Anyone who has ever said “Better ten guilty men go free than one innocent man be punished” is hereby required to go read Jonah Goldberg’s article on cliches.
Of course, I disagree with Goldberg on the immorality of making arguments about rights that appeal to self-interest. Upholding the rights of all people is a self-interested endeavor! However, upon a moment’s reflection, it seems that some of the “they’ll come get you next” arguments for rights are self-interested in a rather shallow way, which is surely suboptimal. But there is certainly nothing wrong and much right with showing that upholding the rights of all people is in all of our interests!
For a good explanation of the self-interested case for rights, see Ayn Rand’s article “Man’s Rights.”
