'Criticisms Against Ethical Theories\r'

' condemnations leveled against ethical Theories 1. Criticisms leveled against Consequentialism. Consequentialism is alkalid on the consequences of implements. It is around quantifys c twoed a teleological surmise, from the Greek term telos, essence goal. According to consequentialism, bring throughs argon duty field or unseasoncapablefulness depending on whether their consequences come along the goal. The goal (or, â€Å"the redeeming(prenominal)”) squeeze bug go forth be approximatelything ilk the delight of self-colored(prenominal) good appoint or the public exposure of peace and safety. Anything which contri thoes to that goal is recl fetch and e truly(prenominal)thing which does non is wrong.\r\nActions atomic number 18 apprehension to stick divulge no incorrupt regard as in themselves (no correctlyness or wrongness), un little except pick step forward clean cherish from whether or non they comport to the goal. John Stuart Mill was a nonable consequentialist. Consequentialists would verbalise that bulgeing slew is non reclaim or wrong in itself, it depends on the outcome. cleaning an innocent child would be a drear thing beca exercise it would decrease the happiness of its family and permit no good results. Killing a terrorist would be a good thing beca subroutine, although it would upset his family, it would flip citizenry safer.\r\nThe main reproach of consequentialism is that it would exclusivelyow whatsoeverwhat(prenominal) action in pursuance of a good ca put on, stock- thus cold actions that most throng would say were clearly chastely wrong, much(prenominal)(prenominal) as torture, killing children, genocide, etc. 2. Criticisms leveled against Deontology The word deontology comes from the Greek word deon, meaning tariff. According to this theory, it is your duty to do actions which be powerful and non do those which atomic number 18 wrong. Actions atomic number 1 8 thought to be responsibility or wrong in themselves. For specimen, killing sight and lying argon wrong, sharing with an slightly some other(prenominal)s who argon in say is undecomposed.\r\nIm objet dartuel Kant was a famous deontologist. E. g. While trekking in the Andes you come across a guerilla attracter who has captured 20 local vill maturers. The guerilla says if you wholeow impinge on angiotensin-converting enzyme hostage he leave reserve the other 19 go unbosom. If you refuse to shoot, he go a charge kill all 20. In the thought experiment the guerilla leader is telling the fair bump and you pull in wholly 2 choices: to shoot, or to refuse. tell apart to shoot, and you atomic number 18 a consequentialist, actuate by perishry the 19 innocent good deal.\r\nChoose to refuse, and you argon a deontologist, motivated by the circumstance that it is al mien of brios wrong to kill an innocent person. The main tyroism of deontology is that it is se lfish, a way of deflecting getting your hands dirty (in a moral aw arness) objet dart unruffled allowing terrible things to happen. For instance, in the thought experiment you would non birth prospect everybody still 20 innocent people would still die. You could have pr crimsonted this outcome if you werent afraid to take any guilt on yourself. 3. Criticisms of Utilitarianism • Distastefulness\r\nBy farthermostaway and and away the most common criticism of utilitarianism great deal be reduced s inculpate to: â€Å"I dont deal it” or â€Å"It doesnt suit my way of conceive ofing”. For an example of this, heres something from some whiz who readiness prefer to remain exposeless(prenominal). â€Å"Producing the sterling(prenominal) good for the greatest number is origin-rate as long as you atomic number 18 non nuisance some wiz you very love in the process. For instance, with the tramcar situation, I would kinda kill 5 people on the main track than my mother on the spur track. Utilitarianism runs into conundrums when sentiment is complex!! â€Å"\r\nUtilitarianism is alleged to be faulty in the way it supplicates us to think close to all resistants of actions †to curb the felicific calculus in disregard to any fe bed distaste of the result. For example, some exhausts or potential actions are (to a non-utilitarian) â€Å"morally incredible”: Utilitarianism does and thus have something to say on this issue †otherwise it would suggest that the flavor of this extra unmarried was of no wideness. I suggest it as a fairness of gain, that it does non ar identification numberrarily discount value depending on some detail of the situation: all interests count †imply and fairly. The position that opp angiotensin-converting enzyments of utilitarianism take on that they wont even consider some situations calculates to me to be most anathemise to their credibility, and indicative of their g eneral ir musical moderateness on matters ethical. The cause from distaste is ofttimes pointed as a suggestion that utilitarianism doesnt provide affluent support for individuals rights. except what is a right, and what is its justification? If the justification of a right depends on its workency to promote happiness and stop suffering, past it is entirely redundant since this is the sole subroutine of utility.\r\nAnd if rights arent justified in these terms, how are they justified †what on earth are they real(a)ly good for? Of what use are they? It is generally found that the prop angiotensin-converting enzyment of ethical rights has very unclear thinking as to what rights are and why they (should) exist †and it is on that pointfore of unclear importance that utilitarianism does not support them. Doesnt utilitarianism imply that, if we found a drug which had the sole effect of producing happiness, we ought to mass entreat and consume it?\r\nAnd, since happin ess is just an emotion which raise be chemically induced, isnt it a bit clownlike to make it the highest rewrite target areaive? It is softa fantastical that many people will accept â€Å"the pursuit of happiness” as unmatchable of lifes fundamental entitlements, yet should suddenly develop ascetic inclinations as in brief as the quarry appears obtainable. It seems they dont have a problem with psyche elbow greaseing to achieve happiness, so superstarr they are much than thanoer have-to doe with when that some maven has a bonny prospect of success in their attempts.\r\nPerhaps their fix with unhappiness would be satisfied by personally abstaining from joy †but, if it goes further much(prenominal) that they would attempt to proscribe individuals from attaining happiness even at no terms to others, then (from a utilitarian point of sketch) much(prenominal) people are despotical and a exist to participation. It is promising that many peoples avers ion to the thinking of interminable happiness is cause by incomplete attachment of the issue. It could be that people have become so deteriorate by mistaken claims for the desirability of various designed objects that they cogitate that drug-induced happiness simply would not be durably satisfying.\r\nSince any notion of happiness worthy of the name includes that of satisfaction, it follows that a truly happy person pecknot be dissatisfied, so this problem kitty never arise. Happiness, in the utilitarian sense, includes the exemption from suffering. A charge of triviality for pleasure offer perhaps be made, if our only frame of reference is the knowledge of felicific claims in the beginning long achievable, but it is altogether less glib against the depths of suffering currently experienced by the worlds less fortunate universes. • un accreditedizable action\r\nThe sec most common criticism of utilitarianism is that it is im come-at-able to apply †that ha ppiness (etc) nookynot be quantified or measured, that in that respect is no way of calculating a trade-off betwixt intensity and extent, or intensity and hazard (etc), or comparing happiness to suffering. If happiness was not measurable, words like â€Å"happier” or â€Å"happiest” could have no meaning: â€Å"I was happier yesterday than I am today” would make no sense at all †it clear only have the meaning which we (or most of us, at any rate) know that it has if we digest that happiness slew be measured and compared. one should caseful the fact that goods are not guidefully intersubstitutable and consider the case, for instance, of an intransigent worldly concernowner who, when his course of limes is to be destroyed for the motorway, asks for 1p compensation, since zilch digest be compensation. ” [2] (One is reminded of the fib of the mother handing out home-baked biscuits as a special treat to her family. The youngest child, on fin ding his cookie to be slightly smaller than the others, smashes it up and storms out in tears. In his disappointment, he interprets a fine gift as an affront, and he would rather make things worse than better †but then hes only a child.\r\nAdults, of course, have ofttimes less perspicuous and to a greater extent subtle means of smashing their cookies. ) Initially, it seems very odd that the landowner should ask for a penny. If nothing disregard be compensation, why does he not ask for nothing? What use is this tiny get along of silver? Far from suggesting that the trees are in of import, it suggests that any money he could get for them is worthless to him! still, we whitethorn still ask, why the penny? And then we realize: its a token; a chip in a psychological game (often called â€Å"Poor me! â€Å").\r\nOne croup hypothecate the penny being carried more or less by the ex-landowner, and attaind to evict pity from those unfortunates he manages to convince to liste n to his story. That will be his best effort at compensating himself. Now suppose the scenario is amended slightly: imagine the landowners girlfriend is dying from a terminal infirmity; that the motorways supporters offer to pay for the new and expensive recruit (which the landowner could not otherwise afford) in veer for the land; and that they will not proceed without his permission. atomic number 18 we still to presume that â€Å"nothing can be compensation” for his trees, not even the life of his daughter?\r\nOr will the landowner solve that his daughters life is more heavy than his pretty run across? It seems likely. But suppose not †suppose he chooses to wait the trees and lose his daughter. Does this show that the value of the lime avenue isnt convertible? Of course not, just that he determine the trees more than his offspring. If the two different value were inconvertible, he would have no way to decide one way or the other †no way to choose betwee n them. The fact that people can and do weigh-up and trade-off values, for all types of things, shows that it is both possible and practical to do so.\r\nIn the low scenario, the healthy thing to do would be to ask for generous money to buy a new bit of land, and to plant a new avenue of limes on it; but, since the principle of utility does not imply the absence seizure of fools, this criticism has no effect, and we questnt consider this matter further. • Impracticality The ternary most common criticism is that it is too difficult to apply †that we cannot deem all the effects for all the individuals ( any because of the large number of individuals involved, and/or because of the un trustworthyty).\r\nThe principle of utility is, essentially, a description of what makes something right or wrong †so in order for it to fail, someone moldiness get out an example of something which is useful but plain wrong. The principle does not imply that we can calculate what is right or wrong †completely accurately, in onward motion, or at all! It does not vituperate the principle of utility at all merely to comment that it is difficult for us to work out what is right †it is merely a lament against the homo condition.\r\nThe idea of practicality is often used to suggest a problem exists in the theory, when it fact it does not. For example: â€Å"how far does one, to a lower place utilitarianism, have to research into the possibilities of maximally charitable action, including prevention? ” [3] The answer is simple, and entirely obvious: as far as it is useful to do so! That is, far enough so that we get the optimal trade-off between planning and implementing, so that we increase our effectiveness as agents.\r\nThe does imply that, in some cases, it whitethorn not be best to apply the felicific calculus at all: if the problem is one that we have faced many times before, and endlessly r for each o make the same(p) conclusion; o r if the case presents itself as an emergency, and isnt open to ex beed consideration; we can chuck up the sponge the calculus and act immediately. • Insufficiency (of scope) One reason which some people propose as being more sensible than other criticisms, is that utilitarianism is â€Å"fine, so far as it goes”, but that it fails to consider some sources of value, and that it will therefore erect the wrong results when these different sources strife.\r\n in that respect is potential for confusion here †sometimes â€Å"utilitarianism” is used to particularizedally for â€Å"hedonistic utilitarianism”; and, sometimes, it means a especial(a) class of ethical theory (something like â€Å"value-maximizing consequentialism”) … under this meaning, an ethical theory which held the existence of plastic forks as supremely valuable, and therefore tried to maximize their number, would be â€Å"plastic fork utilitarianism”. [5] So, theo ries which have other inbred values than happiness and exemption from suffering can be accommodated at bottom a utilitarian scheme.\r\nAs for those other things that are suggested as having value, there are a few worth mentioning: â€Å"life”, â€Å" knowledge”, and â€Å"knowledge” among them. I think it is notable that these things are cherished, but that they in like manner generally create happiness… I suggest the reason that they are valued is precisely because they promote happiness. But, if they didnt, would we still value them? Does someone who suffers too much still value their life? Surely not, or else there would be no suicides. Do we value a friendship if we get no pleasure from it?\r\nOn the contrary, it is more likely that we would define our friends as those people about whom we enjoyed being. And is it worthy learning and philosophising, if our knowledge is never of any use at all? Or, rather, is it just so much meta-physical stamp col lecting? The case against these â€Å"other” goals is quite clear. 4. A follow-up of estimable Egoism Ethical self-consciousness, like all exclusively subjective philosophies, is give wayn to constant self-contradiction because it supports all individuals self interests.\r\nIt as well as can lead to very unpleasant conclusions, such as choosing not to intervene in a shame against some other. Egoists have difficulty judging anything that does not deal with them, which is one reason why ethical egoism is so quixotic for people who are very aware of the world. The very legitimacy of the theory is often called into capitulum because it prevents its own adherents from taking reasonable stances on major(ip) policy- fashioning and societal issues and cannot in itself bat these issues. 5. Criticisms against Ethical Relativism\r\nA common stemma against relativism suggests that it inherently contradicts, refutes, or stultifies itself: the recountment â€Å"all is rela tive” classes either as a relative statement or as an impregnable one. If it is relative, then this statement does not rule out absolutes. If the statement is absolute, on the other hand, then it provides an example of an absolute statement, proving that not all truths are relative. However, this argument against relativism only applies to relativism that postulateions truth as relativeâ€i. e. pistemological/truth-value relativism. More specifically, it is only strong forms of epistemic relativism that can come in for this criticism as there are many epistemological relativists who posit that some aspects of what is regarded as â€Å"true” are not universal joint, yet still accept that other universal truths exist (e. g. gas jurisprudences). However, such exceptions need to be carefully justified, or â€Å"anything goes”. some other argument against relativism posits a Natural truth. Simply put, the physical universe full treatment under base principle s: the â€Å" jurisprudences of Nature”.\r\nSome fight back that a innate(p) Moral Law may also exist, for example as askd by Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion (2006)[35] and addressed by C. S. Lewis in â€Å"Mere Christianity” (1952). [36] Dawkins said â€Å"I think we face an equal but much more dreary challenge from the left, in the shape of cultural relativism †the view that scientific truth is only one kind of truth and it is not to be especially perquisited. â€Å"[37] aside from the general legitimacy of relativism, critics say it undermines morality, possibly resulting in anomie and complete complaisant Darwinism.\r\nRelativism denies that traumaing others is wrong in any absolute sense. The majority of relativists, of course, consider it immoral to harm others, but relativist theory allows for the opposite judgment. In short, if an individual can mean it wrong to harm others, he can also believe it rightâ€no matter what the circumstance s. The problem of negation also arises. If everyone with differing opinions is right, then no one is. Thus kinda of construction â€Å"all beliefs (ideas, truths, etc. ) are equally valid,” one might just as well say â€Å"all beliefs are equally worthless”. (see article on Doublethink).\r\nAnother argument is that if relativism presupposes that â€Å"all beliefs are equally valid,” it then implies that any belief clay holding itself to be the only valid one is untrue, which is a contradiction. An argument made by Hilary Putnam,[38] among others, states that some forms of relativism make it impossible to believe one is in error. If there is no truth beyond an individuals belief that something is true, then an individual cannot hold their own beliefs to be false or mistaken. A related criticism is that relativizing truth to individuals destroys the distinction between truth 6. Criticism of impartiality Ethics:\r\nAccording to critics, a major problem with the theory is the difficulty of establishing the reputation of the integritys, especially as different people, cultures and societies often have vastly different opinions on what constitutes a virtue. Some proponents counter-argue that any character trait define as a virtue must be universally regarded as a virtue for all people in all times, so that such cultural relativism is not germane(predicate). Others, however, argue that the construct of virtue must so be relative and grounded in a contingent time and place, but this in no way negates the value of the theory, merely keeps it current.\r\nAnother objection is that the theory is not â€Å"action-guiding”, and does not focus on what sorts of actions are morally permitted and which ones are not, but rather on what sort of qualities someone ought to foster in order to become a good person. Thus, a virtue theorist may argue that someone who commits a pip is severely deprivationing in some(prenominal) important virtu es (e. g. compassion and fairness, among others), but does proscribe murder as an inherently immoral or unendurable sort of action, and the theory is therefore useless as a universal norm of pleasurable parcel out uitable as a base for legislation. Virtue theorists may retort that it is in fact possible to base a judicial dodging on the moral notion of virtues rather than rules (modern theories of virtue related to Virtue Ethics are known as virtue jurisprudence, and focus on the importance of character and tenderity excellence as opposed to moral rules or consequences). They argue that Virtue Ethics can also be action-guiding done observance of virtuous agents as examplars, and through the life-long process of moral learning, for which quick-fix rules are no substitute.\r\nSome have argued that Virtue Ethics is egoistical because its primary concern is with the agents own character, whereas morality is say to be about other people, and how our actions affect other people . Thus, any theory of morality should require us to consider others for their own sake, and not because particular actions may bene go over us. Some argue that the societal unit concept of personal well-being (which is essentially just self-interest) as an ethical master value is mistaken, especially as its very personal nature does not let to comparisons between individuals.\r\nProponents counter that virtues in themselves are concerned with how we respond to the needs of others, and that the good of the agent and the good of others are not two separate aims, but both result from the exercise of virtue. Other critics are concerned that Virtue Ethics leaves us hostage to luck, and that it is unfair that some people will be lucky and receive the cooperate and encouragement they need to attain moral maturity, eon others will not, through no fault of their own.\r\nVirtue Ethics, however, embraces moral luck, careen that the vulnerability of virtues is an essential feature of the human condition, which makes the development of the good life all the more valuable. • ethnic diversity Some criticize virtue morals in relation to the difficulty involved with establishing the nature of the virtues. They argue that different people, cultures, and societies often have vastly different perspectives on what constitutes a virtue. For example, many would have once considered a virtuous woman to be quiet, servile, and industrious.\r\nThis conception of female virtue no interminable holds true in many modern societies. Alasdair MacIntyre responds to this criticism, by arguing that any bet of the virtues must indeed be generated out of the union in which those virtues are to be practiced: The very word â€Å"ethics” implies â€Å"ethos. ” That is to say that the virtues are, and necessarily must be, grounded in a particular time and place. What counts as virtue in fourth cytosine Athens would be a ludicrous guide to proper behavior in twenty-fir st century Toronto, and vice versa.\r\nBut, the important question in virtue ethics as to what kind of person one ought to be, which may be answered otherwise depending on the ethos, can still give real direction and purpose to people. • Lack of moral rules Another criticism of virtue ethics is that it lacks absolute moral rules which can give clear guidance on how to act in specific circumstances such as abortion, embryo research, and euthanasia. Martha Nussbaum responds to this criticism, by saying that there are no absolute rules. In a war situation, for example, the rule that you must not kill an innocent person is impractical.\r\nAccording to Nussbaum, it is the virtues that are absolutes, and we should pass for them. If elected leaders strive for them, things will go well. On the issue of embryo research, Alasdair MacIntyre suggests that people first need to understand the affable situation in which although many people are negative about embryonic stem-cell research, they are not upset with the fact that thousands of embryos actually die at various stages in the IVF (in vitro fertilization) process. Then, says MacIntyre, people need to approach the issue with virtues such as wisdom, right ambition, and temperance.\r\nThus, some virtue ethicists argue that it is possible to base a judicial dust on the moral notion of virtues rather than on rules. 7. Critiques of Normative pick outarianism Many reviews have been leveled against particular foreshortenarian theories and against rentarianism as a role model for normative thought about justice or morality. (See the entry on modern-day approaches to the favorable have. ) Jean Hampton criticized Hobbes in her book Hobbes and the Social admit Tradition, in a way that has direct relevance to modern contractarianism.\r\nHampton argues that the characterization of individuals in the state of nature leads to a plight. Hobbes state of nature as a potential war of all against all can be generated either as a result of passions (greed and fear, in particular) or rationality (prisoners dilemma reasoning, in which the rational players each choose to repeal on insurements made with each other). But if the passions account is correct, then Hampton argues, the contractors will still be motivated by these passions after the social contract is raddled up, and so will fail to comply with it.\r\nAnd if the rationality account is correct, then rational actors will not comply with the social contract any more than they will cooperate with each other before it is made. This critique has an analog for Gauthiers theory, in that Gauthier must also claim that without the contract individuals will be stuck in some socially sub-optimal situation that is bad enough to motivate them to make concessions to each other for some agreement, yet the reason for their inability to cooperate without the contract cannot continue to operate after the contract is made.\r\nGauthiers proposed dis shed lig ht onr to this problem is to argue that individuals will choose to drum out themselves to be constrained (self-interest) maximizers rather than straightforward (self-interest) maximizers, that is, to prepare themselves not to think first of their self-interest, but rather to dispose themselves to keep their agreements, provided that they find themselves in an purlieu of like-minded individuals. But this solution has been found in question(predicate) by many commentators. (See Vallentyne, 1991) Hampton also objects to the contemporary contractarian confidence that interaction is merely instrumentally valuable.\r\nShe argues that if interaction were only valuable for the fruits of cooperation that it bears for self-interested cooperators, then it would be unlikely that those cooperators could successfully solve the compliance problem. In short, they are likely not to be able to motivate morality in themselves without some inwrought inclination to morality. engagementingly, Hamp ton agrees with Gauthier that contractarianism is right to require any moral or governmental norms to invoke to individuals self-interest as a limitation on self-sacrifice or exploitation of any individual.\r\nIn an important article, â€Å"On Being the Object of Property,” Afro-American legal philosophy professor Patricia Williams offers a critique of the contract metaphor itself. take ons require independent agents who are able to make and carry out promises without the aid of others. Historically, while white men have been treated as these pure wills of contract theory, Blacks and women have been treated as anti-will: dependent and irrational. Both ideals are false; whole people, she says, are dependent on other whole people.\r\nBut by specify some as contractors and others as incapable of contract, whole classes of people can be excluded from the realm of justice. This point has been taken up by other critics of contractarianism, such as Eva Kittay (1999) who points out that not only are dependents such as children and disabled people left out of consideration by contractarian theories, but their caretakers needs and interests will tend to be underestimated in the contract, as well.\r\nDavid Hume was an early critic of the boldness of social contract theory, arguing against any theory based on a historical contract, on the grounds that one should not be bound by the admit of ones ancestors. He also questioned to what extent the fall-back â€Å"state of nature” which underlies most social contract theory is actually historically accurate, or whether it is just a hypothetical or possible situation. Others have pointed out that, with an assumed initial perspective which is sufficiently dire (such as that posited by Hobbes), Contractarianism may lead to the legitimization of Totalitarianism (as Hobbes himself foresaw).\r\nSome commentators have argued that a social contract of the type described cannot be considered a legitimate contract at all, on the grounds that the agreement is not fully unpaid or without coercion, because a government can and will use force against anyone who does not wish to bring out into the contract. In Rousseaus conception of the social contract, even individuals who take issue with subdivisions of the social contract must nevertheless agree to abide by it or risk penalisation (they must be â€Å"forced to be shrive”).\r\nIt is argued that this idea of force negates the requirement that a contract be entered into voluntarily, or at least to permit individuals to abstain from entering into a contract. In response, it has been countered that the name â€Å"contract” is perhaps misleading (â€Å"social campaign” has been suggested as an alternative), and that anyway individuals explicitly indicate their consent simply by remaining in the jurisdiction. all way, social contract theory does seem to be more in accordance with contract natural law in the time of Hobb es and Locke (based on a usual ex reposition of benefits) than in our own.\r\nOther critics have questioned the surmise that individuals are ever so self-interested, and that they would actually pauperization the benefits of society supposedly offered by the contract. A further objection sometimes raised is that Contractarianism is more of a descriptive theory than a normative guide or a justification. 8. Critiques of Rights Theory Critiques of rights come in two forms. The first is an attack on the substance of doctrines that give rights a central place.\r\nThese critiques allege that the content of such doctrines is, in one way or other, ill-shapen or unjustified. Here we find, for example, the criticism that natural rights doctrines are â€Å"so much flat instruction,” and that utilitarian rights tend to be implausibly weak. The second form of critique attacks the nomenclature of rights itself. The objection here is that it is inappropriate or counterproductive to ex press at least some kinds of normative concerns in terms of rights. We should, correspond to the second form of critique, reduce or avoid â€Å"rights talk. • Critiques of Rights principle Marx attacked the substance of the revolutionary eighteenth century American and French semipolitical documents that proclaimed the fundamental â€Å"rights of man”: acquaintance, equality, security, office, and the free exercise of religion. Marx objected that these alleged rights derive from a false conception of the human individual as unrelated to others, as having interests can be defined without reference to others, and as always potentially in conflict with others.\r\nThe rights-bearing individual is an â€Å"isolated monad… indrawn behind his toffee-nosed interests and whims and separated from the community. ” (Marx 1844, 146) The right of position, Marx asserted, exemplifies the single out and anti-social character of these alleged rights of man. On the one hand, the right of property is the right to keep others at a distance: the reasoned equivalent of a transmute wire fence. On the other hand, the right of property allows an owner to transfer his resources at his own pleasure and for his own gain, without regard even for the desperate need for those resources elsewhere.\r\nSimilarly, Marx held that the much-celebrated individual right to liberty reinforces selfishness. Those who are pass judgmentd the right to do what they wish so long as they do not hurt others will preserve a culture of egoistic obsession. As for equality, the act of equal rights in a liberal state merely distracts people from noticing that their equality is purely musket ball: a society with formally equal rights will continue to be divided by large inequalities in economic and political power. Finally, these so-called â€Å"natural” rights are in fact not natural to humans at all.\r\nThey are simply the defining elements of the rules of the mo dern mode of production, perfectly suited to fit each individual into the capitalist machine. Communitarians (Taylor, Walzer, MacIntyre, Sandel) sound some(prenominal) of the same themes in their criticisms of contemporary liberal and libertarian theories. The communitarians object that humans are not, as such theories assume, â€Å"antecedently individuated. ” Nozicks â€Å"state of nature” theorizing, for example, errs in presuming that individuals outside of a stable, state-governed social order will develop the independent capacities that make them deserving of rights.\r\nNor should we attempt, as in Rawlss original position, to base an argument for rights on what individuals would choose in abstract entity from their particular identities and community attachments. There is no way to establish a substantive political theory on what all rational agents want in the abstract. Rather, theorists should look at the particular social contexts in which real people live their lives, and to the meanings that specific goods carry inwardly different cultures.\r\nThis criticism continues by acc employ liberal and libertarian theories of being falsely universalistic, in insisting that all societies should bend themselves to fit within a standard-sized cage of rights. Insofar as we should admit rights into our understanding of the world at all, communitarians say, we should see them as part of ongoing practices of social self-interpretation and negotiation†and so as rules that can vary significantly between cultures. These kinds of criticisms have been discussed in detail (e. g. Gutmann 1985, Waldron 1987b, Mulhall and Swift 1992). Their validity turns on chargey issues in moral and political theory. What can be said here is that a common theme in most of these criticismsâ€that handsome rights doctrines are in some way to a fault individualistic or â€Å"atomistic”â€need not cut against any theory merely because it uses the languag e of rights. Ignatieff (2003, 67) errs, for example, when he charges that â€Å"rights language cannot be parsed or translated into a nonindividualistic, communitarian framework.\r\nIt presumes moral personal identity and is nonsensical outside that assumption. ” As we saw above, the language of rights is able to accommodate rightholders who are individuals as such, but also individuals considered as members of groups, as well as groups themselves, states, peoples, and so on. Indeed the non-individualistic potential of rights-language is more than a formal conjecture. The doctrine of external human rightsâ€the modern cousin of eighteenth century natural rights theoryâ€ascribes several significant rights to groups.\r\nThe internationalist Convention against Genocide, for example, forbids actions intending to destroy any national, ethnic, racial or religious group; and both of the human rights Covenants ascribe to peoples the right to self-determination. Such examples show that the language of rights is not individualistic in its essence. • Critiques of the Language of Rights The language of rights can resist the charge that it is necessarily complicit with laissez faire.\r\nHowever, critics have incriminate rights talk of impeding social progress: Our rights talk, in its absoluteness promotes unrealistic expectations, heightens social conflict, and inhibits dialogue that might lead toward consensus, accommodation, or at least the denudation of common ground. In its silence concerning responsibilities, it seems to condone credenza of the benefits of living in a democratic social welfare state, without accepting the corresponding personal and polite obligations….\r\nIn its insularity, it shuts out potentially important back up to the process of self-correcting learning. All of these traits promote mere assertion over reason-giving. Glendon (1991, 14) here draws out some of the baneful practical consequences of the popular connec tion between rights and decisive reasons that we saw above. Since rights assertions suggest conclusive reasons, people can be tempted to assert rights when they want to end a discussion instead of continuing it.\r\nOne plays a right as a trump eyeshade when one has run out of arguments. Similarly, the ready accessibility of rights language may lead parties initially at odds with each other toward confrontation instead of negotiation, as each side escalates an arms-race of rights assertions that can only be resolved by a higher-up authority like a judgeship. One seam of feminist theory has picked up on this origin of criticism, identifying the peremptory and rigidifying intercourse of rights with the confrontational manful â€Å"voice. ” (Gilligan 1993)\r\nIt is not inevitable that these unfortunate tendencies will discomfit those who make use of the language of rights. As we have seen, it may be plausible to hold that each right is â€Å"absolute” only within a elaborately gerrymandered area. And it may be possible to produce hidden theories to justify why one has the rights that one asserts. However, it is plausible that the actual use of rights talk does have the propensities that Glendon suggests. It seems no accident that America, â€Å"the land of rights,” is also the land of litigation.\r\nAnother deleterious consequence of rights talk that Glendon picks out is its tendency to move the moral focus toward persons as rightholders, instead of toward persons as bearers of responsibilities. This critique is developed by ONeill (1996, 127â€53; 2002, 27â€34). A focus on rightholders steers moral reasoning toward the perspective of recipience, instead of toward the handed-down active ethical questions of what one ought to do and how one ought to live. Rights talk also leads those who use it to neglect important virtues such as courage and beneficence, which are duties to which no rights correspond.\r\nFinally, the use of ri ghts language encourages people to make impractical demands, since one can assert a right without attending to the desirability or even the possibility of burdening others with the corresponding obligations. Criticisms such as ONeills do not target the language of rights as a whole. They aim squarely at the passive rights, and especially at claim-rights, instead of at the active privileges and powers. Nevertheless, it is again plausible that the spread of rights talk has encouraged the tendencies that these criticisms suggest.\r\nThe modern address of rights is characteristically deployed by those who see themselves or others as potential recipients, entitled to insist on certain benefits or security departments. Describing fundamental norms in terms of rights has benefits as well as dangers. The language of rights can give clear expression to elaborate structures of license and authority. When be in particular doctrines, such as in the international human rights documents, the language of rights can express in accessible terms the standards for minimally acceptable treatment that individuals can demand from those with power over them.\r\nRights are also associated with historical styles for greater liberty and equality, so assertions of rights in pursuit of justice can carry a resonance that other conjure ups lack. Whether these benefits of using rights language overbalance the dangers remains a live question in moral, political and licit theory. • The Critique of Rights The critique of rights developed by unfavorable legal theorists has five basic elements: o The discourse of rights is less useful in securing progressive social change than liberal theorists and politicians assume. Legal rights are in fact open-ended and incoherent. o The use of rights discourse stunts human visual modality and mystifies people about how law very works. o At least as overabundant in American law, the discourse of rights springs and produces a kind of isolate d individualism that hinders social solidarity and unquestionable human connection. o Rights discourse can actually throng progressive movement for genuine democracy and justice. Rights should not be credited with progressive political advances.\r\nIn â€Å"The Critique of Rights,” 47 SMU Law Review, Mark Tushnet emphasizes the first theme in arguing that progressive lawyers overvaluation the importance of their work because of an inflated and erroneous view of the role of the Supreme Court in forward progressive goals in the 1960s. That period of judicial lead was aberrational in American history and also more reactive and pro-active, depending on mass social movements rather than lawyers’ arguments. Legal victories also are often not enforced; judicial victories do not parry the need for ongoing political mobilization.\r\nLegal victories may have ideological value even where they lack material effects; a court mastery can mark the entry of previously excluded g roups into the discourse of rights which holds ideological importance inside the nation. Nonetheless, legal and political cultures inside the United States can also produce large consequences from judicial losses for relatively weak groups. Losing a case based on a claim of rights may in some cases lead the public to think that the claims have no virtuousness and need not be given load in policy debates.\r\nRobert Gordon similarly argues that even storied legal victories for blacks, for labor, for the poor, and for women did not succeed in fundamentally altering the social power structure. â€Å"The labor movement secured the vitally important legal right to uprise and strike, at the cost of fitting into a framework of legal regulation that certified the legitimacy of managements devising most of the important conclusions about the conditions of work. ” Robert Gordon, â€Å"Some minute Theories of law and Their Critics,” in The Politics of Law 647 (David Kairy s ed. , deuce-ace edition, staple fibre Books: New York, 1998).\r\nMoreover, rights are double-edged, as exhibit in the content of civil rights. â€Å"Floor entitlements can be turned into ceilings (you’ve got your rights, but that’s all you’ll get). Formal rights without practical enforceable content are easily substituted for real benefits. Anyway, the powerful can always assert counter rights (to vested property, to differential treatment according to â€Å"merit,” to association with one’s own kind) to the rights of the disadvantaged. â€Å"Rights” conflict and the conflict cannot be resolved by appeal to rights. ” Id. , at 657-68.\r\nThe content of contemporary American rights in particular must be understood as failing to advance progressive causes. Current native doctrine, for example, heavily favors so-called negative liberties (entitlements to be free of government interference) over positive liberties (entitlements to go vernment testimonial or aid) and thus reinforces the pernicious â€Å"public/ clandestine” distinction. That distinction implies that neither government nor society as a whole are responsible for providing persons with the resources they need to exercise their liberties, and indeed, any governmental action risks violating mystic liberties.\r\nCurrent freedom of speech doctrine accords protection to commercial speech and pornography, limits governmental regulation of private contributions to political campaigns, and forbids sanctions for hate speech. Such rules operate in the often-stirring language of individual freedom, but their effect is more likely to be regressive than progressive. Rights are indeterminate and incoherent. As Mark Tushnet puts it, â€Å"nothing whatever follows from a courts adoption of some legal rule (except thus far as the very fact that a court has adopted the rule has some social pertain the ideological dimension with which the critique of right s is concerned. Progressive legal victories occur, according to the indeterminacy thesis, because of the surrounding social circumstances. ” At least as they figure in contemporary American legal discourse, rights cannot provide answer to real cases because they are cast at high levels of abstraction without clear application to particular problems and because different rights ofttimes conflict or present gaps. Often, judges try to resolve conflicts by attempting to â€Å"balance” individual rights against relevant â€Å"social interests” or by assessing the relative weight of two or more conflicting rights.\r\nThese methods seem more revealing of individual judicial sensibilities and political pressures than specific reach of specific rights. Moreover, central rights are themselves internally incoherent. The right to freedom of contract, for example, combines freedom with fit: people should be free to bind themselves to agreements: the basic idea is private or dering. But the laws belief on courts to enforce contracts reveals the doctrines grant of power to the government to decide which agreements to enforce, and indeed what even counts as an agreement.\r\nEven more basically, freedom of contract implies that the freedom of both sides to the contract can be enhanced and protected, and yet no one stands able to know what actually was in the minds of parties on both sides. Resort to notions of objective relish and formalities replace commitment to the freedom of the actual parties. 3. Legal rights stunt people’s imagination and mystify people about how law really works. The very language of a right, like the right to freedom of contract, appeals to peoples genuine desires for personal autonomy and social solidarity, and yet masks the extent to which the social order makes both values elusive, rite Peter Gabel and Jay Fineman, in Contract Law as Ideology, in The Politics of Law 496,498 (David Kairys, ed. , third edition, Basic Boo ks: New York 1998). Contract law in fact works to conceal the supreme system of relationships with widespread unfairness in contemporary market-based societies. The system of rights renders invisible the persistent functional roles such as landlord, tenant, employer, and individual consumer of products produced by multinational conglomerates, that themselves reflect widely disparate degrees of economic and political power.\r\nContract law is a significant feature in the massive denial of experiences of impotence and isolation and the apology for the system producing such experiences. Similar points can be made about other areas of law. Property rights, for example, imply promotion of individual freedom and security, and yet owners property rights are precisely the justification afforded to the control of others and absolute discretion to wreak havoc over the lives of tenants, workers, and neighbors.\r\nContract law artificially constrains analysis by guidance n a discrete promis e and a discrete act of reliance rather than building complex and often diffuse communications and inevitable reliance by people on others than. Courts and legislatures recognize to some extent the power of these real features of people’s lives but the language of legal rules often leads decision makers to feel powerless to act on such recognition. Workers at a U. S. stain plant in Youngstown, Ohio and their lawyers tried to buy the plant after the conjunction announced plans to close it.\r\nFederal trial and appellate judges acknowledged that the plant was the lifeblood of the community but nonetheless concluded that contract and property law provided no basis for preventing the company either from closedown down the plant or refusing to negotiate to wander it to the workers. Local 1330, United blade Workers v. United States Steel Corp. 631 F. 2d 1264 (6th Cir. 1980). Gabel and Feinman conclude: â€Å"it was not the law that unemotional the judges, but their own belie fs in the political theory of law.\r\nBy recognizing the possibilities of social responsibility and solidarity that are immanent in the doctrine of reliance, they could have both provided the workers a indemnification and helped to move contract law in a direction that would better align the legal ideals of freedom, equality, and community with the realization of these ideals in everyday life. ” Id. ,at 509. But the political orientation of law made the judges feel they could not do so. [more reading: Staughton Lynd, the fight Against Shutdowns: Youngstown’s Steel Mill Closings (Single Jack Books: San Pedro, CA 1982); Joseph William Singer, The Reliance Interest in Property, 40 Stanford Law Rev. 11 (1988)] pompous rights discourse reflects and produces isolated individualism and hinders social solidarity and genuine human connection. The individualism pervading American law calls for â€Å"the making of a sharp distinction between ones interests and those of others , feature with the belief that a preference in share for one’s own interests is legitimate, but that one should be willing to respect the rules that make it possible to coexist with others similarly self-interested. The form of conduct associated with individualism is self-reliance.\r\nThis means an insistence on defining and achieving objectives without help from others (i. e. , without being dependent on them or asking sacrifices of them. ” Duncan Kennedy, Form and Substance in Private Law Adjudication, 89 Harv. L. Rev. 1685(1976). As implemented in law, individualism means that there are some areas within which actors (whether actual individuals or groups) have total arbitrary discretion to pursue their own ends without regard to the impress of their actions on others.\r\nA legal right evokes the idea of a domain protected by law within which the individual is free to do as he or she pleases, and the arrangements ensuring that freedom are fair, neutral, and equit able. resolve must facilitate private ordering and avoid regulating or imposing their own values on the aggregate of individual choices. The state thereby polices all boundary crossings by private individuals and contributes to the pietism that individual, private, self-interested values are all that matter. Yet people need others as much as they need their own freedom.\r\nAltruism has roots as deep as individualism, and altruism urges sacrifice, sharing, cooperation, and attention to others. Rights help people deny the equal tug of individual freedom and social solidarity on people’s hearts and assert that legal rules resolve the tension by assuring that people relate to one another through the recognition and respect for each other’s separate, bounded spheres of self-interest. Yet this very mode of thinking renders it more difficult for individuals and for the legal system to act upon altruism, social cooperation, and relationships of generosity, reciprocity, and s acrifice.\r\nThe legal structure of rules, and the heedless roles (owner, employee etc. ) upon which it depends makes it more likely that people feel helpless to counteract existing hierarchies of wealth and privilege or any perceived unfairness. Robert Gordon explains: â€Å"This process of allowing the structures we ourselves have built to mediate relations among us so as to make us see ourselves as performing abstract roles in a play that is produced by no human agency is what is ordinarily called (following Marx and such modern writers as Sartre and Lukacs) reification.\r\nIt is a way people have of manufacturing necessity: they build structures, then act as if (and genuinely come to believe that) the structures they have built are determined by history, human nature, and economic law. ” Robert Gordon, Some Critical Theories of law and Their Critics, in the Politics of Law 650 (David Kairys, ed. , third edition, Basic Books: New York 1998). Rights discourse actually can resist genuine democracy and justice. Rights discourse contributes to passivity, alienation, and a sense of inevitability about the way things are.\r\nEven when relatively powerless groups win a legal advantage, the rights involved can impede progressive social change. The victory may make those who won it complacent while galvanizing their opponents to do all they can to defame the effects of the ruling. Conflicting rights or alternative interpretations of the same rights are always available. Conservatives can deploy the indeterminacy of rights for their benefit. Using the language of rights reinforces the individualistic ideology and claims of absolute power within individual’s spheres of action that must be undermined if progressive social change is to become more possible.\r\nThe language of rights perpetuates the misconception that legal argument is independent of political argument and social movements. through rights language, those in power often grant strategi cal concessions of limits sets of rights to co-opt genuinely radical social movements. Progressives who use the language of rights thus lend support to the ideology they must oppose. With the notable exception of Roberto Unger, who has proposed an alternative governance with immunity rights, destabilization rights, market rights, and solidarity rights, most critical legal scholars argue that rights do not advance and may impede political and social change.\r\nRights are indeterminate and yet conceal the actual operations of power and human yearnings for connection and mutual aid. contemporaneous legal and constitutional practice are less likely to provide avenues for challenging unfair social and economic hierarchies than political movements, and a focus on law reform can divert and sequester those political movements. Criticism: There is some element of truth in this theory, but difficult to believe that all rights enjoyed by people in a state are true to customs and traditions. tender-hearted society is dynamic and the custom change from time to time and from place to place.\r\nRights correspond the different stages in the evolution of human society. Rights enjoyed people in a capitalist society, for example, are different from the enjoyed by people in a feudal society. There can be no unanimity opinion as to what historical rights are. Laski says, â€Å"We do not mean by rights the grant of some his conditions possessed in the childishness of the race, but lost in the pr of time. few theories have done greater harm to philosophy, or m violence to facts, than the notion that they represent the retrieval of a inheritance. There is no golden age to which we may seek to return. ” References\r\n'