Right

Right means what is just. A right is what is owed. Subjectively, a right is a moral power in a person to do, to possess, or to demand something. Now, right is the object of the virtue of justice. Justice is the virtue that requires that right be done, and that rights in persons be observed and not violated.

Right is founded on law. Natural right rest son the natural law, which, as we have seen, is the eternal moral law as knowable by sound human reason without the aid of divine revelation. Thus an innocent man’s right to life is a natural right. Positive right rests on positive law, that is, law enacted and set down in positive ordinance. Positive law is divine (as in the Ten Commandments) or human, asin the written code of a nation. Human law is civil or ecclesiastical according as it is the written code of state or Church; Church law is canon law or diocesan law according as it is for the whole Church or for a diocese.

International law or the law of nations expresses the rights of nations towards one another; it rests ultimately, as all laws do, on the eternal law of God. It is distinct from the natural law, for it has a different and more restricted field of application.

The right of dominion is the right of ownership, whether of goods, or of jurisdiction, that is, of justly controlling the activities of others and requiring obedience. There is a special right of control or jurisdiction called paternal right; this belongs to a father with reference to his children. In husband and wife, thereis domestic right. In citizens, by reason of civil law,there is civic right.