Are Natural Rights Inviolable?

All are invited to join Zephyr for this evening salon with Prof. Jared Warren (Stanford, Philosophy) about the puzzling relation between natural rights and risk—a puzzle with potential implications both for theoretical justifications of the state as protector of our natural rights and for how we should evaluate real-world, controversial moral situations.

Dinner will be provided to all attendees.

Abstract

Natural rights are moral boundaries. According to traditional natural rights theories, boundary crossing behavior is never permitted. However, at least since Robert Nozick's influential discussion in 1974's Anarchy, State, and Utopia, it has been recognized that the natural rights tradition might have a problem handling risky actions. If you engage in actions that risk crossing my boundaries, I sometimes seem justified in interfering in order to shield myself from those risks. However, my interference itself crosses your boundaries, and does so before any actual harm has been done. Do our rights protect us against being exposed to risks? Can risky actions be prohibited without additional rights violations? I will discuss these and related questions, with a special focus on Nozick's attempt to square rights and risk in a way that justifies a minimal, night watchman state, but without justifying a more robust state. I will also discuss how this theoretical issue is relevant for evaluating real life situations and cases, such as the Daniel Penny case.

About the speaker

Jared Warren is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University. He has published on a wide variety of topics, including two books: Shadows of Syntax, a defense of an inferentialist and conventionalist account of logic and mathematics, and The A Priori Without Magic, in defense of a real but limited role for a priori knowledge. More information about his work can be found on his website.