The principle of legal paternalism justifies state coercion to protect individuals from self-inflicted harm, or in its extreme version, to guide them, whether they like it or not, toward their own good. Parents can be expected to justify their interference in the lives of their children on the ground that “daddy knows best.” legal paternalism seems to imply that since the state often can know the interests of individual citizens better than the citizens know them themselves, it stands as a (...) permanent guardian of those interests in loco parentis. Put in this blunt way, paternalism seems a preposterous doctrine. If adults are treated as children they will come in time to be like children. Deprived of the right to choose for themselves, they will soon lose the power of rational judgment and decision. Even children, after a certain point, had better not be “treated as children,” else they will never acquire the outlook and capability of responsible adults. (shrink)

Winner of the 1975 National Book Award, this brilliant and widely acclaimed book is a powerful philosophical challenge to the most widely held political and social positions of our age--liberal, socialist, and conservative.

There is a growing literature that attempts to define the substantive rights of employees in the workplace, a.k.a. the duties of employers toward their employees. Following Nozick, this article argues that — so long as there is a competitive labor market — to set up a class of moral rights in the workplace invades workers' rights to freely choose the terms and conditions of employment they judge best.

The central purpose of the paper is to elucidate the inalienable rights thesis, I.E. That there is at least one inalienable right. Various senses of 'natural right' and 'inalienable' are analyzed so as to further clarify what is or could be the meaning and the truth of that thesis. A widespread confusion between the meaning of the terms 'inalienable natural right' and 'indefeasible natural right' is dispelled. It is concluded that present thinking about inalienable natural rights does not reveal precisely (...) why and in what sense there is such a right. A successful defense of the inalienable rights thesis is suggested. (shrink)

Recent trends in business ethics along with growing attacks upon unions, suggest that employee rights will be a major social concern for business managers during the next decade. However, in most of the discussions of employee rights to date, the very meaning and legitimacy of such rights are often uncritically taken for granted. In this paper, we develop an account of employee rights and defend this conception against what we take to be the strongest in-principle objections to it.

In the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights a quite large number of things are said to be ‘human rights’ and though in that Declaration the term ‘inalienable’ is not used to describe the rights in question it has been so used by commentators—at least with respect to some of the rights enumerated. I shall forgo asking the prior question as to whether any such thing as a human right exists and ask simply whether any such thing as an (...) inalienable right exists. My intention will be to show that it does not. (shrink)