Defending the Right To Do Wrong

Law and Philosophy 31 (3):343-365 (2012)
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Abstract

Are there moral rights to do moral wrong? A right to do wrong is a right that others not interfere with the right-holder’s wrongdoing. It is a right against enforcement of duty, that is a right that others not interfere with one’s violation of one’s own obligations. The strongest reason for moral rights to do moral wrong is grounded in the value of personal autonomy. Having a measure of protected choice (that is a right) to do wrong is a condition for an autonomous life and for autonomous moral self-constitution. This view has its critics. Responding to these objections reveals that none refute the coherence of the concept of a ‘moral right to do moral wrong’. At most, some objections successfully challenge the weight and frequency of the personal autonomy reasons for such rights. Autonomy-based moral rights to do moral wrong are therefore conceptually possible as well as, at least on occasion, actual

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Ori Herstein
King's College London

Citations of this work

From rights to prerogatives.Daniel Muñoz - 2020 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 102 (3):608-623.
Rights.Leif Wenar - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Revisiting the Right to Do Wrong.Renee Jorgensen Bolinger - 2017 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 95 (1):43-57.
Transcending the Means Principle.Alec Walen - 2014 - Law and Philosophy 33 (4):427-464.

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References found in this work

A right to do wrong.Jeremy Waldron - 1981 - Ethics 92 (1):21-39.
Theories of rights.Alon Harel - 2004 - In Martin P. Golding & William A. Edmundson (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Law and Legal Theory. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 191–206.
The right to do wrong.Gerhard Øverland - 2007 - Law and Philosophy 26 (4):377-404.

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