Rights and Moral Status

This chapter delves into the notion of rights and other interconnected moral concepts central to the research topic. It commences by providing a general definition of rights and then explores various other aspects of the rights discourse, including the distinction between moral and legal rights, the structure and normative function of rights, debates concerning their ontological foundation, and challenges to the doctrine of rights. The presented perspective on moral rights emphasizes their status as justified moral claims of high priority, distinct from legal rights, and universally valid and binding from the standpoint of moral agents. The chapter also explores the relationship between moral rights and other related concepts such as moral status and moral considerability, maintaining that only entities with moral status can possess moral rights, thus embedding the subsequent discussions on robot rights within this conceptual framework.