1. MIT271 Technology & Human Values March 14: Rights

2. Natural Rights  Either:  God-given  Self-evident moral truths (based on human purposes)  John Locke (1632- 1704)

3. Human rights  Human status, independent of laws or institutions  Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)

4. Robert McGinn: Troubling Triad 1. Technological maximality (TM) = df Quality of embodying in one of more of its aspects or dimension the greatest scale or highest degree previously attained or currently possible e.g.? 2. Individual rights (entitlements) e.g. life, liberty, property, procreative rights 3. Increasing numbers of rights-holders (?)

5. Situations of Technological Maximality  INDIVIDUAL  AGGREGATIVE:  Simple (individually innocuous)  Compound

6. Individual strength in the triad  Technological Maximality:  Profit  Faith in “technological fix”  Prestige  Gauge of progress  Confusion of quantity and quality  View of nature as homogenous  Democratic consumer culture  Traditional Rights:  Language obscures dependence on prevailing social conditions, and provides “intellectual inertia”  Increasing Numbers

7. Self-reinforcements in the triad  Reproductive “rights”  TM allows traditional negative rights to be viewed as positive rights

8. Remedies?  Limit rights holders  Require limiting traditional rights, e.g. mobility, reproduction  Limit TM  Require a conditional conception of rights  (implicit: limiting human rights = changing human rights)

9. Contextualized Theory of Human Rights  Empirically determinable basis of human needs to survive and thrive  Still functions as a focus to remedy neglect and inequality

10. Grounds for infringing rights 1. Survival of society 2. Effective social functioning 3. Natural resources vital to society 4. Debilitating financial cost to a society 5. Significant cultural, historical, spiritual or aesthetic value to a people 6. Highly valued social amenity

11. Compare to Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons”  Similar problem?  Similar solution?