How to cope with your abuser?
Sometimes it looks hopeless. II. Issues in the Calculus of Rights
IIA. The Hierarchy of Rights
All human cultures have hierarchies of rights. These hierarchies reflect cultural mores and lores and there cannot therefore be a universal or eternal hierarchy.
In Western moral systems the Right to Life supersedes all other rights (including the right to one's body to comfort to the avoidance of pain to property etc.).
Yet this hierarchical arrangement does not help us to resolve cases in which there is a clash of EQUAL rights (for instance the conflicting rights to life of two people). One way to decide among equally potent claims is randomly (by flipping a coin or casting dice). Alternatively we could add and subtract rights in a somewhat macabre arithmetic. If a mother's life is endangered by the continued existence of a fetus and assuming both of them have a right to life we can decide to kill the fetus by adding to the mother's right to life her right to her own body and thus outweighing the fetus' right to life.
IIB. The Difference between Killing and Letting Die
There is an assumed difference between killing (taking life) and letting die (not saving a life). This is supported by IE above. While there is a right not to be killed - there is no right to have one's own life saved. Thus while there is an obligation not to kill - there is no obligation to save a life.
IIC. Killing the ...
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