Rights, Duties, and Inviolability

Abstract

Rights entail corresponding negative duties not to violate those rights. On this, all rights theorists agree. Yet, in our non-ideal world, these negative duties and thereby persons’ rights are pervasively violated. What duties are there to right-holders whose rights are under threat and are violated? There is substantial disagreement among rights theorists here on whether rights also entail positive duties to protect and assist the right-holder if and when their rights are threatened and violated. While the Interest Justification of Rights supports such positive duties, defenders of the Inviolable Moral Status Justification of Rights reject them. On this latter view, all persons have an inviolable moral status that gives rise to particularly robust rights and stringent negative duties, but not additional positive duties, which are not necessary to reflect inviolability. This article challenges that view by demonstrating that positive duties to protect and assist right-holders against rights violations are in fact grounded by that very same justification invoked to ground robust rights and stringent negative duties: the inviolable moral status of persons.