Soc asked:

Can a moral right ever be justified? If so, what does the proof have to include?

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This is a good question, sort of, but poorly asked. Notice that you say, first, "justified", and second,
"proof". Is justification proof? Why? How do you know? What isjustification? What isproof? In fact,
justification is notproof. There are many many types of justification, some of which are based on a
variety of inductive reasonings, some on feelings, some on logic. Very few on proof.

So let's just take this as asking about justification. Next, what is a moral "right"? One usually says that
one has a "right to..." free speech, say. Is that a "moral" right, a "political" right, both, neither? How do
you know? Do you have a "right" to cross the street when the traffic light is green? How about when
it's red? Do you have a "right" to not steal? To arrest someone for stealing? To steal if you're hungry?
But those latter are usually considered "moral" decisions and based on moral principles... so if they're
not rights, then at least some morality does not relate to rights. I have a great deal of problems with
the term "right"... I really have only the vaguest idea as to what it means, but I suspect it has very little
to do with morality, and a lot to do with politics and culture, and implicit and explicit contracts we have
with others and with various governing bodies.

What are we left with, then. Something like, "Can a moral principle ever be justified? If so, how?". I
think that would be a better question, don't you? Unless you want to write another question and
include a detailed explanation of what a "moral right" is. If you dowant to ask about the political, then
I'm the wrong person to ask.

Well when you come down to it, I'm not even going to answer thisquestion. Why not? Because it's
been debated for about 3000 years, and I really don't want to write a paper here summarizing that
debate. There are various general answers... moral principles are justified by cultural norms; by an
intrinsic "feeling" we have for morality; by various religious exhortations; by reinforcements of
behavior and thinking based on pleasure and pain; by consideration of peoples' relative worth; by
general principles of environment/ organism interaction... and on and on.

Here is a teeny itsy bitsy reading list to start you off:

Audi, R. "Intuitionism, Pluralism, and the Foundations of Ethics." In Moral Knowledge? New Readings
in Moral Epistemologyedited by W. Sinnott-Armstrong and M. Timmons, 101-36. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1996.

Sommers, C., and F. Sommers. Vice & Virtue in Everyday Life: Introductory Readings in Ethics.4th
ed. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1985.

Urmson, J. O.Aristotle's Ethics.11th ed. Malden: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1998.

Williams, B. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy.Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985.

But first, really, you have to ask what justification is,before we start usingit, don't you. How,for
example, do cultural norms, or feelings, or religions, or whatever, do this thing: viz., justify? How
indeed?

And here is an eensy weensy reading list for this topic:

Annis, D. B. "A Contextualist Theory of Epistemic Justification." American Philosophical Quarterly15,
no. 3 (1978): 213-19.

BonJour, L. The Structure of Empirical Knowledge.1st ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1985.

Hare, R. M. "Foundationalism and Coherentism in Ethics." edited by W. Sinnott-Armstrong and M.
Timmons, 190-99. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Harrison, L.E., and S.P. Huntington, eds. Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress.New
York, NY: Basic Books, 2000.

MacIntyre, A. After Virtue.2nd ed. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984.

Williams, B. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy.Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985.

Steven Ravett Brown