The right to life.

Abstract

In the theory of rights we repeatedly encounter the problem of reconcil ing someone's having a right, with his properly suffering damage to the in terest protected by the right. In the case of right to life, we have to assess numerous cases in which individuals are killed or allowed to die, and yet we wish nonetheless to affirm their right to life. These cases include killing an ag gressor in self-defense, accidental homicide, terminating life-sustaining therapy, and capital punishment. Two fashionable ways of reconciling commonplace killing with the right to life will no longer do. One approach is to claim that the right to life is merely a prima facie right; it is subject to being overridden by competing con siderations.1 Even when stripped of confusing associations with principles of proof, the notion of a prima facie right cannot withstand criticism. If someone's right to life prevails over the wishes of those who wish to kill him or her, we hardly would say that the right is merely prima facie. And if the victim's right of defense permits the killing of an aggressor, we are hard pres sed to say that the aggressor's right to life is somehow overridden and thus "lost" in the collision with a higher value. It seems that the right remains the same, whether overridden or not.2 Another fashionable argument builds on a theory of forfeiture.3 Aggres sors and criminals supposedly forfeit their right to life; that they have no right to life explains why murderers are properly subject to the death penalty and why some aggressors are subject to being killed in response to their aggres sion. This argument has already encountered considerable scepticism,4 and yet it is so tempting a solution that it reasserts itself.5 One item on our agenda is to rid ourselves of this theory with a more thorough refutation. My program in this paper is to provide an account of how it is that those with a right to life may nonetheless be properly subject to an untimely death. Among the advantages of this account, it avoids the shortcomings of theories that stress either the prima facie nature of rights or the forfeiture of rights through conduct. In thinking about fundamental human rights, such as the rights to life, liberty, private property and privacy, we often encounter the protagonist who wants to know: What is the definition of the right? What precisely is the right holder entitled to claim of other people? Yet no straightforward answer emerges from the quest for definition. The reason is that an adequate analysis of the "right to life" requires attention to three distinct questions: