Essay Database

In “The Nature and Value of Rights,” Joel Feinberg begins by creating an imaginary town, Nowheresville, in which none of its inhabitants have any rights. They can be as moral, righteous and caring as we feel like imagining, but they have no rights and do not respect the rights of others because they do not exist. However, duties are allowed into our imaginary world. Their duties are not to individuals, though, since this would indicate …

…where everything you have is due to your hard work. Anything beyond that is given to you because you exceeded the norm of performance or because of someone else’s extreme charity. People are nice to you not because they feel like you deserve it, but because they know it is the right thing to do or because they do not want to sin against God. I would love to live in Nowheresville. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**