Phillip Montague

WHEN RIGHTS CONFLICT

You and I are neighbors, with our houses situated closely together. You lead a group of rock musicians who can practice only in the evenings in your backyard; while I, on the other hand, enjoy nothing more than quiet evenings spent on my porch accompanied by the sounds of frogs and crickets. Presumably, you have a right to pursue your musical career, and I have a right quietly to enjoy my property. If we do indeed have these rights, however, then they seem to conflict with each other, in that your exercising your right is incompatible with my exercising mine.

In Defense of Moral Principles

If we believe that it is possible to know whether particular actions are right or wrong, and if we regard this knowledge as inferential, then it would seem that we must believe in general moral principles which validate the required inferences. This cluster of beliefs is notoriously problematic, of course, and its problems have been discussed at length by a number of philosophers. I doubt, however, that the real source of difficulty has been clearly recognized and confronted. It seems to me to arise from the following two common (if typically unstated) assumptions regarding the nature of moral principles:

Self-Defence and Innocence: Aggressors and Active Threats

Although people generally agree that innocent targets of culpable aggression are justified in harming the aggressors in self-defence, there is considerable disagreement regarding whether innocents are justified in defending themselves when their doing so would harm other innocent people. I argue in this essay that harming innocent aggressors and active innocent threats in self-defence is indeed justified under certain conditions, but that defensive actions in such cases are justified as permissions rather than as claim rights. This justification therefore differs from that of self-defence against culpable aggressors, since defensive acts of the latter type are justified as claim rights rather than mere permissions. I argue, however, that the two justifications are alike in that both rest on considerations of distributive justice.

The Nature of Rights: Some Logical Considerations

This paper examines the nature of rights, but not by arguing for or against any particular categorization of rightse.g. that they are or are not entitlements, or claims, or benificial duties, or reasonable expectations. Rather, the emphasis is on explaining the logical form and behavior of certain rights-statements. It seems to me that logical issues are too often neglected in discussions of rights, and that until they are satisfactorily resolved, we will not really understand what rights are.

PATRIOTISM AND POLITICAL OBLIGATION

Summary Arguments aimed at undermining certain accounts of the grounds of political obligations—no matter how successful they may be—fall far short of demonstrating that there are no such obligations. Doubts about the efficacy of these arguments in this latter regard seem even more justified when it is recognized that parallel lines of reasoning can be developed in the area of filial obligations (and probably obligations of friendship and others as well), which arguments provide rather less than conclusive reasons for denying that there are filial obligations (obligations of friendship, and so forth). Furthermore, we have good reason to believe that there are political obligations if patriotism is a virtue, and also that patriotism is indeed a virtue. We therefore have a basis on which to affirm the existence of political obligations—a basis whose soundness is independent of the acceptability of particular accounts of the grounds of political obligation. Hence, even if standard accounts of the grounds of political obligations are problematic in certain respects, we should not regard this consideration as capable by itself of establishing that there are no such obligations.

Beneficence and Moral Requirements

One task of moral theory is to specify criteria for the correct application of moral concepts, and thereby to provide bases for sound moral appraisals. As I noted in my introductory remarks, the proper objects of moral appraisal include both acts and persons; and since this book is concerned with the extent to which appraisals of either kind rest on other-interested considerations, something needs to be said about the nature of act--and of person-appraisals--and particularly about certain differences which can be drawn between and within the two categories.

Virtue, Personal Worth, and the Interests of Others

In addressing questions about the relevance of other-interested considerations to moral appraisals of actions and refrainings, I have been concerned with how the moral status of acts depends on certain of their other-interested features--on their being beneficent or anti-maleficent in particular. In this chapter, I will examine the relevance of other-interested considerat ons to moral appraisals of persons. The other-interested considerations whose relevance will now be examined include acts affecting the interests of others, as well as various attitudes towards those interests. Beneficent and anti-maleficent acts quite plainly belong in the former category; and concern for the welfare and happiness of others belongs in the latter. Hence, the following question exemplifies those to be addressed in the discussion which follows: How (if at all) is acting in or being concerned about the interests of others relevant to the moral status of those who perform such acts or have such concerns?

Beneficence and Supererogation

According to standard definitions of supererogation, acts are supererogatory if and only if they are neither morally obligatory nor morally prohibited, but nevertheless have moral value (are morally good, etc.).’ While philosophers generally agree about what “supererogatory” means, however, they differ widely in their views regarding both the existence and philosophical significance of supererogatory acts. Philosophers particularly sympathetic to the concept of supererogation have come to be called “supererogationists,” and their position has acquired the label “supererogationism.” This position will be understood here as composed of the following propositions: that some acts are supererogatory; that supererogation cannot be explained solely in terms of concepts which are used to express moral obligations, prohibitions, and permissions; and that supererogation must nevertheless be accommodated by moral theory in much the way these other concepts must be.