i need help answering two questions from A Gift of Fire 4th

i need help answering two questions from A Gift of Fire 4th Edition chapter 1 review questions.

1.8 Explain the distinction between the negative and positive right to freedom of speech.

1.9 When one goes behind Rawls’ veil of ignorance, what is one ignorant of?

Solution

In Rawls\' thinking, the veil of ignorance is a device that can be used to help a person determine whether something (an action or an institution or such) is moral.I feel like I’m not doing A Theory Of Justice, uhm, justice in my few entries concerning it so far. I think this is because I am only able to devote scattered bits and pieces of my life to the work and to my writing about it, and it’s the kind of work that demands more undivided attention than that. I hope I can use this as a learning experience so that I may better handle such intense books in the future. For these types of books, my approach may need to be altered.

A negative right is a right for me to be protected from harm if I try to get something for myself. A positive right would be my right to have something provided for me.If health care is a negative right, then the state has an obligation to keep people from preventing me from getting health care and discriminating against me. If health care’s a positive right, then the state has an obligation to provide it for me.

This is a great way to explain to someone their rights. We all know we have a right to life and liberty but some people think they have rights to more than that. They think they have a right to others’ lives and liberty. They think that they have a right to their incomes, through taxation, or their liberty, through lawmaking. They don’t. As this graphic explains, rights are negative claims only. Your right to life and liberty does not affect others and is a negative right.