Open AccessThe Positive and Negative Rights of Pre-Natal Organisms and Infants/Children in Virtue of Their Potentiality for Autonomous Agency
Author(s) -
Anna-Karin Andersson
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
forum philosophicum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2353-7043
pISSN - 1426-1898
DOI - 10.35765/forphil.2007.1202.22
Subject(s) - virtue , agency (philosophy) , moral agency , abortion , argument (complex analysis) , opposition (politics) , neglect , vulnerability (computing) , law , social psychology , political science , law and economics , sociology , psychology , epistemology , philosophy , computer science , politics , computer security , pregnancy , biochemistry , psychiatry , biology , genetics , chemistry
In this paper, a rights-based argument for the impermissibility of abortion, infanticide and neglect of some pre-natal organisms and infants/children is advanced. I argue, in opposition to most rights-ethicists, that the potentiality for autonomous agency gives individuals negative rights. I also examine the conjecture that potential autonomous agents have positive rights in virtue of their vulnerability. According to this suggestion, once an individual obtains actual autonomous agency, he or she has merely negative rights. Possible solutions to conflicts of rights between parents and their offspring are investigated. Finally, I discuss a lexical order between positive and negative rights, which may solve conflicts between the rights of potential autonomous agents and actual autonomous agents.