Rights and Duties

The discussion on rights and duties begins with a discussion on Walt Disney and its dealings with Chinese companies. On 3 March 2004 executives of Walt Disney, the world's second largest media corporation, were confronted with a group of stockholders concerned regarding the company's  human  rights record  in China.  Walt Disney markets merchandise based on its characters and films including toys, consumer electronics, apparel, watches and accessories. Much of these commodities are manufactured in China in factories that contract with Disney to manufacture the merchandise according to Disney's specifications. The Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a group established by the U.S. Congress in 2001 reported in 2003, however, "China's poor record of protecting the internationally recognized rights of its workers has not changed significantly in the past year. Chinese workers cannot form or join independent trade unions, and workers who seek redress for wrongs committed by their employers often face harassment and criminal charges. Moreover, child labor continues to be a problem in some sectors of the economy, and forced labor by prisoners is common." In March 2003 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the U.S. State Department said China's economy also made enormous use of prison or forced labor.

In common right is a person's entitlement to something; one has a right to something when one is permitted to act a certain way or to have others act in a certain way towards oneself. An entitlement is called a legal right.  Entitlements can come from moral standards or law; the former are called moral rights or human rights. They specify, in general that all humans are permitted to do something or are allowed to have something done for them.

In our everyday discourse, we use the term right to cover a variety of situations in which individuals are enabled to make such choices in very unlike ways. First, we sometimes use the term right to specify the mere absence of prohibitions against pursuing some interest or activity. Second we sometimes use the term right to point out that a person is authorized or  empowered to do something either to protect the interests of others or to secure one's interests. Third the term right is at times used to indicate the existence of prohibitions or requirements on others that allow the individual to pursue certain interests or activities.

The  most  vital  rights  are  those  that  impose  requirements  or  prohibitions  on  others, enabling people to choose whether or not to do something. Moral rights have three significant features defining them:

1.   Moral rights provide a basis for justifying one's actions and invoking the aid of others.

2.   Moral rights provide individuals with autonomy and equality in the free pursuit of their interests.

3.   Moral rights are closely correlated with duties.

4.   Moral judgments made on the basis of rights differ substantially from those based on utility.

First, they are based on the individual while utilitarianism is based on society as a whole. Second, rights bound the validity of preferring numbers and social benefits to the individual. On the other hand, even though rights generally override utilitarian standards, they do not always do so. In times of war, for instance, civil rights are commonly restricted for the public good.

Besides negative rights, which are defined completely in terms of the duties others have not to interfere with you, there also prevail positive rights. Positive rights imply that others have a duty not only to abstain from interference, but also to give you with what you need to pursue your interests. Privacy is an illustration of a negative right; the rights to life, food and health care are positive. In common, more liberal theorists hold that society should guarantee positive as well as negative rights; conservatives wish to edge government to enforcing negative rights. Positive rights were not emphasized until the 20th century. Negative rights were often in use in the 17th and 18th centuries by writers of manifestos (such as the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights), who were worried to protect individuals against the encroachments of monarchical governments. Positive rights became significant in the 20th century when society progressively more took it on itself to provide its members with the requirements of life that they were unable to provide for themselves.

There are further rights as well.  Those most closely connected to business activity are contractual rights sometimes called special rights and duties or special obligations. These rights connect only to specific individuals, and the duties they give rise to attach only to specific individuals. Further, they arise out of specific transactions between parties and depend upon a pre-existing public system of rules. Without the establishment of contracts, modern businesses could not exist. There are four ethical rules governing contracts:

1. Both parties to a contract must have full knowledge of the nature of the agreement.

2. Neither party must intentionally misrepresent the facts.

3. The contract must not bind the parties to an immoral act.

4. Neither party must be forced to enter the contract.

Usually, a contract that violates one or more of these conditions is considered void.

One of the most powerful bases for moral rights (and therefore the ethical rules governing contracts) comes from Immanuel Kant. His principle called the categorical imperative requires that everyone must be treated as a free and equal person. It states, "I ought never to act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law." A maxim, according to Kant is the cause a person has for doing what he plans to do. Therefore, an action is morally right if the person's motive for doing it is a reason he would be willing to have every person in a similar condition act upon. For Kant:

"An action is morally right for a person in a certain situation if, and only if, the person's reason for carrying out the action is a reason that he or she would be willing to have every person act on, in any similar situation."