Much discussion and argument here has revolved around rights, mostly by people with varying definitions.
If you use the term “rights,” what is your exact definition?
Also, why is it a useful definition, or why do you think it’s useful to define “rights” as a concept in the first place?
An entitlement, a claim a legal system enforces on your behalf.
That’s the definition of the legal positivists. It has nothing to do with the libertarian conception of rights.
This is what he asked.
No it is not. By the way, saying that rights are entitlements is circular nonsense.
Which is no surprise since legal positivism itself is circular nonsense ultimately resting on might-makes-right.
Rights are rules which reside naturally in the heart of man concerning what should not be done with regard to individuals.
In the political arena, a “right” is euphemism for a “privilege”.
The fact that some people use “right” as a newspeak term doesn’t mean it is a newspeak term. People in the political arena also use the word “freedom” …
Not even a semblence of agreement so far?
Nope, as legal theories are not unified, much like most of the other social sciences.
A political spectrum:
Negative rights
If I take your stuff, I’m invoking that I have more rights than you. That you do not have the right to the stuff but that I do. Negative rights rejects this. It is egalitarian regarding actions. If something is bad for one (to do), it is bad for all.
Positive rights
I have a right to something. Society owes me. This implies that there is a right to supply this, and also a right to take from others to supply this. Implied is also that it is the state that can take and supply this. If everybody has a right to things and has the right to decide what, and has the right to take it, then you’re at pure chaos and might makes right. Suggesting universality to people who believe in positive rights, namely that if it’s good to coercively provide X then it should be good for anyone to coercively provide X, is usually quickly rejected. They don’t reject the proposition that it’s good to coercively provide X but that it should be good for anyone. So they believe in public law different from private law. If I steal from my neighbor and give it to my parents it’s theft. If a police man steals from my neighbor and gives it to my parents then it’s social welfare.
A right is sphere of autonomy, which one is justified in defending with force.
A right is any action that does not infringe on the liberties of others. For instance, my religion (or in my case, lack thereof) does not infringe on anyone else’s freedom.
Roderick Long defines a right as a legitimately enforceable claim.
See his excellent discussion in “Abortion, Abandonment, and Positive Rights.”