Ok, gotcha. That makes sense and I'd generally agree. What I mean most of the time when I say right, and what I think most people mean, is that people being allowed to get/pursue the thing in question is good and that interfering with their ability to get or pursue that thing is bad. This is what I meant when I said people should probably have the right to experience sexual pleasure as long as they aren't hurting anyone. Maybe this definition is so general as to not be useful, but it seems like this is what people mean when they talk about "rights". I dont believe in positive rights, because they obligate me (or someone) to provide the right I probably wouldn't either. For instance, I would say that people have a right to having a place to live (using the definition of right I laid out above), but I wouldn't say that I am morally obligated to let a homeless person live in my house. I see how this lack of obligation kind of makes the right meaningless, though, as you said. Also, it wasnt the right to enjoy sexual pleasure , it was the right to enjoy sensual pleasure ( which includes sex) Oh, ok. I definitely wouldn't say a child has a right to something as general as "sensual pleasure" in all cases or that a parent preventing a child from experiencing sensual pleasure is necessarily doing something morally wrong. I can think of plenty of situations, including the cake example, where a parent denying a child the ability/opportunity to partake in a sensual pleasure would ultimately be good for a child's well-being. |