Each phrases mean many various things. In criticism of this perception, the author Anatole France stated in 1894, “In its majestic equality, the regulation forbids wealthy and poor alike to sleep underneath bridges, beg within the streets, and steal loaves of bread.” 21 With this saying, France illustrated the elemental shortcoming of a theory of legal equality that remains blind to social inequality; the same legislation applied to all may have disproportionately harmful effects on the least powerful.
Suppose you go in opposition to those protective instincts and instead behave “calmly” and “rationally” and make a report to the suitable law enforcement agency, patiently enduring a beurocratic mess of paperwork and affidavits, official reviews, repeated interrogations, scheduled interactions with a handful of state run departments and the continued necessity of retelling the details of your suffering over and over again to State workers and company representatives who clearly don’t have any vested interest in you or your family and can’t keep your story straight from all the opposite tales they hear each day.
However for a utilitarian, it is by no means going to be a superb motive for adopting a rule that it’ll give people what they deserve or what they’re entitled to, when desert or entitlement are created by events in the past, corresponding to an individual’s having performed a worthwhile action or entered an settlement.
These rights are previous to society and have to be acknowledged by it. They’re the premise of the moral legitimacy of every authority: by flouting them, or refusing to acknowledge them in its positive laws, a society undermines its own ethical legitimacy.36 If it does not respect them, authority can rely only on force or violence to acquire obedience from its topics.