Rights issues
Sir: Paul Johnson (And another thing, 6 July) claims that 'we have to overthrow the doctrine of universal rights. . . . Only God has rights'. But Paul Johnson surely does not want to repudiate the rights claims of the American Declaration of Indepen- dence: rights to be left to our own devices provided that we do no harm to others, rights which impose reciprocal duties upon everyone to respect everyone else's equal rights?
What he truly and wisely wishes to over- throw is not that American doctrine of option rights but the welfare state doctrine of welfare rights: the doctrine that all those finding or putting themselves in certain sit- uations have a right to be supplied with some appropriate good at someone else's expense. The distinction between these two fundamentally different kinds of rights is crucial.
Anthony Flew
26 Alexandra Road, Reading, Berkshire
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