I agree that too much talk of rights centres around the role of the individual vis-a-vis the state, and as such it can be extremely limiting. It fails to take into account the very obvious fact that humans are social creatures and we live and even thrive in communities.

However, I just don’t see how an apparent rise in indifference to the plight of others is connected to the rise of a rights movement. The notion of individual rights is not necessarily opposed to the concept of the common good. Millions of people everyday around the world, sometimes in peril of their own lives, work through human rights frameworks in an attempt to secure for others the basic rights mentioned in your article: “life, physical integrity, liberty, food, shelter, property and access to good health care and education.” These people can hardly be considered as having a “me, me, me” approach to life.

While some may certainly use rights as a means to gain at an individual level, others will use those same notions and ideals to work for the common good.

I think the problem comes from a lack of understanding that rights need to be always couched in terms of responsibilities. It is a reciprocal arrangement, but it appears to have got lost somewhere along the way, and it is this, I believe, that has lead to rights frameworks being used and abused to uphold ridiculous “rights” claims and to ignore the well-being of others and the community at large.

Mirko uses recent examples from near the summit of Mount Everest and concludes with the following comment "The right not to care about others needs to be replaced by an obligation to assist others in serious trouble, when assistance would immensely help them at minimal inconvenience or little danger to ourselves".

If he is assuming that any rescue can be conducted at that location with minimal inconvenience or little danger to the rescuers then he clearly knows little about what is involved in reaching the summit of that peak.

As for the ethics of leaving an injured person there - I'd like to think that I would choose to do what I can but then I'm not the kind of goal focussed person that you need to be to get to the summit of that peak.

Anybody seeking to climb the peak should know that the death rate is extremely high. I heard some time ago that for every three people who reach the summit one person dies on the mountain, I don't know if that still holds and I don't know what proportion of people who attempt to reach the summit die.

I've also heard that anybody climbing the mountain has to pay a very large permit fee to do so - see http://www.nepalinformation.com/everest.htm and think $50,000US and up depending on the number of members in the team and the route taken.

I gather from what I have read that almost everybody at that place has almost nothing left in reserve - an attempt to do a rescue dramatically increases the safety risks to the rescuer.

Nobody is near the summit of Mount Everest by accident or out of necessity, all are there by choice and a choice that involves the acceptance of great personal risk.

As non-mountaineers we may question the sense in climbing the thing. To use the actions of those who make a difficult decision in an extrordinary situation as an example of the failings of society is another matter.

R0bert

Thank you for an interesting and timely article. I cannot imagine not thinking of others in relation to my own actions. Sure, I make a lot of mistakes, but I would never deliberately hurt another person. I would never ignore another human being in distress.

My mother once said to me: "Make your next door neighbour your best friend". I followed her advice. I have had many next door neighbours who have become close friends. I extend that same kind of caring to strangers whenever I can, when appropriate. If we don't have a "common good" in mind, what have we got - as individuals and as a society?

We could learn a lot from the "community" of Indigenous Australians.

Cheers
Kay

Miko: You use emotive incidents to argue that individuality threatens the right to life and a positive life.

The state has the power to take those positives away. The individual has the responsibilty to jump in and keep the state in check. The state must not have the right to prevent this by fear and then oppression. We must keep this state rights vis true individual rights. Don't be fooled.

More people have been carried away in the boot of a car to their death by the state than sickos. History confirms this.
Isn't my my individuality being expressed here in a moral and outwards looking way? Our governments are the ones that are losing contact with their morality. Their inwards pointign moral compass is locked in.

Miko presents no logical reason for his assertion that from individuality it follows to one must be selfish, callousnesss, and so on. You don't convincingly establish a link.

You say that it is some sort of conditioned individuality that stops people from responding to situations like Juan Zhang and Lincoln Hall. No it is more likely a combinaton of fear, commonsense, lack of knowledge, misunderstanding, or the someone-else-will-do-it mentality. Your charge that the eight witnesses did not jump in because of a lack of morality is an assertion based on no evidence. You have presented your assumptions as fact. This has distorted the indivdual characteristics of that group.

I know plenty of people who would jump right in to help someone in trouble. I did the responsible thing a little while ago and have a detaching retina for my efforts. (It is to be "welded" back on soon). Haven't I as an indivdual the right to jump in and know that the state will be support me. The irony is that because I am well off. I would have to risk it to legal action. If I had hurt them, I would have been sued with the governments help. To be sure.

More importantly, haven't our returned service personnel got the right to state serving them for their sacrifice.

Miko says that to protect the positives we enjoy, we should give up our rights to privacy and reputation.

So how does the individual feed his or her family when they can't get work. They lose all the positives. Where's the boundary?
First give over right to privacy, then follows work, freedom of speech, liberty, and follows with hench men dragging individuals away.

The loss of individuality will see groups forming as way of expressing their individuality in safety. Soon some one will say that some group demanding their rights is affecting their positves. The catchcry: "Get rid of 'em, it's all good though because it is a positve for the community."

No in reality it will be a positive for the government/corporations of the day or another group or groups.
continued:
The right to individual opinion, responsible or not,will be the first right you to give over for the "greater good".

In a democracy the state must serve and protect the individual. Miko's thinking has the potential to distort this so that the individual no longer is paramount. The individual will blend into the state's ideal citizen and any one who shows individuality will be ostracised by the conditoned community and suppressed by the controlling state.

The individual's right to their individuality must be reverend.

Ah, the quandry of a utilitarian ethical theory.
Trying to get people to believe they have an obligation to act in a certain way without any real justification for that obligation.

http://alangrey.blogspot.com/2006/05/tangled-mess-of-utilitarianism.html