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Demo Classroom Debate: Medical Ethics
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Selected claim, opposing its parent
According to Henry Shue, all moral rights have negative and positive aspects, and therefore there are no purely negative or positive rights, but only "mixed" rights (
pg.7
).
Pros
Cons
Pro claim 1
The basic right to physical security implies a correlative duty on the part of all others not to violate a person's physical security, but, Shue adds, "it is impossible to protect anyone's rights to physical security without taking, or making payments toward the taking of, a wide range of positive actions," such as police forces and criminal courts. Positive measures are therefore necessary for the protection of a so-called "negative" right (
p.7
).
Pro claim 2
The protection of negative rights (like the right to life and liberty) requires governmental apparatus that secures these rights as the government tracks, prosecutes, and punishes those who violate the rights of others through a visible police force. The payment for that apparatus comes from taxes that are levied on individuals. Therefore negative rights also infringe upon the rights of others as much as positive rights so there's no reason why healthcare can't be an absolute right too.