I started thinking about rights while working on permissions, because some deontic logicians think that permissions need to be also independent of prohibitions, in order to ground rights. Now, as I argued elsewhere, Mīmāṃsā permissions are always exceptions to previous negative obligations or prohibitions, so what happens to rights?
There is not a directly correspondent concept (how could there be one, given how historically loaded ‘right’ is?), but an interesting parallel is adhikāra. How does this work?
Let me look, to begin with, at the discussion in the apaśūdrādhikaraṇa by Rāmānuja. There, he explains that śūdras (humans belonging to the lowest class) do not have the adhikāra to perform worship (upāsana), because they are unable (asamartha), even though they desire the result of the action. Why are they unable? Because the do not have the adhikāra to perform a part of it, namely vedādhyayana.
So, as a preliminary understanding:
adhikāra to do x (e.g., upāsana) presupposes:
- desire to obtain the result of action x
- ability to perform action x, which, in turn, presupposes the ability to perform each of its parts
- [not yet determined, but see below]
The interesting part is that according to “as much as possible” principle, one does not need to perform each part of x in order to perform x, if x is a compulsory action (e.g., if you have the duty to each single day, you might leave out polishing each slide every single time). However, you still need to be “able” (samartha) to perform each part, even the ones you might have left out.
asāmarthya ‘inability’ can be due to physical or economical inability, but could also be the result of the lack of a predecing adhikāra. Thus, adhikāra has a double relation to sāmarthya: a) Lack of sāmarthya precludes the possibility adhikāra (adhikāra presupposes can); b) Lack of adhikāra to do x means that one will not get to do x and will therefore be asamartha with regard to y, if x is a part of y.
This leads to the adhikāra for vedādhyayana. This presupposes:
- desire to obtain the result of the action
- ability to perform the action (see PMS, book 6.1 on animals not being able to perform sacrifices)
- sanction by an authoritative text
Which kind of sanction? In the case of vedādhyayana, it seems to be a positive obligation (or vidhi). What would be the distinction between adhikāra and any other enjoined action, then? That the vidhi which lies at the basis of adhikāra establishes one’s general entitlement to do x, and not just one’s duty to perform x in a given case.
Before the concept of Adhikara may be discussed with regards to Varna one needs to understand the Varna concept first. Shrimad Bhagwad Gita and Manusmriti define Varna as the ability to perform some tasks. This is by birth. Some people are dextrous in teaching and higher studies so they have been called Brahmins. Some have exceptional talent in business so they have been called Vyshyas. Some are experts in managing the country and protecting people, they are called Kshatrias. And the people who are serving all the above three have been termed as Shudras, who are happy in serving others. Manusmriti clearly states that the son of a Shudra can be a Brahmin, son of a Brahmin can be Vyshya, and so on. Therefore the assignment of Varna is purely based upon the mental capabilities of a particular person. Now a person who does not have the capabilty to govern the nation imagine what would happen if he is placed there and what he would do. Incidentally in India the concept of Varna has been grossly misunderstood. Adhikara therefore is correct if you try to get some work done out of a person who does not have talent to do that work should not be permitted. In India in the name of upliftment so many people who have no caliber for being a doctor or an administrator have been put into those positions. So you can see what has happened in the 70 years of misrule.
Much of this sort on thinking I don’t fully comprehend and would not pretend to. From the perspective(s) I grew up with, having a right to something does not equal having the permission to obtain it. It seems to me, then, this is at least part of the reason for laws and enforcement thereof. Permissions are either implicit, tacit or possibly both. Law is more usually explicit, as are penalties for violations. As with other aspects of human interchange, there are grey or murky areas. So, we have a judiciary to, hopefully, sort fact from fiction.
Hi, thanks for joining the discussion.
Permissions are not ontologically “either implicit, tacit or possibly both”. They are so given a certain system. For instance, contemporary deontic logicians like McNamara consider that if you have an obligation to pay taxes you also have the permission to pay taxes. This is not so in Mīmāṃsā deontics, according to which commands (including permissions) are mutually exclusive. Part of my work is exactly to look at things from a different perspective, so as to see that they are not as obvious as they looked like to begin with.
Interesting discussion, Elisa. I agree that adhikāra might be the closest Sanskrit equivalent to the English “rights”, but as you say, it is not that close. I think this is in part because of changing conceptions of rights in the West over time: Latin ius is the word that became “rights”, but it began with a sense of fair share including obligation, and only gradually took on the more modern sense of a morally required permission; I suspect that adhikāra is closer to the original meaning that ius had for the Romans.
I wrote two posts about that Western history of rights on LoAW some years ago, the second of which refers to adhikāra:
The history of rights (I)
The history of rights (II)
Following Ulpian’s dictum, Roman jurists came to feel that they should provide “for every injury, a remedy,” and that lead to the steady growth of legal doctrine, through itemizing injuries and remedies. The modern concept of right then emerges with the commentaries: what we now call a right can be injured or impaired in many ways, so it is simpler and more economical (in Ockham’s sense!) to list rights rather than all the forms of injury.
For comparative philosophy what matters is that Ulpian’s dictum is an obligation in the most traditional sense, but one ironically imposing on law a duty of service, which explains why one finds no analogue on Asian traditions. With the maxim ‘for every injury a remedy” the service is posed by analogy with the surgical treatment of wounds, which everywhere followed in the ways of the warriors.
Yet to get to the parsimony of the late medieval and early modern commentaries, one must change view from the act of injury to the injury suffered, a move emphasised by Aristotle, as leading to the subject, and substance of argument. The Sanskrit varna, in contrast, is related to the Karaka or thematic role in the grammar, and the tradition then takes a distinctive turn through grammatical philosophy.
That recovers elisa’s root concept of obligation or norm, Amod’s parsimony, and Tawaney’s varnas, but not the elusive adhikāra. I guess that asks for a more constitutive, Kant-style analysis of powers or capacities, but that is another story.