Negative Rights vs. Positive Rights

Prof. Aeon Skoble describes the key differences between positive and negative rights.

Aeon Skoble

Aeon J. Skoble is Professor of Philosophy at Bridgewater State University focussing his research on issues that include theories of rights, the nature and justification of authority, classical theories of happiness, and theories of legal interpretation.

Prof. Aeon Skoble describes the key differences between positive and negative rights. Fundamentally, positive rights require others to provide you with either a good or service. A negative right, on the other hand, only requires others to abstain from interfering with your actions. If we are free and equal by nature, and if we believe in negative rights, any positive rights would have to be grounded in consensual arrangements.

For more, visit Learn​Lib​er​ty​.org.

Related Content:

What Are Negative and Positive Liberty? And Why Does It Matter?, written by Aaron Ross Powell

What Are Rights?, featuring Aeon Skoble

Further Reading:

Positive and Negative Liberty, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Liberty: Positive and Negative, Cato Unbound