Talk:Privilege (law)

Defined this way suggests chose.This is a dangerous use of language fueling perception not generic or literal fact. I'm white English, primarily a human being as we all are.Using phrases like this fir the most part negative and divisive. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.199.20.6 (talk) 21:54, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

.
The following bleat of dismay does not convey much hard information. Can it be rethought?: ''This term is also used to describe certain advantages that some groups of people are felt to have more than others. Examples include race, social class, attractiveness, and gender.'' --Wetman 18:53, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I've added a link to Privilege (computer science) under the 'see also' section, since I fealt that is of interest to many people too. I'm not sure though if this is the right way to do it, since the article goes in the category 'legal ethics' which does not exactly go for the privileges in computer science. However the roots for the term in computer science are of course what is described in this article.

Maybe it would make sense to put in one of these branching pages for people to chose whether they mean privileges in the context of law or computer science? I don't know how to do that and whether it is adequate... --Crispy 13:50, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I added a "See also" link to the article on Executive privilege. It seems like an important example--but it may not quite fit the explanation of "privilege" given here, since it refers to a kind of exemption rather than a special power to take action. I'm not sure whether this is a problem or not.

Is there a well-defined concept of "privilege" in legal theory as contrasted (say) with what we call a "right?" If so, it would be great to have that made clear in this article; that seems to be missing. DSatz 15:02, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I would like to move the second paragraph into a seperate article Privilege (evidence). The inadmissability of certain evidence in a court of law is quite distinct from the original concept of special entitlements, and it seems sufficiently relevant to justify an own article. - Framhein (talk) 16:49, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Err.. the text in the article:

'By contrast, a right is an inherent, irrevocable entitlement held by all citizens or all human beings from birth.'

is patently incorrect on several points.

Firstly, 'rights' are generally seen as being dependent on the state (I suppose due to the fact that the state is the embodiment of the social contract of the society). This tends to be a bit confused in states which uphold the concept of 'natural rights' (such as the USA) but can still be seen. 'Human Rights' are conceptualized in a way which better fits the definition in the article, and are of course highly contentious as many major states (such as the USA) do not recognize many of the rights outlined in the 'Universal Declaration of Human rights' (http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html) (for example, #25), and states such as PRC put a different emphasis on aspects of universal rights (placing community aspects such as health and education above personal freedoms).

Secondly, rights can certainly be revoked (by the state) such as when individuals are imprisoned for their crimes - an uncontroversial revocation of a universally agreed fundamental right. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Llaith (talk • contribs) 03:48, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Err.. the text in the article:

'By contrast, a right is an inherent, irrevocable entitlement held by all citizens or all human beings from birth.'

The Thesaurus treats "privilege" and "right" as synonyms; therefore implying a contrast between them is incorrect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.51.107.103 (talk • contribs)


 * You cannot properly define the terms "privilege" and "right" merely by referring to a "Thesaurus." And, you are wrong; you can most certainly "imply a contrast" between the two terms.


 * As editor Bermicourt noted back in 2010, the basic problem is that the article is indeed too narrow. The article is also poorly sourced. In law, as in life generally, the terms "right" and "privilege" have more than one meaning. For example, in law, some rights can be granted by statute or taken away by statute. Some rights exist at birth and others do not. Some "privileges" exist at birth, while others do not. Some privileges may be granted by statute or taken away by statute. In law, a privilege can be a type of right. There are legal rights and natural rights, and they're not always the same. Famspear (talk) 12:11, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Article too narrow
The text of this article is much too narrow. Privilege has a variety of meanings wider than simply a (US) legal status. Should this not be moved to Law of Privilege? --Bermicourt (talk) 17:53, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. -- RP459  Talk/Contributions 18:56, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Pages moved. Unanimous consent that there is no primary topic. Note: the disambig move not yet done as it needs administrator assistance. Requested via db-move. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 09:40, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

– There doesn't seem to be a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for this common term. Scanning, Privilege (social inequality) is more common. Indeed, there have often been synthetic attempts to tie that concept in with this one. For now, I think it's enough to say that if there is a primary topic, the legal concept isn't it. I'm open to other alternatives for this title. The old title of Privilege (law) is unsuitable due to Privilege (evidence).
 * Privilege → Privilege (legal ethics)
 * Privilege (disambiguation) → Privilege

Incidentally, it might be a good idea to move Privilege (social inequality) to something like Privilege (sociology), but that's a conversation for another day. BDD (talk) 23:30, 19 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I suppose it's not feasible to ask for an article about the concept with links to more specific articles, but can I suggest it anyway? Red Slash 00:44, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I considered that, but I don't see how that could be anything more than a WP:DICDEF. --BDD (talk) 01:00, 20 November 2013 (UTC)


 * In that case, I support. I think we can all agree that there is no primary topic here. Red Slash 03:04, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Support - nom makes sense. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:42, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Support - Privilege would be better as the disambiguation page. --Rushton2010 (talk) 01:28, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment - I agree that the legal sense is not the primary topic of privilege, but I also think that there is a broad primary topic sense covering all senses relating to people holding certain positions or engaged in certain endeavors being held to a different standard than people not holding those positions or engaged in those endeavors. Such a concept covers all senses except for the proper names of a few the relatively minor media and business entities. bd2412  T 18:00, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Support.  GregJackP   Boomer!   03:32, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.