Abstract
In contrast to any other human right, the right to life seems to be a paradox. It seems to be impossible to violate it. Before the holder of the right is killed, there is no violation of the right because the holder is still alive. After the act of killing, there is no violation of the right because there is nobody whose right could be violated. The holder of the right does not exist anymore and can therefore not be in a state of deprivation of personhood.
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Notes
- 1.
The classical Ontology is the traditional philosophical doctrine of the most general structures of what is. That which is is the being. Ontology assumes the possibility of an objective view of the world and its structures. Nevertheless, what we consider to be the most general structures of the being, are in fact the structures of our language and our thinking. Modern language-philosophy has inherited the legacy of medieval Ontology. Nevertheless, important ontological distinctions are still relevant today.
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Tiedemann, P. (2020). The Right to Life. In: Philosophical Foundation of Human Rights. Springer Textbooks in Law. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42262-2_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42262-2_14
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