Ronald Dworkin: Taking Rights Seriously

Tenth topic:

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 moral right is not a legal right if it is not 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 not 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.

Full reading here