Equal Rights: A Provable Moral Standard

Steven B. Cord

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 1979, vol. 38, issue 1, 73-81

Abstract: Abstract. Our time has been characterized by growing subjectivism— which is the view that there are no objectively provable moral standards and that each individual is the ultimate arbiter for himself of right and wrong. Alienation, purposelessness and violence are some of the manifestations that would seem to follow logically from such a view, and in fact they seem more prevalent now than ever. But subjectivism is invalid in that ethics (unlike aesthetics) is a rational process, and the standards of reason are therefore the standards of ethics. The ethical standard that is provable is equal rights: specifically, that every individual has a right to his life, liberty and property, limited only by the equal rights of others. This paper attempts to show that this follows directly from the true statement that we should treat things as they are.

Date: 1979
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