Critical evaluation

While theories of natural and legal rights broadly fall within the liberal framework, theory of moral or ideal rights combines the liberal as well as the idealist framework. While it brings moral and ideal criteria for judging the content of rights, it considers individual as the unit for moral and ideal rights. Kant, Rousseau, Green, Laski, Barker, and Dworkin, except Green’s idea of social consciousness, emphase individual development as the primary concern. As such, it is within the ideal-liberal framework.

Theory of moral or ideal rights has been criticized for being ‘impossibly vague and degenerates into little more than an expression of what is morally desirable.’ In fact, Bentham had rejected the idea of moral rights because he believed that it was a mistaken way of describing legal rights.⁶⁵ It may also be argued that the criteria of moral development and development of personality of individuals has two problems: (i) the criteria is subjective and abstract and it would be difficult to list the rights that would be necessary for this purpose, and (ii) by focusing both on individual aspects of moral development and the social and community requirements, it is not very clear as to which gets priority. For example, in Kant’s scheme of things, it is not clear whether rational community would facilitate conditions of individual’s moral freedom or the latter would be basis of a it. Similarly, for Green, whether the moral claims of an individual gets priority for recognition by community or they are subject to requirement of a common good is not clear. In the case of Rousseau, if individual’s real will on its own can lead to emergence of General Will, as it does, then where is the need to force some one to be free.

However, two aspects of moral or ideal rights are noteworthy. Firstly, it sees rights of an individual in terms of social context and links individual personality with social requirements. Secondly, it invokes the criterion of inherent personality as claim for rights. The criterion of personality arguably could be acceptable as it is not historically limited and can be applied as a ground of rights irrespective of times. It is also relevant to the human rights debate.