Ronald Dworkin: Taking Rights Seriously

What I expect to learn: To know what are the importance of rights to us.

                                                To know ,if all rights are moral.

                                                To be able to know what is the perspective of Dwarkin

Quote: “The institution of rights against the Government is not a gift of God or an ancient ritual or a national sport.”

 Review:

                According to Ronald Dworkin, a professor in Oxford University and authors of different works such as the “A bill of Rights for Britain”, if you have the right to pursue something then it is wrong when someone hinders you to pursue that thing. For example, in a democracy country, government should not obstruct the rights of the people. For Dworkin, it is wrong to interfere somebody’s rights. In the reading, Dworkin discussed about legal rights and moral rights. In my opinion, legal rights is just a rights imposed by the government. We can say that a legal right is a moral right if it is good on your perspectives and others’ perspectives.  For example, in your culture you have the right to share your opinions, reactions and comments to the noble ones and if you and other people think that it is a good perspective then you can do it.  We can also say that a legal right is not a moral right if it is good on the perspectives of the ruler or the government. For example, in your country has declared the martial law and you do not have the right to speak to the public and only those officials have the right to speak up, then it is a legal right because it is imposed and it is the order of the government. Dworkin also formulates two different models to define the rights of citizens: if the government infringes on a moral right and if the government inflates a right.

What I’ve learned:

I’ve learned the difference with legal and moral rights.

I was able to formulate examples legal rights that are moral and moral rights that are legal.

I was able to know the perspective of Dworkin regarding rights of human.

Integrative questions:

What are moral and legal rights?

Give examples each.

What are the works of Dworkin?

What is his perspective based on the reading?