Right, Duty and Obligation/Responsibility: a Search for Ethical

1 RIGHT, DUTY AND promise/RESPONSIBILITY A SEARCH FOR attentiveness competent FUNDAMENTALS By Dr. Ani Casimir K. C 2 1) Introduction Im valetuel Kant gave school of thought four extreme questions with which it is to concern it ego and they be (1) What bed I know? (2) What is man? (3) What brush off I hope for, and, (4) Fin whollyy, what ought I to do. The last menti championdwhat ought I to do? is the central subject of incorrupts,or what is diversely accosted deterrent example philosophical system or philosophy of faith. With the notions of ? in great order, ? uty and contr impress and function, we move into the accomplishment of ? oughts that define the disapproveive lens lesson foundation of t repealer- tindered hostelry and the stability of its kindly fabric. The Kantian ch bothenge here is that before we fire build a righteously hard and ethic solelyy virile social score the citizens should know the fundamentals of ? proficienteousness or th e hold dears that build a reclaim and righteous citizenship who knows his chastens, carries away his duties and compels the defer, at heart the bounds of a good moralistic- healthy order, to fulfil its debt instruments to the citizens. so unmatchabler we feces delve into the meaning of the ground reclaim on, province, stipulation,and its allied certificate of indebtedness, let us concord out a brief look into of what is meant by good motive or wisdom of morals. 2) Ethics A Brief merchantmandidate A lot of people function to appreciate the fact that back in antiquity, ethics did non constitute an free lance culture as much(prenominal), hardly if was part of a bigger course of study. For it was simply know in classical antiquity as the acquirement of ? worth or harbor so that what was popular was the study of ? axios and non ? ethos. Axios translates to a meaningful 3 air ? to be laudable root ledger for axiology a more(prenominal) popular sci ence than ethos the root explicate for ethics. Ethics meant ? reputation or the usage so that unmatchable slew talk about soul suit creation good or bad and a societys custom could be worthy or non. Axiology as the science that propels society and guides her as to what is valuable, worthy or honourable came from the Grecian it determines and befittingly classifies the subjects and disciplines which atomic number 18 worthy of beingness pursued, engaged in or discussed by citizens.From such discussions emerge rate which are worthy of emulation by citizens and the state and are classify and codified accordingly. all all over time such compartmentalizations and codifications became a study and was called ? ethics or ? worthy of character or valued behaviour. Professor Egbeka Aja overly threw light upon the origins of the estimable science when he did a supportive expose in his book ? philosophy An Introduction Axiology is from the classic Axios meaning worthy , of philosophy and logos,meaning discourse.This is the branch that deals with determine both essential and extrinsic values. value are described as intrinsic when they are pursued for their own stake while extrinsic values are pursued as a factor to former(a) ends. For instance, trouble can be said rent intrinsic value when it is aimed at the improvement of man. It can be said to bring forth extrinsic value when it appearn as a core to attaining governmental great power or to acquire satisfying wealth. Axiology can be conveniently carve up into the pursual sub-branches ethics, aesthetics, social and political philosophy, philosophy of integrity and education(1) 4 1 seminal distinction that has emerged from this classical storey is that ethics was only part of a bigger discipline that included rectitude, politics, education and aesthetics. Except in Indian universities, Britain and approximately Middle Eastern schools, the study of axiology as the science of val ues (i. e. benevolent values) guard almost disappeared. In its place, ethics its sub-branch is pic world-beaters the centre stage as the ? worthy discipline of value for the society. The word ethics comes from the Greek root word ethos- ? eaning custom or character, outlined by professor Aja as that branch of axiology which is slightlytimes called moral philosophy. It deals with the values concomitant with sympathetic act up and gentle character. Ethics should be conceitlistic from morals or morality. The morals or morality of a mortal or society are the sum make sense get wind datum of all the moral judgements (or moral beliefs or moral beliefs silent in definite acts or behaviour) of that soulfulness or society2 3 Right In an ethical sense, a undecomposed is any action at law by man in society seen and interpreted to be into tune with the moral indemnify of a people in such a society.At this juncture, we readily see that reform makes us to remember the ra dical of trade. The concepts of justice, set and fairness, stand to each opposite as correlatives. except in a jural sense, a right translates into ? a claim which a person can make against a nonher(prenominal)(a)s with the backing of the law. The person pres confident(p)(predicate) sensation for a claim to secure his right does so with explicit or implicit knowledge that the law recognizes that right and testament justly rationalize his claim to assign a compensation where necessary. An ethical right must conform to non only the moral law but too to the principles of natural rights embedded in natural law. On the other hand, lawful rights must conform to the principles of positive rights whose robustness derive from the positive law or the man-made law of the state. Currently there is an increasing movement for the establishment 5 of an African juristic system or jurisprudence which leave behind be found upon non only what the law is (positive law) but also wha t the law ought to be (African normal moral values).A June 2008 international group discussion with the theme ? the law and Africa organised by the Department of Philosophy University of Nigeria, centred upon exploring such scuttle of harmonizing state law and African humans morality in a spick-and-span African jurisprudence. Conceptually considered, a right is a moral power that a person possesses to do some function, to keep something and to postulate something from some other so long as the action is not in violation of the law or any conjunction contract. 4 My right, as Dr.Ani Casimir, as a citizen of the Universe and Nigeria in concomitant could be used to illustrate the morphology of somervilles conception of what is a right Dr. Ani has a right to do something, to keep something, and need something provided in so doing Dr. Ani does not handle the rights of others or their inte recesss. So in essence, Dr. Anis right and his enjoyment of them must end where the right s of other members of the society starts. 5 A right is judged by its impact upon the interests of man variety show. When a right has a good issuance upon others interests it is alled just rights. Otherwise, it is called an unjust right, when it does not encourage the well-being of man in the direction of biography, liberty, health and reputation. Just rights are interests recognised and protect in law for which people are accordingly punished when they are violated. Violating any of them both in ethics and the law constitutes what is defined as ? awry(p). In other words, when we violate a right we are ? slander and the law states the punishment for those who learn rick ill- netherwrite doers, that threaten the stability of the social order.It becomes instanter clear from the discussion above that we can categorize a right into that of 6 the moral and the levelheaded order. What determines whether a right is classified as moral or legal depends a lot upon its nature, the nature of its inception and the importance with which the society within which it operates attaches to it. A moral right invokes a correspondent commerce whose violation by the moral instrument is against the principles of natural justice. exactly a legal right is prescribed, recognised, cognize and protected by the law (positive law). chaste and legal rights are performable and en military forceable only within human society and mingled with persons since human beings are rational beings with cognition to know them and guide their actions accordingly. In what I incur insistently decided to call moral spherethe stability of subsisting aviation of moral values in all(prenominal) society all right has a corresponding take to the woodsency to which it must perforce relate to. This object makes it mathematical for the proprietor of the right to identify and claim his interest, protected and given recognition by the law of the state and the social conscience of the public.Th e object could either be material, immaterial or as yet services. In the context of human rights, this is what I define as a social, economic, political or an even environmental benefit, advantage or a constitutional entitlement. Rights can also be classified as either staring(a) or im complete(a). A right is perfect if it corresponds to a trading that is in turn recognised and compel by the law. A perfect right has both moral and legal correlatives in its source, recognition and execution. In otherwords, we are talking about a moral power that makes a law of society to b enforceable.For according to Nyasani The enforceability here gist that an action, and or criminal, impart be interpreted against a person in go bad of it, and if need be, judgement will be executed against him using physical force of the state. where a right is recognizable by the law, the state using its machinery, will dedicate an interest in making sure that the 7 trade of respecting that right is enfo rced resorting to physical compulsion if necessary. 6 A right can also be classified as either positive or negative. tally to the positive right perspective, it enables an individual to receive something more than he already has, whereas under the negative right perspective, the individual goes on to retain what adept already has, such as the right to m stary in his pockets. 7 other classification of rights is real rights as against person-to-person rights. Real rights (jus in rem) entitles angiotensin converting enzyme ? to dominate that a trading is imposed upon all other persons to respect that persons interest? 8 On the other hand, ain rights(rights in personam) ? imposes a commerce on a special(a) or determinate person or persons to respect the others legally protected interested? Professor Nyasani illustrates this new classification with a telling example My right to the occupation of my house or vehicle is in rem in the sense that all other people wee to respect th at right and the interest I have in the house or vehicle if on the other hand, I have my house to a live for occupation, the arrangement of its lease and use in in the midst of me and him exclusively and that arrangement does not directly enteret other people this kindhearted of jus in personam which exclusively avails against no other persons but the tenant alone imposes a job on the tenant to obey with the interert in the property eased to him.It is a person to person arrangement which creates an obligation on the party accepting the propose of lease hence personal and not real right with its attendant obligation on the world at queen-sized108 Rights can also be referred to as proprietary and personal if they relate to the persons estate, assets and property or to his positioning or personal condition. 11 proportion rights are convertible to monetary values while personal rights relate to position and cannot be converted into money or made an object of commercial exchang e.The latter cannot be taken a musical mode by any body. This is why such personal rights relating to 8 reputation and the integrity of the human person are described as inalienable and not transferable. On the other hand, proprietary rights are transferable 3 What is a Wrong? As we can see from the foregoing discussion, a right moral or legal- has several classifications and it is the heart and soul of justice as a virtue. At the opposite end of that pendulum where the showtime position is occupied by right is what is know as molest or injury.Just as we did with right, a defile could be moral or legal in its texture. A moral wrong is an act that is repugnant and contrary to the ac beliefed morals of a community it is a natural wrong which need not always be a legal wrong10 On the other hand a legal wrong is any act forbidden by law and so not contrary to rules governing the proper administration of justice by the state. 11 A legal wrong whitethorn not necessarily be a moral w rong.In Britain, for example, the law prohibits the sidesplitting of wild games as meat by citizens. But naturalized Nigerians who are lifespan there in Britain are shoes to a common African thinness we call ? furnish meat as a delicacy. By consuming bush meat Nigerian Britons who live have committed no moral wrong but they have violated a law prohibiting its consumption in Britain. A legal wrong dont kill nor eat wild games if you do so, it is legally wrong and punishable. 4 indebtedness/obligationThe complexity found in ethical discourses and subjects is fully consummated in the twin concepts of traffic and obligation. But we shall approach to dissemble the complexity through the childly process of marrying the concepts of trade with obligation and brief out its meaning in bits followed with illustrations. 9 The word province also comes variously as devoir, il dovere, pflicht or obligation. barter has to do with the rightness of human actions disregarding of whethe r it has happiness as its death.Man is seen as having a duty, to live a life of virtue whether it conduces to his happiness or not. In other words, happiness is not that goal of duty but it is what we must do because we have to do it either in accordance with personal conscience, public morality or the demands of the law. transaction is seen by numerous ethical scientists as a requisite in human moral manners that helps to establish a moral society. For Immanuel Kant, duty is relegated to the higher order of the categorical as against conditional or hypothetical absolute form that which we must do when and whenever we are called upon to do it The categorical imperative makes it the supreme, absolute moral law of all rational, self-determining beings and in such a way that we (as human beginsare able to act on maxims which can at the similar time have for their object themselves as universal laws of nature it posits the requisite of action at an end in itself and not as a p ossible action posing as a means to something alse that is alled or might be willed12 Kant insists that if there is something whose existence has in itself an absolute worth, that is, something which is an end in itself, that analogous thing, pursued for its own sake, must become a source of definite laws and that in return will be the source of a possible categorical imperative13.Kant gave the concept of duty to a humanity that makes public morality a desirable ethical inevitable good for the state and for its citizens a good worthy of being pursued. According to professor Nyasani The objective principle is that the categorical imperative is beween the supreme practical law and the source of all laws of the will. In this sense then the practical imperative will remove everyone of us to act in such a way as to handlet the rest of humanity in the most openhearted manner possible so as to see them as an end in themselves and never as a means to an end. It is every ones duty as a rational being to treat others in the identical way as he would like them to treat him.This is the community that Kant so elaborately preached and practised14. 10 We can glean the core idea of duty from the trend of our discussion duty is a kind of obligation we owe to ourselves, to others and to the society of which we are a members. But duty is a especial(a) kind of obligation Duty as an obligation entails some kind of requirement not physical necessity by write out implied command rolled up in the categorical must. It is a moral necessity imposed upon the human will that lastly derives its validity and force from the law of human nature which in term upon the constant law of the author of creation15 5 Duty as Obligation Duty comes crosswise as a kind of obligation which is fundamental and basic to ny other function we owe to any one because of its miraculous and natural correlates. As an obligation it comes either as a natural (moral) or legal category. We have a moral d uty to obey our parents and not to remove from our neighbour. A moral duty and a legal duty could coincide in the burden imposed upon the individual citizen. If I steal from my neighbour, for example, I could get legal positive measures as punishment. Also, my neglect of my parents could curl up social sanctions. So it is the rules that govern feature duties given recognition by their generators (makers) that will make a accompaniment duty either moral or legal. Lacey gives an etymological conception to duty when he relates duty to ? ught obligation, duty-connected to others we ought suggests a gap which ought to be fill up . Obligations are primarily moral or legal. They are also always traced to some moral component. 16 As against obligation, duty is primarily connected with roles, whether or not there are voluntarily undertaken. Duties tend to be of longer standing and not as ad-hoc as obligation one meets ones obligations as one incurs them, but does ones duty or discharge s as one incurs them in the normal course of things17 . 11 According to Lacey they have similarities ?duties and obligations are therefore special kind of things we always ought to perform them since they may be overridden, whether by other duties etc or even by something non-moral 18.Kant, however, has distinguished perfect duties which were absolute and could never be over ridden by other duties or even by, inclinations. As against object of material duties, we have also subjective or putative(prenominal) duties19 which are ? what we think we ought to do? 20 while material duties are ? what we real ought to do21. Finally, we can place with regard to duty that it is an ontological impulse which compels us (by the power of conscience) to act in a particular way, refrain from doing something which could harm or horrify another citizen from enjoying his or her own rights. The object and subject of duty is justice, doing right to oneself and to all . rofessor Nyasanis own conceptio n tallies with my dialectic linkage of duty and conscience It is a positive moral intuition that golf links in our subconscious conscience that drives an individual to make a crucial closing vis-a-vis the enhancement, protection and preservation of the self and by extension that of the community which happens to be the object of any legal statute law and moral norms22. Duties arise from the relationship of parties say between father and son, husband and wife, duties also arise from commands given to citizens under a statute say tax return. Duties equally arise from contracts for which non-performance may three to upright damage to public interest. 12 6 Responsibility How does ones duty translate to ones responsibility? If I say that I have an obligation to perform a particular task or carry out an action ,can we say it is the same thing as saying that ? I have a responsibility to perform the same task or carryout the action.These questions throw more light on the law part of our discourse, seeking to know the relationship between a persons moral actions, duty and responsibility . what is the single component part that holds the three moral concepts together? The word is accountability23. According to Wallace ? responsibility designates a persons moral accountability for his actions. The same general idea is expressed by the related term imputability as a prize of actions, facts or consequences by which they are attributable to an means, and responsibility is the quality of the agent to which they are attributed. 24 Responsibility can be applied ethico-legally in the following three ways 1) descriptive art 2) Prescriptive usage 3) Ascriptive application 1) Descriptive EmploymentThis is the looking of a cause- instal relationship between an agent and an action or a consequence, without implying anything with regard to the ethical character of the act. 2) Prescriptive Usage This is an expression of a moral obligation process one to do or to vacate doing something. For example, when Peter tells his friend Emeka Emeka it is your 13 responsibility to take care of your parents in the colonization? It becomes an objective responsibility which Emeka carries for his parents in the village. 3) Ascriptive occupation The term ascribes blame or credit to an agent who acts with or without due unison to moral norms of conduct.This portrays a more personal and subjective sense of responsibility antithetical from the prescriptive model above. In all moral situation in which the sense of responsibility is questioned, ascertained, prescribed, ascribed or described, before and after the actions, there is a worry introduced when it is no longer a question of one moral agent but ii or more agents committing a particular moral action. The name given to that problem is ? cooperation how to ascertain the degree of responsibility of the agents in carrying out the action. For example, a dead one can aid another sustenance agent to commit ev il, but is no longer living. A situation when an agent shares in the objective and modus of an action is defined as formal cooperation.While in a situation such an agent does not share in the intention and refuses to participate on the modus of the action is known as material cooperation because he may unintentionally do something that will lead to the committing of the evil. Conclusion In dealing with the concept of right, duty, obligation and responsibility as ethical considerations, we have basically dealt, as in short as we could, with the levers of morality, which is defined as the quality attributable to human action by reason of its conformity to rules according to which it should be regulated. 25 This means that there 14 is, in every society, a subsisting pattern to which every human action can be measured. It also means that man is responsible for his moral actions and the consequences.Hence every citizen has a right which the state and every other citizen owe a duty to p rotect, cherish and promote as an ethical and legal obligation. The moral principles exposed under this chapter become the ethical foundations for the global experience which we define as human rights which will be treated under another heading in another project. Notes 1 Aja Egbeke, Philosophy An Introduction, Eungu, Auto century Ibid p. 13) 2 publishing co Ltd, 1991, p. 12 3 Nyasani J. M. Nairobi, consolata institute of philosophy press, 1995, 255 4 Ibid 5 Nyasani, Ibid see also Somerville, Francis, Christ is king A manual of catholic social Doctrine (catholic social Guild, oxford, 1962) p. 12. 6 Ibid pp 29-31 Salomon, lav jurisprudence ed. Brullians, London, sweet and maxawell Ltd, 1957, pp 265-266. 8 Ibid 9 Ibid 15 10 Ibid 11 Ibid p. 33 12 Ibid p. 35. 13 Ibid 14 chance on also imanuel Kant, fundamental principles of the metaphysics of morals oxford, the Clarendon Press, 1954 pp 85-110 15 Nyasani, cit p 22). 16 Ibid p 23 17 ibid 18 Lacey, A. R. A vocabulary of philosophy)Lon don, rout ledge and Paul,1976, pp. 148 151 19 Ibid p 150. 20 Ibid 21 Ibid 22 H. N. Castanenda Imperative, duties and moral ought, Australian Journal of philosophy, 1966 pp 50-120. 23 Nyasani, Ibid p 24 24 Wallace, W. the elements of philosophy, New York, Alba, House, 2008, p. 53. 25 Wallace, 162