Analyses of Rights

Bentham's discussion of human rights as anarchical fallacies occurs in the form of a critique of Article II of the Declaration of the Rights of Man promulgated by the leadership of the French Revolution in 1789. The rights of the individual citizen are asserted against the government, to the degree it should be the government's purpose to protect individual rights. One might compare this with the American Bill of Rights, which tends to emphasize, not what society may do, but what the government may not do (e.g., "Congress shall make no law . . ."). But Bentham's view is that the rights of the society as a whole are superior to those of the individual, which ought to be institutionalized in the state. This is a restatement of the utilitarian view that the aim of civil society should be the greatest good for the greatest number.

This argues that society as such has a claim against the "selfish and dissocial passions" of the individual" (Bentham 29). Indeed, Bentham continues, "Society is held together only by the sacrifices that men can be induced to make of the gratifications they demand: to obtain these sacrifices is the great difficulty, the great task of government" (Bentham 29). To the degree the government is t

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tion of utilitarianism is reformist, and although reform as such seems consistent with the principles of both the American and French revolutions, in this essay Bentham deplores the concept of the contract among free men as the foundation of government institutions, and he does not appear to trust the people to make such a contract. Instead, he insists on the duty of the individual to the whole of society. Austin's view of rights is that they must be balanced by duty, and the balance that he strikes essentially offers a moral rationale for the exercise of civic responsibility. To the degree any right is conferred, it carries with it responsibility and obligation: "there are no laws merely creating rights" (Austin 29). This argues a confluence of moderation and reason in the individual's experience of freedom, a prospect that in its pure expression Bentham finds intolerable and an impossible contradiction. Austin's focus is on the responsibility that conferred rights confer on the holder of those rights: "But every law, really conferring a right, imposes expressly or tacitly a relative duty, or a duty correlating with the right. . . . Every law, really conferring a right, is, therefore, imperative: as imperative, as if its only pu
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Approximate Word count = 1424
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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