Should We Have Rights to Do Wrong?

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the freedom over such morally saturated problems and features of life, or more generally, it is a condition for an autonomous life. Therefore, an individual’s right to make morally responsive decisions, even wrongful ones, which are frequently among the decisions that mean most for self-formation, is key to any valuable and meaningful autonomous self-constitution.

Further argument for reasoning bipolar individual choice and explaining right to do wrong subsistence lies in the Jeremy Waldron‘s reflections on moral rights in the work “A right to do wrong”. First, J. Waldron argues that in the situation of absence of a right to do wrong, rights would only secure choice between morally permissible options which would result in rights protecting only morally permissible choices. This would result in individuals having no morally protected freedoms of choice in matters in reference to morality and this could be highly harmful for own self-improvement in the sense that sometimes committing wrong acts serve moral autonomy when agents learn from their mistakes. Moreover, if individual would not have a moral right to do something which is morally wrong, a universal liberty of choice would only remain where the possible options do not involve morality. In these conditions it is likely that the situation, when no choice overall could hamper moral imperatives, would appear. The worry is that considering the unique significance and centrality moral issues play in people’s lives, personal autonomy cannot flourish where people lack any freedom of choice in such matters. Second, Waldron gives a conjunction of two logical propositions , which can be described as follows: the moral right to do acts that are wrong, and if having a moral right implies that interference with its exercise is morally wrong, then because that interference is itself morally wrong, that interference would be protected under the general moral right to do wrong. The summarizing notion refered by Waldron is that “the wrongness of an act does not by itself entail the moral permissibility of interfering” . His argument can be aligned and complemented with previously claimed reasons why a right to do what it is wrong is conceptually and normatively valid.

All things considered, human beings are moral agents, thus, there will always be cases of rights that result in wrongs, just as there are moral wrongs without corresponding rights. However, a reason for a right to do wrong is not a reason to do wrong but rather a reason for having a protected choice to do wrong. This protected choice is undeniably core in order to fulfill liberal rights. The protection of this choice comes from the claim right that one can have a right that others not interfere with one‘s behavior even if it includes doing things that are wrong. Similarly, Waldron’s position suggests that normatively the mere fact that one is taken part in wrongdoing does not certainly allow others to interfere with one’s actions. Furthermore, this choice is essential in the awareness of the idea of personal autonomy, behind which people are able to make their own lives by have sufficient ability to choose between self-constituting alternatives. And if there only would be right to do right, this choice would lose its merits because individuals would be left with the morally dominating option, effectively leaving individuals no choice at all.

Therefore, moral rights do not consist of only what is morally right and we should have rights to do wrong to the extent that they do not cause violations of other people’s rights.