A Revision on Waldron’s Autonomy Defense of Moral Rights

The argument I defend in this paper challenges whether Waldron’s explanation of the conditions required for a moral right to satisfy its autonomy-promoting function is the best one available. It questions the suitability of Waldron’s preferred taxonomy of moral action, where acts are divided into: (1) those that are morally required; (2) those that are morally prohibited; and (3) those that are morally indifferent, advocating instead for a binary classification consisting of: (a) actions that admit of reasonable moral disagreement; and (b) actions that do not admit of reasonable moral disagreement. My claim is that the protective sphere moral rights set up in organizing the moral relations among persons is applicable only to the former category—namely, actions that admit of reasonable moral disagreement. Actions that do not admit of reasonable moral disagreement will either: (b’) not normally demand a right against interference in the first place (if the action is unquestionably permissible); or (b”) fail to admit of a right against interference at all (if the action is unquestionably impermissible). This competing explanation allows us to preserve the autonomy-promoting conception of moral rights Waldron endorses while avoiding a number of its suspect implications.