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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Very young children and the severely mentally ill cannot have legal rights

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Legal rights can be held by an entity even when exercised vicariously through appointed representatives, as with corporations and estates.
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    • 2.Guardians, trustees, and parens patriae doctrines allow courts to enforce rights on behalf of those lacking capacity without negating those rights.
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    • 3.The will theory's equation of right-holding with control conflates the possession of a right with its exercise, a distinction Hart himself acknowledged.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.On interest theory (Raz, MacCormick), rights protect interests sufficient to ground duties in others, not the capacity to control legal machinery.
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    • 2.Infants and the severely mentally ill possess legally cognizable interests in welfare, bodily integrity, and inheritance that courts routinely protect.
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    • 3.Neil MacCormick's critique of Hart explicitly demonstrated that children's rights are the clearest counterexample to will theory's capacity requirement.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Having a legal right requires the capacity to control the relevant legal machinery
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    • 2.Very young children and the severely mentally ill lack the capacity to control the relevant legal machinery
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