There was a time when smoking was still tolerated in
congested areas, but the concerns over it began to cause policies among private
businesses and public spaces to change. Most
enclosed areas, public and private, are smoke free zones today. But before this became the norm, you could
find smokers, puffing away, in any sort of business. One private business was the airlines. In the transitory period between no
restrictions and total restrictions, airlines had designated rows on their
planes allowing passengers to smoke and rows where they were not allowed to
smoke. Richard C. Spinoli[1] uses
this example to illustrate a second incidence in which some accuse natural
rights defined rights (what he calls liberal rights) creating selfish scenarios
which are harmful to the community. As
with the “rights illusion,” of which I wrote about in the last posting, this
purported possibility is cited as causing or enabling less than admirable social
conditions. Let me illustrate.
The scenario goes like this:
suppose a person books a seat on a flight that is one seat short of
being filled. He buys the ticket and
boards the plane to find that all the smoke free seats are taken. Since he has the “right” to a smoke-free
seat, he demands it. The only option for
the airline is to order another plane in which our passenger will be the only
one flying along with a crew. That is,
since the person has a right to x, a non-smoking seat, he demands x. If the right did not “exist,” then the person
would have sat there inhaling the unwanted smoke. I agree that the example is ludicrous. Worse comes to worst, the airline would buy
the seat back, perhaps at a premium to the passenger. But I am sure not even that solution would be
necessary. Spinoli reviews other
alternatives, such as seeing if another passenger from the smoke free seats
would be willing to change seats with our disgruntled passenger. Such options are short-circuited due to our
passenger insisting his rights be respected and, therefore, he demands a non-smoking
seat be assigned, as opposed to exchanged, to him. Since the airlines have so many options that
would avoid such a scenario, I can’t take this example seriously. For one, the ticketing agent ascertains
whether the perspective passenger is a smoking passenger or not and indicates
how many seats in each category are available.
Of course, eventually the airlines instituted a no smoking policy for
all seats – problem solved. But this
general tendency still remains – or at least in the argument presented by
Spinoli – since a person has a right, he/she will insist on it even if by doing
so, others are negatively affected.
Of course, any such right can’t interfere with others’ ability
to pursue their rights. In those cases,
the right does not exist. The old adage goes: your right to swing your arm ends where my
nose begins. An obvious example would be
that you don’t have the right to steal someone’s property; to do so would
interfere with that person’s right to own and enjoy his property. But one can imagine legitimate cases when a
right of one person, when exercised in a given situation, could make the
quality of someone else’s condition less agreeable. Does the natural rights view of rights and
community encourage such situations?
Here is another case. You are at
a movie theater and a few seats over, someone begins using his/her smart
phone. The light is distracting. The person has a right to use it and decides
to exercise that right. You have a right
to see the movie in a reasonable environment:
no unnecessary noises, a relatively dark theater, acceptable volume
level emanating from the speakers,[2] and so
on. In some large metropolitan areas,
apparently this business with cell phones is still an issue even though movie
theaters by and large have policies prohibiting the use of them during the
showing of the featured film. Here I
disagree with Spinoli, I believe that living in the era of natural rights,
there is a higher incidence of such disregard for the reasonable accommodations
of fellow citizens. The natural rights
perspective encourages a “I have a right, and by God, I’ll do it” whatever “it”
is and damn the consequences. I have
seen an increased level of such incivility during my lifetime – if it gets bad
enough, death might seem appealing.
Here’s another bone of contention: whether or not states should have helmet laws
for motorcycle riders. Such laws are
uncommon in our land of the free; i.e., a positive law, one that tells you to
do something. In this case, we have an
important difference. Those who are
negatively affected by the lack of such a law – that is, those not directly
injured in some accident – are all of us who end up paying higher medical costs
due to the treatment of uninsured cyclists who don’t wear helmets or other
negative consequences due to higher incidents of brain damage. On the other hand, those deprived of the
right to go helmet-less are consciously affected by any law that mandates their
use. Would all this be alleviated if
there were a more communal disposition among the citizenry? Once cognizant of what is at stake, more
people would readily, if not gladly, relinquish the right to have the breeze going
through their hair and accept that the common good is enhanced by such a law. That kind of reaction, for the most part, has
been the case with mandating the use of seat belts in cars; I don’t hear much
complaining over that requirement.
I would point out, though, that since I can readily list a
few positive laws, it reflects the notion that we don’t have too many of
them. Yes, we have to file our income
tax forms – a source of discord among so many, even though income tax allows us
to have a more progressive tax code than would otherwise be possible. But for the most part, the government through
its laws enacts negative laws – laws that tell us what we can’t do. Our liberal strain can be thanked for
that. But it can also be held
responsible for a lot of our limited sense of communal responsibilities and a good
deal of our incivility. Oh, by the way,
please turn off your cell phones at the theater; I, for one, appreciate it.
