Ethics

Ethics Study Guide The theory of procedural justice is controversial, with a variety of views about what makes a procedure fair. These views tend to fall into three main categories: 1. The outcomes model regards the process as fair if the procedure produces correct outcomes. 2. The balancing model believes a fair procedure is one that reflects a fair balance between the costs of the procedure and the benefits that it produces. 3. The participation model contends a fair procedure is one that affords those who are affected an opportunity to participate in the making of the decision. 7.3 Rights Rights have their origin in secular societal law and are fundamentally limited. Obligations derive from sacred, ethical, and moral codes that are universal to humanity. They are connected through the correlativity thesis. The correlativity thesis : The strong version of this concept says that rights entail obligations and obligations entail rights. A weaker view claims that rights entail obligations but obligations do not necessarily entail rights. Rights are classified as positive or negative and are generally exercised by the negation of action. Posi ive right obligate others to act with respect to the right holder. Examples include the right to counsel, the right to police protection of person and property, the right to public education, as well as rights to food, housing, employment, Social Security, and health care. Negative rights forbid others from acting against the right holder. Examples include freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from slavery, the right to a fair trial, and the right to private property. Natural rights (also called moral rights or inalienable rights) are basic rights that are not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of society and that no government can deny. Unlike legal rights that are culturally and politically relative, natural rights are universal. The modern idea of natural rights grew out of the doctrines of natural law. John Locke theorized that individuals have natural rights, such as life, liberty, and property, which are independent of government and society. Locke was influential in the development of liberalism, which is the belief that political institutions are justified only if they promote human liberty. Conventional rights are rights that require human agreement. Since legal rights are created through human agreement, legal rights are an example of conventional rights. Legal rights are simply rights obtained by being covered by a particular legal system. All legal rights are conventional, but not all conventional rights are legal. Absolute rights were theorized by Nozick. They are not merely prima facie rights that might be overridden, but boundaries not to be crossed without the free consent of the person whose rights ©2018 Achieve Page 53 of 116