Do ecosystems have ethical rights?

Do potential people have moral rights?

Opposing views on animal experimentation: do animals have rights?

Animals have moral standing; that is, they have properties (including the ability to feel pain) that qualify them for the protections of morality. It follows from this that humans have moral obligations toward animals, and because rights are logically correlative to obligations, animals have rights.

Do Constitutional Rights Matter?∗

The critique of constitutions as mere parchment barriers is as old as the practice of writing them down. Yet states put a good deal of energy into drafting constitutions and some, inevitably, do so with the intention of abiding by their provisions. The purpose of the following article is to explore this possibility. I develop a theory of constitutional enforcement and test it using data spannin...

Circumcision: human rights and ethical medical practice.

• The scientific data are not sufficient to recommend neonatal circumcision of males. • The procedure is not essential to the child's well-being. • Parents should determine what is in the best interests of the child. • To make an informed choice, parents should be given accurate and unbiased information and be provided the opportunity to discuss this decision. • Existing scientific evidence dem...

Ethical Theory of Utilitarianism and Human Rights Development

Background: Utilitarianism is a school whose founders have justified it by emphasizing consequentialism as a public interest. The school of utilitarianism is a moral and naturalistic school that justifies principles such as justice and individual and collective freedoms. For utilitarian, one cannot rely solely on individual interests and neglect the collective interest or group interest. Human ...