In ethical life, right and duty coincide. I have rights insofar as I have duties. And I have duties insofar as I have rights.

How was it before?

In abstract right, I had a right. And another person had the duty to respect it. Right and duty lay with two different people.

In morality, my knowing and my welfare were supposed to agree with my duties. But that remained a demand.

And now?

An example: Parents have the duty to provide for their children. At the same time, they have the right to raise them. A citizen has the duty to pay taxes. At the same time, he has the right to protection and order.

A slave, by contrast, really has no duties. Only a free person has duties. If all the rights were on one side and all the duties on the other, the whole would fall apart.

Summary: In ethical life, a person has rights because he has duties, and the other way round. Only free people have real duties. Where rights and duties stand wholly apart, the order falls apart.

§ 486. This reality in general, as the existence of the free will, is right, which is to be taken not merely as the limited juristic right, but comprehensively, as the existence of all the determinations of freedom. These determinations are, in relation to the subjective will — in which alone they are to have, and alone can have, their existence as universal ones — its duties, just as, as habit and disposition within it, they are custom. That which is a right is also a duty, and that which is a duty is also a right. For an existence is a right only on the ground of the free substantial will; it is the same content that, in relation to the will as it distinguishes itself as subjective and singular, is duty. It is the same content that subjective consciousness recognizes as duty and that it brings to existence in it. The finitude of the objective will is, to this extent, the semblance of the difference between rights and duties. In the field of appearance, right and duty are, to begin with, such Correlata, that a right on my side corresponds to a duty in another. But according to the concept, my right to a thing is not merely possession, but, as the possession of a person, it is property, rightful possession, and it is a duty to possess things as property, that is, to be a person — which, once placed in the relation of appearance, in relation to another person, develops into the duty of the other to respect my right. Moral duty in general is, in me as a free subject, at the same time a right of my subjective will, of my disposition. But in the moral, the difference emerges between a merely inner determination of the will (disposition, intention) — which has its existence only in me and is only subjective duty — and its actuality, and with this also a contingency and imperfection, which constitutes the one-sidedness of the merely moral standpoint. In the ethical, both have attained their truth, their absolute unity, although here too, in the manner of necessity, duty and right return into one another through mediation and are joined together. The rights of the father of a family over its members are just as much duties toward them as the children’s duty of obedience is their right to be brought up to become free human beings. The government’s punitive justice, its rights of administration, etc., are at the same time its duties to punish, to administer, etc., just as the contributions of the members of the state in taxes, military service, etc. are duties, and likewise their right to the protection of their private property and of the universal substantial life in which these have their root; all the purposes of society and of the state are the private individuals’ own; but the path of mediation, through which their duties come back to them as the exercise and enjoyment of rights, produces the appearance of difference — to which is added the way in which value, in exchange, takes on manifold shapes, even though it is, in itself, the same. But it holds essentially that whoever has no rights has no duties, and conversely.

§ 486. This reality, as the existence of the free will in general, is right; as the rational and fixed determinations of will in relation to the subjective will, in which alone they can have their existence as universal, they are duty, and, as habit and disposition within it, custom. What is a right is, in itself, also a duty, and what is a duty is also a right. For an existence is a right only on the ground of the free substantial will; it is the same content that, in relation to the will as it distinguishes itself as subjective and singular, is duty. The finitude of the objective will is, to this extent, the semblance of the difference between rights and duties.

In the field of appearance, right and duty are, to begin with, such Correlata that a right on my side corresponds to a duty in another. But according to the concept, my right to a thing is not merely possession, but possession as property, that is, a rightful possession, and it is a duty to possess the thing as property — which, once placed in the relation of appearance, namely in relation to another person, develops into the other’s duty to respect my property. Moral duty is, in me as a free subject, at the same time a right of my subjective will, of my disposition. But insofar as, in the moral, the difference between right and duty also arises for the concept, my duty is limited by the right that appears as the right of others. Here the immediate unity of what is duty with the right to it (that I may do what I morally ought) is only something subjective in me, and the difference between the two, and thus the contingency of their unity, constitutes the one-sidedness of the merely moral standpoint. In the ethical, both have attained their truth, their absolute unity, although, in the manner of necessity, duty and right return into one another through mediation and are joined together. The rights of the father of a family over its members are just as much duties toward them as the children’s duty of obedience is their right to be brought up to become free human beings. The government’s punitive justice, its rights of administration, etc., are at the same time its duties to punish, to administer, etc., just as the contributions of the members of the state in taxes, military service, etc., are duties, and likewise their right to the protection of their private property and of the universal substantial life in which these have their root; all the purposes of society and of the state are their own, and it is only the path of mediation, through which their duties come back to them as the exercise and enjoyment of rights, that produces the appearance of difference — an appearance further reinforced by the way in which value, in exchange, takes on manifold shapes, even though it is, in itself, the same. Whoever has no rights has no duties.