Wolterstorff's Justice: Chapter 6

Chapter 6 is titled ' Locating That to Which We Have Rights'. The previous post on chapter 5 is here. This chapter 6 is a shift from the biblical trajectory that was there in the previous chapters. This brings the concept of right back to theoretical discourse. In this chapter and the following few chapters, Nick is going to argue that given this idea about right that everybody, so to speak, acknowledges, there are certain theories that cannot accommodate this concept of right. Since these theories cannot accommodate this concept of right, we have to discard these theories. (Nick does not really put it like this though!) 

We all  have certain sorts of right -- not necessarily legal right. Sonya has a right not to be captured with a hidden camera while she takes bath. Sunny has a right to his son not being run over by a speeding bus while going to school. If Sonya is spied on, her right is violated even if the one who spied on her keeps the picture all to himself and no one else, including Sonya, never comes to know about this. If Sunny's son is run over by a speeding son, his right is violated. This right is a condition and/or event in a person's life; it's a life-good of a person. Moreover, even on her funeral day, Kim has a right not be demeaned for what she did not do. This means to say that even a dead person possesses certain sort of right. Can we also say that future generation -- not yet born now -- have a right to clean air, such that cutting down all the trees now would amount to violating the right of the future generation? Anyway, the point is that there are certain sort of rights a person can claim for his life and history (something that happens even after her death); the sort of right that will contribute to her well-being.

There are three concepts of a good life, says Nick. First, experientially satisfying life (hedonistic kind of life).  Second, Happy life... the eudaimon life (of Aristotelian kind). Third, flourishing life. Nick argues that an experientially satisfying life cannot serve as a framework for the kind of right we possess. Meaning, an experientially satisfying life kind of a concept of life cannot account for the different kinds of rights that a human possesses. Suppose, someone speaks ill of you behind your back, and you never get to know about it nor does that alter your condition of life at all; you remain experientially satisfied as you have been without this particular episode. Or suppose, someone accuses you of having siphoned of a huge sum of money ten years after your death just to malign your reputation. On both these counts, your experientifally satisfying life is not harmed at all. Yet, on both the counts, your right is being violated. Thus, an experientially satisfying life as a theory for a good life cannot really take into account the kinds of rights an individual possesses. We have to search an alternative theory for a good life that can take into account  the right that an individual possesses.