Pryor on Rights Grounded in Respect of Worth 1.0

Enough kvetching about Wolterstorff, how can I account for natural human rights? I suggest that Wolterstorff committed an error in his conceptualization of the “property” of the image of God in man (see 3.2.1, 3.2.2, 3.2.3, and 3.2.4). Let’s refresh some recollections: per Wolterstorff, “if a right is what is required from another to show due respect for the worth of another human, it must be on account of (i) some property, (ii) some capacity, (iii) some activity, or (iv) some relationship. (319)” (3.2.1)

I agree that (ii) and (iii) don’t work, and I most recently explained why I find Wolterstorff’s configuration of (iv) unpersuasive (3.2.7), so let’s review why Wolterstorff thinks even the “nature-resemblance” formulation of (i) is a dead end. In brief: biblical revelation characterizes human beings as “images of God;” the initial context of the phrase “image of God” and some very limited biblical and post-biblical Hebraic expositions of that phrase tie it to the exercise of dominion; exercise of dominion as God’s images makes people worthy of deep respect; but some people (e.g., our familiar triumvirate of the profoundly mentally handicapped, those in a persistent vegetative state, and those suffering late-term dementia) cannot exercise dominion and are thus not worthy of respect merely because their “co-species-ists” can; therefore, mere possession of the property of being in the image of God is insufficient to account for natural human rights. I previously recapitulated Wolterstorff’s extended analogy illustrating the flaw of the “nature-resemblance” model of accounting for natural human rights by noting that a “clunker” Mercedes-Benz was still a clunker and worthy of no respect. So too, per Wolterstorff, a "clunker" of a human being. (3.2.4)

But what happens if we change the analogy? Instead of comparing The Human Being to The Car and concluding that the clunkers of neither are worthy of respect, let’s compare the property described as image of God to a fine metal such as gold. A kg of gold is of great worth and generates respect regardless of the shape to which it is formed. To be sure, a Cellini is worth more than its weight in gold but given the choice between the same weight in, say, sawdust, I’ll take the gold, thank you. Instead of limiting the property of image of God to dominion-related capacities, take it as a quality. A quality which, when worked by a Cellini produces something extraordinary but a quality such that even in a “clunker-ed” state is worth a great deal (of respect).

I also think that characterizing the image of God as a qualitative property is more consistent with Wolterstorff’s notion of inherent rights. As we may remember (see 3.2.1), inherent rights inhere by virtue of one’s status. In fact, I would argue that it is the status of human beings as images of God that generates inherent human rights, i.e., the capacity to have rights against God apart from a specific divine grant. (See generally Meredith Kline, Kingdom Prologue [I think; if not there, he asserted it somewhere else] (arguing, against Westminster Confession of Faith 7.1, that God did not “condescend” to enter into covenant with our first human parents because God could not relate to his image bearers but by covenant.)

How could God not respect something in his own image? In other words, the relationship of covenant (including the contingencies of covenant obedience/disobedience and the remedies of covenant blessings/sanctions) account for God’s love for some and condemnation of others; covenant, not love, is basic. And covenant is founded in the status of image of God.

What I have not done is develop a scriptural argument to justify my contentions. Tu quoque, Wolterstorff might say. By way of defense I can only plead the paucity of helpful secondary texts in the NLU library and the scarcity of time as my stay in Jodhpur draws to a close. I’ll let my reader(s) decide if those reasons rise to the level of excuse (see Indian Contract Act, 1871, §56; see also Restatement (Second) Contracts §§ 261 et seq.