in the polity. There ought to be a discussion of how a person can live under what appear anyway to be two very distinct
ethics, the ethic of the church and the ethic of the secular polity. There ought to be a discussion of how a person can not only have this double citizenship but double nationality, how a person can be a member of two peoples, of that people which is the church and of some natural nation. But rather than pursuing all those interesting and important questions, on this occasion I propose in these final two lectures to articulate some strands of
the Christian voice on political issues. I suggested that first we ought to understand our location and then articulate our voice. And in particular what I'd like to do is to say something about the proper limits of the state and about its duties within those limits. Now this requires speaking of justice. In turn, speaking of justice requires speaking of rights. For justice and rights are inextricably intertwined. The fully just society, as I see it, is that society
where everyone enjoys his or her rights. Rights however have received an exceedingly bad press in recent years, especially though by no means only from Christian theorists. Accordingly, I judge that before you and I can discuss the limits and duties of the state, we've got to talk together on behalf of rights. In his well-known book After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre asserts that the concept of a right didn't exist until about 1400 and that before the 18th century
nobody at all thought that there were rights other than those, quote, conferred by positive law or custom on specified classes of persons, that all rights are created by law or custom. To those who believe that there are rights not conferred by positive law or custom, that is, natural rights, MacIntyre then goes on to say in what's become a famous or I suppose infamous passage of this, the truth is plain. There are no such rights and belief
in them is one with belief in witches and in unicorns. The best reason for asserting so bluntly that there are no such rights is indeed of precisely the same type as the best reason which we possess for asserting that there are no witches and the best reason which we possess for asserting that there are no unicorns, namely every attempt to give good reasons for believing that there are such rights has failed. MacIntyre. A recent article by
Joan Lockwood O'Donovan makes a similar point, although in more tempered language. I am inclined, she says, to regard, MacIntyre does not typically begin sentences with I am inclined. I am inclined, she says, to regard the concept of subjective right as an undesirable element of contemporary Christian moral discourse and is problematic from an evangelical or Christological approach to natural law. And her reason, she says, is that she's been persuaded by such writers as MacPherson, Topping, Shapiro, that
quote, the modern liberal concept of right belongs to the socially atomistic and disintegrative philosophy of possessive individualism. Then she goes on to say that, quote, in non-proprietary evangelical community, individuals don't possess rights because they are rights. As objects of God's self-communication in Christ, they are claims upon the wills of one another. Each in obedience to Christ's law of love, expressed in his precepts, fulfills the demands of justice, but not the demands of one another.
And along the same lines, in an article well-known in legal circles called Obligation, a Jewish jurisprudence of the social order, Robert Cover, himself Jewish, and an esteemed professor at Yale Law School until his untimely death just a few years ago, Cover argued that in Jewish understanding of law, the concept of rights has only a subsidiary role, and the concept of responsibility or obligation is basic. Then he goes on to say, the story behind the term
rights is the story of social contract. The myth postulates free and independent, if highly vulnerable, beings who voluntarily trade a portion of their autonomy for a measure of collective security. The first and fundamental unit is the individual, and rights locate him as an individual, separate and apart from every other individual. Robert Cover. Now it's true, of course, as the critics of rights allege, that a society which thinks only of rights and not at all of responsibilities
is a society in deep trouble. Likewise it's true, as the critics allege, that the concept of rights is often misused by individuals and organizations to promote their own self-interest, individuals claiming rights to things to which they don't have a right, international organizations postulating universal rights to one thing and another in order to advance their cause, and so forth. But I submit that the concept of rights is scarcely unique in being a moral concept subject to
abuse, and normally when concepts are abused, one militates against the abuse, not against the concept. I suppose it's also true that our emphasis on rights, this is often said, has contributed to the litigious character of our society, but that can't be the whole of the matter, because much litigation is over the fact that individuals and institutions have failed in their obligations, and I'm inclined to think that it's not even the most important cause. It seems to
me that a society becomes litigious when its members too quickly appeal to the law to redress cases of either wrongdoing or of being wronged. So my goal in this lecture is going to be to show what's important about rights. In my view it would be a calamity of enormous proportions to give up the concept of rights. The word rights can be dispensed with, the concept must not be. In the course of our discussion we'll also see
that the concept of a right, rather than being an invention of the 15th century, was present already in the Christian patristics and behind them in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. And likewise we'll see that rights are not all artifacts of law or custom. God has rights, and so do we as creatures of God. There are natural rights. I observed in introducing what I've just said, that a discussion of the proper limits of government would plunge us
deep into a consideration of rights. But our discussion in last night's lecture already did that, for that discussion was about rights, or precisely about a certain right. Our topic there was the authority of one person to rule over another, and the authority of one person to rule over another is the right of one person to rule over another. Our conclusion was that political authority is authority delegated by God, who has underived a non-delegated authority to
rule over human beings, which is to say, I take it, that God has the right to rule over human beings. So we were already talking about rights. Now the sort of rights at the center of attention in most discussions of rights is individual natural human rights. And I think the evidence is very clear that starting there be fogs the mind terribly. In discussing authority to rule in my preceding lecture, I propose that we not start with
the most problematic case, namely political authority, tacitly treating it as if it were sui generis of its own sort, but instead begin by taking note of the fact that authority to rule pervades human society. And then once we had arrived at some understanding of this general phenomenon of authority to rule, we were in a position to reflect with some understanding on that particular species of such authority, which is political authority. And I'm going to follow the
same strategy here. My thesis is going to be that rights pervade human life, and that our recognition of rights they aren't just there unrecognized, but that our recognition of rights pervades our interactions with each other. Then at the end we can talk about natural human rights. So what's a right? I understand a right to be a legitimate title to the possession, exercise, or enjoyment of some good. A legitimate title to the possession, exercise, or enjoyment of
some good. Let me abbreviate that formula by describing right as a right as entitlement to some good. The first thing to say about a right then is that it's always a right to a good of some sort. One sometimes hears us suggested that since we human beings disagree about which things are good, we ought to do our social thinking in terms of rights or justice rather than in terms of the good. Now if that suggestion is
meant strictly and not as a loose way of making some other point, then I at least understand nothing of it. For to say it again, to have a right is to have a legitimate title to the possession, exercise, or enjoyment of some good. So that the concept of a right incorporates the concept of a good. If you don't think that some particular thing is a good, then you won't think that anybody has a right to it.
Nobody has a right to have a heart attack, for example, right? And it would be remarkable indeed if we human beings, while disagreeing about which things are good, would lo and behold agree about those things to which we are entitled, that is to which we have a right. So I see no chance of agreeing on the right while not agreeing on the good. The legitimacy of the title one has to some good when one possesses a
right may be based in law, but it need not be. It may be based instead in some normative social practice or sometimes in the rights and responsibilities that accompany one's professional position. Or as we saw in our preceding lecture, a right may be delegated to one or created by agreement to create an organization and then we give somebody the right to rule. Or more fundamentally yet, a right may be grounded entirely in morality. As a consequence
of these different grounds of entitlement, one may be morally entitled to some good without being legally entitled to it. The laws haven't gotten around to it or even the laws are against it. And I think in fact it would be impossible, just plain impossible, to write all of our moral entitlements into law. Many of them just shouldn't be written into law. One may also conversely be legally entitled to some good without being morally entitled to it.
Now, for some examples to move from the air that philosophers like to breathe to earth. If I've won the race, I'm entitled to the prize. If you've done A-level work in the course, then you're entitled to an A on your record. If I paid for a seat on the plane, then I'm entitled to a seat. If I've written the article, then I'm entitled to having my name attached to it. If I have contracted with you
to re-shingle my house, then you're entitled to the contracted for payment when you finish the job satisfactorily. If the rules and regulations specify that the park is to be open to visitors until 7 p.m., then I'm entitled to be allowed to walk in it if it's only 6 p.m. Some examples of rights, entitlements to some good. I myself find it difficult to imagine what things would be like if there were no rights, or
if there were rights but we didn't acknowledge that there were. But let's try. Take the case of the student who's done top-level work in the course that I've taught, and I'll suppose that that does not entitle her to receive an A on her record. What of importance would be missing in such a situation? Well, her rights wouldn't be violated if I didn't give her an A, if there aren't any rights. Yeah, but what's important about
that? Those who propose abolishing the concept of individual rights from our conceptual repertoire, on the ground that there are no such things, always so far as I know, propose keeping the concept of obligation, keep the notion of responsibility and obligations, scrap this wretched notion of rights. But it seems to me that this proposal makes no sense. For the simple reason that where there's a right, there's usually a counterpart obligation. If she's got a right to an
A on her record, then I've got an obligation to give her an A on her record. And vice versa, were the right non-existent, the counterpart obligation would usually also be non-existent, and vice versa. I don't think that there's always that close connection, only typically, I said, but I'm not going to get into the subtleties of that tonight. Enough from my point here that for the most part, if there weren't the rights, there wouldn't be
the counterpart obligations. Once again, if the student's A-level work doesn't entitle her to receive an A from me, then I don't have any obligation to award her an A. So here's one thing that's really important about rights. If there weren't rights, there would be very few obligations. Maybe the best way to see more deeply into the matter is to look at things from the dark side. Suppose that there are rights, and that my student has
a right to an A on her record. Were I to refuse to award her an A, I would be failing in my obligations, my professional obligations, but surely also my moral obligations. I would be morally guilty. Accordingly to give up acknowledging the right of the student would require giving up acknowledging the reality of my moral guilt. If she's got no right to the A on the record, then I've got no obligation to give it, so if
I don't, then I'm not morally guilty because there's no obligation that I've failed in. But that's to talk about me and my moral status. What about the student? In case I refuse to award her the A to which she is entitled, what is her moral status? Assuming, of course, that she has one, that she isn't just a moral cipher in the situation. I think the answer is this. Her situation is that she has been wronged, morally
wronged. When one fails in one's obligations, one is guilty. When one is deprived of the goods to which one has a right, one is wronged. If there were no moral obligations, no one would ever be morally guilty, for guilt ensues on failure to carry out one's moral obligations. And correspondingly, if there were no morally grounded rights, no one would ever be morally wronged, for being wronged ensues on being deprived of those goods to which one has
a right. And if there were no rights at all, morally grounded or otherwise, no one would ever be wronged in any way. Typically, the thought behind the proposal that we de-emphasize rights talk and emphasize in its place obligations talk, typically I say is the claim that rights talk puts too much emphasis on oneself as an individual, whereas obligation talk emphasizes the other and the community. Now I find it deeply ironic that when we scrutinize rights
and obligations from their dark side, that is from the side of the failure to enjoy one's rights and from the side of the failure to perform one's obligations, the very opposite is the case. If I never think of you, your and my rights, if I never think of your and my rights, but only of your and my obligations, then if I fail in my obligations to you and become morally guilty in some interchange between us, I
perforce never consider the fact that you have been wronged. All I consider is the fact that I am morally guilty. The only moral status resulting from our interchange which enters my viewpoint is my own moral status. Your moral status of being wronged, since I don't recognize it, falls entirely out of view. That you have been wronged is of no concern to me, since it isn't even so much as recognized by me. Now it seems to me
that surely this is more self-preoccupation, if anything is, endlessly to be reflecting on one's own guilt and never to notice that the other person has been wronged. Notice this further consequence. If you have not been wronged, if you have not been wronged, it makes no sense for me to apologize to you. Since you have not been wronged, what could be the point of apologizing? What could be the point of saying, I'm sorry? I'm sorry for
what? Nothing morally important has happened to you. Nor for the same reason does it make any sense to ask your forgiveness. I ask your forgiveness for what? For my moral guilt? That makes no sense. The only appropriate behavior on my part, if there were only obligations and the failure of obligations and no rights and being wrong that goes with it, the only appropriate behavior on my part ever would not be apology and asking for forgiveness and
so forth. The only appropriate behavior on my part would be confession of my sins. I mean, because that's what happened. And repentance. Put it like this. If there were no rights, forgiveness would have no place in the moral life. Someone might suggest that asking forgiveness of God would be appropriate. But would it be? If there are no rights, then God too cannot be wronged. So what exactly is God supposed to forgive me for? If God has
not been wronged. Forgetting my guilt might be an appropriate action on God's part. But not forgiving me for the wrongs I have inflicted, since I haven't inflicted any. And furthermore, if there were no rights, then if I did award the student an A for top level work, then if I did not, if there were no rights, then if I did not award the student an A for top level work, disappointment would be an appropriate emotional response
on her part. But not anger. Anger is appropriate when one has been deprived of some good to which one has a right. Disappointment when one does not enjoy some good to which one had no right. An example for the academics among us. It's appropriate to feel disappointed on failing to win a fellowship. But if the competition has been conducted fairly, it's not appropriate to feel angry. For what? It's standardly said that the moral life has two
dimensions, that of the good and that of the obligatory. The good, the obligatory. With the obligatory being understood at bottom as those good actions which are required of us, so obligation incorporates the notion of good, good action. What I want to suggest to you this evening is that the moral life instead has three fundamental dimensions. The good, on the one hand, and on the other, obligation and rights. Moral rights are those goods to which we are
morally entitled on pain of being morally wronged. Moral obligations are those good actions which are required of us on pain of being morally guilty. Though these three dimensions are intricately connected, none is identical with any of the other two. The healing that we look for in the new creation is the healing not only of moral guilt, but of the wrongs that we have experienced. Likewise, the healing that we struggle and hope for here in this present
creation order is the healing not only of moral guilt, but of moral wrongs. The other comes into my midst bearing claims on me, and that's because she has rights. The existence of rights, in addition to all of the above, gives moral grounding to what I call the social practice of claiming goods. Given that my student has a right to an A if she has done top-level work, it's morally legitimate for her to claim an A
on her record. She doesn't have to beg me for it. She doesn't have to beseech me to grant it to her. She doesn't have to appeal to my generosity. It's morally legitimate for her to claim it. And if I do give her the A when she has done top-level work, she doesn't have to thank me for it. There would, in fact, be something inappropriate about her thanking me for giving her an A when she's done
top-level work. That carries with it the suggestion that it was an act of charity on my part. When it wasn't an act of charity on her part, she deserved the A. And if she has any doubts on that score and thinks that I gave it to her out of generosity, I should let her know, no, you earned it. You had a right to it. It was not charity on my part. Conversely, if there were no
goods to which we had rights, if there were no goods to which we had rights, it would never be morally legitimate to claim some good as rightfully one's own. It would, in that situation, be appropriate for the student to ask me for an A, perhaps even to beg me for it. Professor Wolterstorff, would you be so kind, would you find it in your heart to give me an A for this really excellent paper? But she would
have no moral ground for claiming it. She might claim it anyway. It happens all the time that people claim goods to which they have no right. But her claiming would not be morally grounded. And should I, in fact, award her an A in the absence of all rights, that would correctly be seen as an act of kindness on my part, of charity. And the appropriate response on her part would be gratitude. It would be appropriate for
her to send me a little thank you note, just as appropriate as it would be if I and my wife decided to have her over for dinner. On a great burst of charity, I might decide to award everybody in the class an A, regardless of the quality of work done. If our student had been reared in a rights culture, her first instinct in this situation would be to protest that this wasn't fair to her, that her
right to receive an A for the top-level work she has done has as its counterpart her right that her fellow students not receive an A for less than top-level work. But in the absence of rights, she cannot legitimately make any such claim. All she can rightly do is stand amazed at the extraordinary scope of my charity. And I hope you hear the perplexing features of the echo there of Jesus' parable of the workers in
the vineyard. Thomas Hill, in an article entitled, "Servility and Self-Respect", describes a person, he calls him Uncle Tom, who thinks that he doesn't have much in the way of rights and accordingly makes few claims to goods. The description makes my point very vividly. Let me quote, this is Uncle Tom, he understands himself as having very little by way of rights. He always steps aside for white men. He does not complain when less qualified whites take
over his job. He gratefully accepts whatever benefits his all-white government and employers allot him, and he would not think of protesting its insufficiency. He displays the symbols of deference to whites and of contempt towards blacks. He faces the former with bowed stance and a ready, sir, madam. He reserves his strongest obscenities for the latter. And imagine too that he's not playing a game. He's not the shrewdly prudent calculator who knows how to make the best
out of a bad lot and mocks his masters behind their back, no, no, no. He accepts without question the idea that as a black, he's simply owed less than whites. He may believe that blacks are mentally inferior and of less social utility, but that's not the crucial point. The attitude which he displays is that what he values, aspires for, and can demand is of less importance than what whites value, aspire for, and can demand. He's far
from the picture book's carefree, happy servant, but he doesn't feel that he has a right to expect anything better. The root of servility of this sort is that the person doesn't recognize his rights. He treats goods which are his by right as gifts, charity. If they come his way, he's grateful. If they don't, he's disappointed, of course, but not angry. This moral obtuseness on his part, induced in him by his oppressors, is a sign of his
I've argued that the existence of rights gives moral grounding to the social practice of claiming goods. What should be added, I suppose, is that sometimes in the face of being deprived of some good to which one is morally entitled, the right thing to do is to forswear claiming it and suffer one's deprivation quietly. I think one should refrain from telling other people when they should do that, but sometimes for oneself. And certainly it won't in general
be the case that when one has been deprived of some good it is morally legitimate to seize that good by force or stealth, assuming it's the kind of good that you can seize by force or stealth. I mean, right to breathe clear air, how are you going to steal that? Nonetheless, we should have ear enough for the Christian tradition to realize that Aquinas argues in one place that when a poor man threatened with starvation is surrounded
by well-to-do people with more than adequate food, the poor man is then morally entitled, openly or secretly, to take food from the wealthy persons, Aquinas. Maybe so sometimes. I don't think it will in general always be the case that that's correct. So I'm a bit more tempered there than Aquinas. It's easy now to say what justice is. Justice according to an ancient formula is enjoying what's due one. What's due one is what one has
a right to. Justice is enjoying one's rights. Justice is also a virtue, but that's something different. The justice of concern to us here is a state or condition, the condition of enjoying one's rights. A society is fully just when every person and institution within the society is possessing, exercising or enjoying those goods to which they have a right. That is to say, a society is just when it is rightly ordered with respect to the possession, exercise
and enjoyment of goods. Okay, basic concept of a right. Now I'm going to do a little bit of typology of rights, of different classifications. A little bit dull, but hang in there. Most of the examples of rights that I have given are examples of rights that accrue to one because of something one has done or accomplished. The right to an A if one has done A level work, the right to the prize if one has won
the race and so forth. But if John Locke were correct, I don't think he is, but if John Locke were correct in thinking that one has a right to the possession of whatever one has as he puts it, mixed one's labor with, that would be another example of such a right. I mean, you've achieved it by virtue of something you've done. So one might call such rights, let's just have a name for them, accomplishment rights. Or
you gain the right by accomplishing something. Other rights by contrast are such that one's possession of them has nothing whatever to do with one's deeds or accomplishments. They accrue to one just by virtue of some property one possesses or some relationship in which one stands. A word for them, let's call them status rights. My right to walk in the park until 7 p.m. is an example of a status right. I don't have to do anything
to acquire this right. Given the existence of the relevant statute, I have it just by virtue of being a human being or maybe depending on how the law is written by virtue of being a citizen of the village or the city or the county or whatever. The right of a certain person in a monarchy to become king is another example of a status right. The crown prince didn't have to do anything to acquire this right. Just
being eldest son of the monarch was sufficient. Now a distinction which slices across that between accomplishment and status rights is the following. Some rights are such that one has them on account of the existence of some law or social rule. If there weren't that law or social rule, one wouldn't have the right. My right to walk in the park until 7 o'clock is an example. But so too, I guess, is my right to the prize
if I win the race. It's because there's some sort of rule in place to the effect that the winner of the race gets a prize that I have a right to the prize if I win the race. Let's call those for one of a term socially grounded rights. Other rights are such that one's possession of them is not grounded in law or social rule. And these are the rights that are best called surely natural rights. The
founding fathers of the American polity believed that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were such natural rights, not grounded in social law. If there were such a right as the right to possess that which one has mixed one's labor, that would be another example. I'm myself inclined to believe, picks up a suggestion of Jim Skillen last night, I'm myself inclined to believe, though, that the rights of natural parents vis-a-vis their children are natural
rights, as are the rights of children vis-a-vis their natural parents. Such rights may or may not be written into law or some other form of social rule. The point, however, is that the right is not grounded in the existence of the law or the social rule. One has the right even if there is no law or social rule specifying the right. Laws don't create the right, such a right, they ought instead to conform to
the right. Of the putative examples of natural rights that I have offered, some belong to only some persons where others belong to all, whereas others belong to all. Since only some persons are parents, only some have natural parental rights. By contrast, everybody has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, assuming that those rather vague words do indeed pick out genuine natural rights. These last, since they belong to everybody, are not just natural rights,
but human rights. Okay, now we finally got it, natural human rights. I think it's worth observing almost parenthetically here that not all human rights need to be natural rights. It's possible, may some day happen, that there be some law or social rule in force such that every human being whatsoever, just by virtue of being a human being, has some right which is grounded in that law. That might be the outcome of some future international UN or
something like that. Such a human right, instead of being a natural human right, would be a socially grounded human right. Now, as I suggest in a journal, it's especially natural rights, and in particular natural human rights that have become controversial in recent years. To me, it seems obvious that there are some such rights. The right not to be tortured, for example. The right to liberty of conscience. The right to fair access to adequate means of subsustenance.
Okay, natural human rights. Every human being, by virtue of being a human being, and not by virtue of some law, has the right to the good of not being tortured, and of fair access to adequate means of sustenance. No doubt, I say here, no doubt, the array of distinctions which I presented is already pretty dizzying for most of you. But let me make your dizziness a little bit worse, and add just a few more. So consider
just status rights, and then note that some of our status rights are such that only in certain social conditions do we possess the right. Obviously, this is true for those status rights for those that you have without having to do something, some accomplishment. Obviously, this is true for those status rights which are socially grounded, though I myself don't have to do anything to acquire the right to walk in the park. Nonetheless, I have that right only
in the social condition which consists of the existence of the relevant statute. I think what's much more interesting and important to observe is that some of our natural status rights are also such that we possess them only under certain social conditions, and this point is what produces a lot of the controversy. I have in mind here such rights as the right to fair access to means of sustenance, I think that's a natural right, and the right
to a formal education. These are clearly status rights. One doesn't have to do anything or accomplish anything to have a right to a formal education and to fair access to means of sustenance. One has the right to fair access to means of sustenance just by virtue of being a human being, capable of being sustained by a few qualifications, by sustained by reasonable means and effort, and one has the right to a formal education just by virtue
of being an educable human being. Let me add that these are natural rights. I think one doesn't have them by virtue of the existence of some law or rule. The laws or rules ought not to conflict with them. Laws and rules don't create the rights, they ought to honor them, but here's my point. Suppose that some natural disaster has created deep famine in one's area and neighboring countries have not yet been able to get food supplies
to the starving populace. I think in that social condition, the lack of fair access to adequate means of sustenance is not a violation of rights. In that circumstance, one is not morally wrong by such lack if there's total famine. So too, though educable children have a right to a formal education in our societies, in many societies, there wasn't any such thing as formal education. So in those situations, children didn't have that natural right. All the rights
that I've cited, I think all the rights that I've cited, are rights of individual human beings, but that's only a quirk of my examples. Groups, organizations, institutions, and so forth also have rights. Under US law, for example, churches have a right to build in certain areas where businesses don't have such a right. So we can distinguish between individual and non-individual rights. And it's important to observe, lastly, that some rights, such as the right to adequate
sustenance, are basic rights, in the sense that one's enjoyment of the good in question is a condition of enjoying any other goods. And one last point, and that almost all rights are defeasible. Philosopher's word, defeasible. Meaning by that, it's possible to do something which has the consequence that one no longer has the right. The performance of certain criminal acts, for example, has the consequence that one no longer has the right to liberty. The interesting question is
this. Are there any indefeasible rights? In particular, any indefeasible human rights? Rights such that there's nothing the bearer can do which has the consequence that he or she no longer possesses the right. And I think there are such rights. The right to liberty of conscience and the right not to be degraded. The right not to be degraded. The Uncle Tom of our example, in the degradation he experienced, was, to my mind, deprived of an indefeasible, natural,
and socially unconditioned human right. And I think the right not to be tortured is another such indefeasible right. Some tyrant might place one in the terrible situation of being forced to cause the torture of one person or another, Sophie's choice. Now, in that situation, though one would not be morally guilty for causing torture, the tortured person would nonetheless be profoundly wronged. Confession and repentance on my part would not be an order, but profound sorrow, regret, and
anger would be. Enough. What's my point in laying out this dizzying array of distinctions? Three points. For one thing, what I want to do is to break the fixation when it comes to discussions about rights, the fixation on individual natural human rights. I hope it's starkly clear now that such rights, important though they be, constitute only one type among many. Secondly, by pointing to this great diversity of rights, what I've tried to make clear is that
rights pervade our existence. I've asked you to imagine what it would be like if we didn't have any. If one disagrees with the particular budget of political rights claimed and defended by the great 18th century liberal theorists, then one should focus one's attack on that particular budget of rights and not claim that there are no rights at all. And thirdly, what I wanted to do is to oppose the thesis propounded pretty often nowadays that all rights
are social creations. That they are, in the phrase that I've used, all socially grounded. I've already cited MacIntyre, Cover, Joan Lockwood O'Donovan as examples. One more. The thesis is also propounded by Oliver O'Donovan. In the book to which I have often referred and to which, I want to say it one more time, to which I am much indebted in spite of my many disagreements, namely the desire of the nations. Insisting that all rights supervene on law,
O'Donovan militates against what he regards as, quote, distinctive about the modern conception of rights. Namely this, that there are rights which human beings possess that are not creatures of the law, but to which the law ought to be faithful. He wants to militate against that view. The view against which O'Donovan militates is exactly the view which I wish to maintain. Many rights are creatures of law in particular, and of social rules more generally true. But I
want to say that there are also certain rights which are not only antecedent to law, but antecedent to every other form of social rule as well. Such rights, rather than being creatures of the law, are conditions on the legitimacy of law. And I regard this as a fundamental component in a Christian understanding of the social order. Excuse me. In 388 or 389, not exactly sure, in the city of Antioch, the great preacher of the Eastern Orthodox
Church, John Chrysostom, preached seven sermons on the New Testament peril of Lazarus and rich man. The first sermon was preached on January 2. We know that because it includes references to the riotous and licentious New Year celebrations which had taken place the day before which John didn't like very well. After preaching five sermons in January on the parable, John said that he would move on to another text because it seemed that his hearers were becoming a
bit tired of it. He seems to have preached the last two of the seven sermons later in the same year, however. I want to quote a somewhat lengthy passage from the second of these seven sermons. It's somewhat lengthy, but he really was the greatest preacher of the Christian Church. And this prose is, I mean, it comes from Greek into English, but it's better than mine. This is what John said standing in Antioch and the pulpit preaching
to his, by and large, wealthy parishioners. This also is theft, not to share one's possessions. Perhaps this statement seems surprising to you, but don't be surprised. I shall bring you testimony from the divine scriptures saying that not only the theft of others' goods, but also the failure to share one's own goods with others is theft and swindle and fraud. What is this testimony from scripture? Accusing the Jews by the prophet, God says, quote, the earth has
brought forth her increase, and you have not brought forth your ties, but the theft of the poor is in your houses. End of John's quotation from the Old Testament. Since you have not given the accustomed offerings, he says, you have stolen the goods of the poor. He says this to show the rich that they hold the goods of the poor, even if they have inherited them from their fathers or no matter how they've gotten them. And
elsewhere the scripture says, quote, deprive not the poor of his living. To deprive is to take what belongs to another, for it is called deprivation when we take and keep what belongs to somebody else. Just as an official in the imperial treasury, if he neglects to distribute where he's ordered, but spends instead for his own indolence, pays the penalty and is put to death. So also the rich man is a kind of steward of the money
which is owed for distribution to the poor. He's directed to distribute it to his fellow servants who are in want. So if he spends more on himself than his need requires, he will pay the harshest penalty hereafter. For his own goods are not his own, but belong to his fellow servants. Therefore let us use our goods sparingly as belonging to others. The poor man has but one plea, his want and his standing in need. Don't require
anything else from him. Even if he's the most wicked of all men and is at a loss for his necessary sustenance, free him from hunger. The alms giver is a harbor for those in necessity. A harbor receives all who have encountered shipwreck and frees them from danger. Whether they are bad or good or whatever they are who are in danger, the harbor master escorts them into the shelter. So you likewise, when you see on earth the
man who encountered the shipwreck of poverty, do not judge him. Do not seek an account of his life, but simply free him from his misfortune. Need alone is the poor man's worthiness. If anyone at all ever comes to us with this recommendation, let's not meddle any further. We do not provide for the manners, but for the man. We show mercy on him not because of his virtue, but because of his misfortune. I beg you remember this
without fail, that not to share your own wealth with the poor is theft from the poor and deprivation of their means of life. We do not possess our own wealth, but theirs. John the court preacher. Over and over, as if he were hammering a gong, John says that means of sustenance belong to the poor. They don't belong to the poor on account of their virtuousness or any accomplishments on their part. They belong to them simply on
account of their need. Need alone is the poor man's worthiness, says John. John is of course preaching to the well-to-do, reminding them of their obligations. But over and over did you notice when he wants to ground the congregation rather than appealing to duties of charity. He doesn't appeal to duties of charity nowhere in the passage I read to you. Instead, he insists that part of what the wealthy have in their possession belongs to the
poor. Now, I don't know about you, but I see no other way of interpreting John's line of thought here than that he's reminding the wealthy in his congregation of the rights of the poor. John does not say that failure of the wealthy to share with the poor is a lack of charity on their part. He says that is theft on their part. They are in possession of that which belongs to somebody else. It's true that John
does not use any word that requires us to translate it as rights. But surely the relevant question is not whether John is using the word but whether he's working with the concept. The concept of a right, I've argued, is the concept of a legitimate claim to some good. And what do you think? Can there really be any doubt that John is working with the concept of the morally legitimate claim of the poor to means of sustenance?
So, so far as I can see, the suggestion that the concept of rights first appeared around 1400 and that then, quote, it arose from the social conceptions of feudalism just seems to me to have no plausibility at all. It was present already in the preaching of John Chrysostom in fourth century Antioch. And John, in grounding this right, appeals neither to law nor social rule. He didn't appeal to any such thing. He appealed to what he called
need. John understands the question, the right in question, as a natural human right. As does, to leap some 900 years, a writer, Godfrey of Fontaine, writing in the 1280s. This is still before 1400. This is what Godfrey says. On account of this, that each one is bound by the law of nature to sustain his life, which cannot be done without exterior goods, therefore also by the law of nature, each has dominion and a certain right. Now
we actually get the word right, a right to the common exterior goods of this world, which right cannot be renounced. So Godfrey regards it as an indefeasible right. But I think that the right concept, sorry, of a natural human right is much older even than John's preaching. John bases his homiletical injunctions on his exegesis of various Old Testament passages. I mean, he's preaching on the parable of Lazarus, but it's based on Old Testament. He quoted parts
of it. And I think John was right in basing his exegesis on various Old Testament passages. Over and over, when the Old Testament writers speak of justice, they cite the condition of widows, orphans, and aliens. Why those? Quite obviously, because these were the ones who were most readily wronged. The Old Testament writers don't cite the people who are guilty all the time. They cite the ones who are wronged, widows, the orphans, the aliens, and the poor.
Those were the ones whose livelihood was most threatened, given their marginal social standing. These were the vulnerable ones, the ones most likely to become victims. The Old Testament writers do, as we all know, speak emphatically of the duties of the powerful and the well-to-do with heated rhetoric that prophets call attention to the moral guilt of the wealthy and powerful. But even more often, the Old Testament writers call attention to the rights of the weak
and the poor. These are being morally wronged. For those who do wrong, salvation consists in the washing away of their sins. For those who are wronged, salvation consists in the binding up of their wounds. So I submit that to understand Holy Scripture, it will not be sufficient to work with the concept of obligation and its dark side of guilt. We must also work with the concept of rights and its dark side of being wronged. Both are
necessary, neither by itself is sufficient. Which is to say that in addition to the concept of obligation, we must work with the concept of justice. For justice, let us recall, is present in society when people enjoy those goods to which they are morally entitled. Injustice is the violation of rights. Now there's more to be learned about rights from Holy Scripture than just the formal fact that the biblical writers were working with the concept of rights. Just
as there's more to be learned about obligation than the formal fact that the biblical writers were working with the concept of obligation. As John's sermons on the parables of Lazarus make clear, from Holy Scripture we learn something about rights themselves. That is to say, we learn something about which goods we human beings do actually have a right to. Assuming that John Chrysostom is right in his exegesis, and I believe he is, we learn from Holy Scripture
that human beings have a right to something like fair access to adequate means of sustenance. And that's the merest beginning of what we learn about rights from Scripture. What we find in Scripture, I think, is what might be called, I don't know, a contour of rights. A very distinct contour, I must add immediately. Quite different, for example, from that contour of rights which emerges from the Lockean liberal tradition. Those who for one and another reason, good
reasons, often dislike the Lockean liberal contour, often conduct their polemic against that contour by polemicizing against rights in general. The burden of my argument tonight has been that to conduct the polemic in that way is profoundly misguided. If you don't like Lockean liberal rights, then you ought to polemicize against that particular liberal contour of rights. If I think somebody is mistaken and has claimed to have knowledge of a certain matter, I don't argue that there's no
such thing as knowledge. I just argue that the person doesn't know what he claims to know. Just as a moral obligation consists in some moral obligation consists in some good action being morally required of one, so also as we have seen a morally grounded right consists in some good being something to which one is morally entitled. So that rights and obligations both presuppose the existence of goods. To affirm that you were obligated to do some particular
thing is to assume first that that action really is a good action and then to affirm secondly that you're required to perform it. And correspondingly to affirm that you've got a moral right to some particular thing is to assume first that that thing really is a good thing and then to affirm secondly that you're morally entitled to its enjoyment or possession. [recording ends abruptly]