Rights of Partial Members of the Moral Community

Abstract

This chapter does not deal with the withdrawal of rights, but with their denial. In the previous chapter, I discussed the withdrawal of rights from those who already possess them, and lost the entitlement to keep on possessing these rights, after committing a crime. The possessors of these rights were considered full-fledged members of the moral community. They were considered as fully responsible for their actions, and fulfilled all the subjective requirements for agency. However, after reneging on their obligations as such (by committing an offense), they lose some of the rights that are conferred upon other members of the community, because they do not fulfill all the social requirements for agency. The motivation to punish them stems from the desire to find a balance between the measure of the possessors’ entitlement to possess their rights, and the extent to which they actually do possess their rights. The reasons for depriving them of their rights do not concern their (mental) abilities, but relate to the way they purposively and voluntarily exercised these abilities.