ABSTRACT Recently, there have been several defenses of self‐other symmetry. On this view, we have the same rights against ourselves as we have against others. In this paper, I challenge this view by arguing that even if some rights (such as rights against serious harm) are symmetric, rights against minor harm are not plausibly symmetric. To this end, I present four pairs of cases involving accidental, negligent, drunken and intrinsically non‐consentable minor harm in which self‐other symmetry's implications are highly counterintuitive. Next I provide theoretical support for these intuitions by explaining how denying them threatens to eradicate the category of prudence. I then consider and reject two responses available to defenders of self‐other symmetry: namely, that rights are self‐other symmetric in content but not stringency, and that self‐other symmetry's intuitive and theoretical costs are outweighed by the benefits of simplicity and parsimony. I conclude by proposing two novel and weakened self‐other symmetry theses that are immune to the foregoing counterexamples and are worthy of further investigation.
Collis Tahzib (Sun,) studied this question.