#Deceptive Simplicity#

At their most basic, negative rights are described as 'do not do bad things to me', while positive rights are described as 'please do good things for me'. That simplicity breaks down once we notice the ambiguity of the word 'rights' in these comparisons . . .

#Elephant in the Room: Rights-as-Ideals vs. Rights-as-Implemented#

Of the many ways in which people differ in their views on rights, perhaps one of the most influential one is about whether or not Natural Rights (Rights-as-Ideals) are a real thing, or whether all rights are merely things we decide to make up and only their implementations matter. This is very much related to the difference between moral realist views and moral nihilist views.

If one doesn't believe in natural rights, one needs to only consider implementation of whatever rights one deems desirable. If one does believe in natural rights, sooner or later one still will have to answer the question, 'So if this is the Right Way For Things to Be, then what do we actually do to achieve the right state of affairs?' and hopefully put one's effort where one's mouth is.

#So You Wanna Implement Rights#

Here we get to the issue that protecting even negative rights doesn't happen all by itself. If one has a right to property, one is still unlikely to be able to protect one's property against a sufficiently bigger group of robbers. So protecting such rights still requires collective effort, and collective actions often benefit significantly from specialisation, which in turn raises the question of financing such protective work. There are incentives to, after reaching some scale of a community, treat the implementation of the protection of such a negative right as a positive right ('you are granted community protection').

Communities tend to have dim views of inefficiencies of patchwork jurisdictions, and of the losses to freebooters, so financing of such positive rights tends to stop being opt-in, and becomes mandatory for anyone who directly or indirectly benefits by being in a given community's turf. This of course may interfere with certain negative rights (depending on one's views of what negative rights exist and are currently applicable).

The above is just one, and rather simplified, example. Hopefully it does demonstrate how negative and positive rights interact 'in the wild' and become intertwined in societies, and how different views on which (if any) rights are real as a thing in itself can influence the interaction.

Deceptive Simplicity

At their most basic, negative rights are described as 'do not do bad things to me', while positive rights are described as 'please do good things for me'. That simplicity breaks down once we notice the ambiguity of the word 'rights' in these comparisons . . .

Elephant in the Room: Rights-as-Ideals vs. Rights-as-Implemented

Of the many ways in which people differ in their views on rights, perhaps one of the most influential one is about whether or not Natural Rights (Rights-as-Ideals) are a real thing, or whether all rights are merely things we decide to make up and only their implementations matter. This is very much related to the difference between moral realist views and moral nihilist views.

If one doesn't believe in natural rights, one needs to only consider implementation of whatever rights one deems desirable. If one does believe in natural rights, sooner or later one still will have to answer the question, 'So if this is the Right Way For Things to Be, then what do we actually do to achieve the right state of affairs?' and hopefully put one's effort where one's mouth is.

So You Wanna Implement Rights

Here we get to the issue that protecting even negative rights doesn't happen all by itself. If one has a right to property, one is still unlikely to be able to protect one's property against a sufficiently bigger group of robbers. So protecting such rights still requires collective effort, and collective actions often benefit significantly from specialisation, which in turn raises the question of financing such protective work. There are incentives to, after reaching some scale of a community, treat the implementation of the protection of such a negative right as a positive right ('you are granted community protection').

Communities tend to have dim views of inefficiencies of patchwork jurisdictions, and of the losses to freebooters, so financing of such positive rights tends to stop being opt-in, and becomes mandatory for anyone who directly or indirectly benefits by being in a given community's turf. This of course may interfere with certain negative rights (depending on one's views of what negative rights exist and are currently applicable).

The above is just one, and rather simplified, example. Hopefully it does demonstrate how negative and positive rights interact 'in the wild' and become intertwined in societies, and how different views on which (if any) rights are real as a thing in itself can influence the interaction.