Can’t I use the word “rights” without losing my status as a consquentialist? I simply use the concept of a “being with a right to live” as a shortening for “a being for which murdering would, in the majority of circumstances and all else being equal, be very likely to be a poor moral choice”. You can respect the rights of something without holding a deontological view that rights are somehow the fundamental definition of morality.
Can’t I use the word “rights” without losing my status as a consquentialist? I simply use the concept of a “being with a right to live” as a shortening for “a being for which murdering would, in the majority of circumstances and all else being equal, be very likely to be a poor moral choice”. You can respect the rights of something without holding a deontological view that rights are somehow the fundamental definition of morality.