Definition
The reading of rights as barriers that stop one kind of power turning into another without authorization. Privacy interrupts the conversion of knowledge into action. Due process interrupts the conversion of institutional position into outcome. Consent rules interrupt the conversion of access into authority. Appeal interrupts the conversion of decision into finality. Separation of powers interrupts the conversion of execution into evaluation.
It matters because it states what rights are for in Ethotechnic terms: not protections added around power, but the mechanisms that keep a capability from becoming an authorization. The non-conversion principle is the general form; the rights are its specific, historically won instances.
Tests that show it is in place
- Each enumerated right on a deployment can be named as the conversion it interrupts.
- A capability that a right blocks is recorded as unavailable, not as pending approval.
- Removing a right would widen some authority surface, and that widening is named.
Evidence to keep
- Artifact: A rights-to-conversions map for the deployment: each right, and the capability it keeps from becoming authority.
- Behavior: An inference blocked from producing action because the right in question does not permit the conversion.
- Metric: Share of enumerated rights with a named conversion they interrupt.
References
- Non-conversion principle · Term
- Laws · Doctrine