From “Abundant Lives: A Progressive Christian Ethic of Flourishing” by Amanda Udis-Kessler
Rights are important, of course. People need access to certain rights if they hope to have a decent life. But rights are not a simple matter. Rights can be used for good or for ill, to support human flourishing or to cause unnecessary, avoidable human suffering. This is especially true when rights as defined for one group of people limit rights for other groups. Gun rights benefit US gun manufacturers and gun owners, for example, but in the absence of thoughtful and well-enforced gun safety laws, such rights contribute to thousands of injuries and deaths in the United States every year (BBC 2023) and rob US Americans of the right to safety. Antiabortion activist appeal to the “right to life” in ways that restrict women’s reproductive rights. The US Supreme Court recently ruled that the religious rights of conservative people of faith trump the rights of LGBTQ+ people to service in some commercial venues (Liptak and VanSickle 2023). When we consider the range of situations in which people rely on rights language, it’s clear that rights in and of themselves are not inherently a moral good. They can be used to help or to harm. Moreover, whether rights are experienced as helpful or harmful depends on whose rights are being upheld, whose rights are being overridden, and which rights are in question.
The same can be said of freedom as a value. In 2014, North Caroline Republican and US Representative Robert Pittenger argued that government should not interfere with businesses that fire employees for being gay because getting to fire someone strictly for their sexuality is one of “the freedoms we enjoy” (Clawson 2014). Pittenger did not answer the question of whether the freedom of getting to work at a job of our choosing, for which we are well qualified, and without the fear of being fired for irrelevant reasons, is another one of the “freedoms we enjoy.” Since 2014, of the many proposed laws in the United States that include the word “freedom” in their titles, some expand freedom for all citizens while others restrict freedom for members of devalued social groups, including Black/Indigenous/People of Color (BIPOC) communities, women, and LGBTQ+ people. Even free speech is not inherently a moral good: it can be used either to lift up the voices and concerns of previously silenced people or to promote hatred and terror.