Editing Rights (section)

==Philosophy==
In [[philosophy]], [[meta-ethics]] is the branch of ethics that seeks to understand the nature of ethical [[property (philosophy)|properties]], statements, attitudes, and judgments. Meta-ethics is one of the three branches of ethics generally recognized by [[Philosopher|philosophers]], the others being [[normative ethics]] and [[applied ethics]].

While normative ethics addresses such questions as "What should one do?", thus endorsing some ethical evaluations and rejecting others, meta-ethics addresses questions such as "What ''is'' goodness?" and "How can we tell what is good from what is bad?", seeking to understand the nature of ethical properties and evaluations.

Rights ethics is an answer to the meta-ethical question of ''what normative ethics is concerned with'' (meta-ethics also includes a group of questions about how ethics comes to be known, true, etc. which is not directly addressed by rights ethics).
Rights ethics holds that normative ethics is concerned with rights. Alternative meta-ethical theories are that ethics is concerned with one of the following:
* Duties ([[deontology]])
* [[Value (ethics)|Value]] ([[axiology]])
* Virtue ([[virtue ethics]])
* Consequences ([[consequentialism]], e.g. [[utilitarianism]])

Rights ethics has had considerable influence on political and social thinking. The [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights]] gives some concrete examples of widely accepted rights.

===Criticism===
Some philosophers have criticised some rights as [[ontologically]] dubious entities.{{citation needed|date=February 2024}}