God given rights?

[werepossum]

Correct, and that's the "political postmodernism" I mentioned previously... a deconstruction of Western Enlightenment.

Agreed. It's perhaps the biggest threat to our future as a species, this concept that freedom and rights are artificial and should be subordinate (if not downright antithetical) to entitlements. It's the new serfdom, and far too many people are willing to step up, penny in hand and noose around neck, if they believe they'll come out "ahead".

Your answer contains the fallacy "only freedom that government does not (yet) infringe." Government is far and away not the only thing that can infringe on freedom. The entire purpose of liberal democracy ("liberal" here meant in the enlightenment sense) is to enhance human freedom not only relative to totalitarianism, also relative to anarchy. There are always those who have power over others. Without benevolent government, the power is unchecked. Anarchy is nothing more than de-centralized totalitarianism. It is rule of the wealthy, the strong, the armed, or the mob. Totalitarian government is the same thing in centralized form - rule of the wealthy and powerful, now formally called "the state."

That is precisely why I point out that there is no such thing as natural or axiomatic rights. The assumption underlying this is that in the state of nature, we are "pure" and "free" and "good." But no, I'm sorry,we're not. We're brutes. We can only get together and decide not to be. You probably think each of us decides this on his or her own as an individual, but your entire notion of ethics and respecting people's rights comes from others.

If there is no such thing as natural or G_d-given rights, only rights that come from government, then whether other forces can infringe on those rights is irrelevant because you've already ceded that power to government. You've already accepted that you have NO rights, and therefore whatever we collectively decide is right - including slavery, ethnic cleansing, euthanasia - is just as valid as any other possible decisions. It is, as CWJerome says, a deconstruction of Western Enlightenment, both religion-based and humanist-based.

 

[momeNt]

My concern is more for certain specific notions of "natural rights" and "natural laws" which I think are dangerously naive. I've touched on those ideas already, so I'll leave it at that.

I think you are trying to pass off natural rights as natural protections. You aren't defeating the concept of natural rights with your argument, you are simply pointing out that these rights do not offer protection. How best to go about protecting those rights seems to be the topic for the last few posts though.

 

[fskimospy]

If there is no such thing as natural or G_d-given rights, only rights that come from government, then whether other forces can infringe on those rights is irrelevant because you've already ceded that power to government. You've already accepted that you have NO rights, and therefore whatever we collectively decide is right - including slavery, ethnic cleansing, euthanasia - is just as valid as any other possible decisions. It is, as CWJerome says, a deconstruction of Western Enlightenment, both religion-based and humanist-based.

I mean I think human history pretty obviously shows that people have no rights other than what we decide to grant ourselves. That's just a simple acknowledgement of reality.

If you want to simply declare the people have certain rights that exist in perpetuity and come from god or nature or whatever you are of course free to do so, but none of that matters in the end because the only vehicle for such enforcement comes from people. As has been mentioned earlier, I doubt that notifying a bear of your right to life will dissuade him, and were someone to choose to kill you, enslave you, or anything else, reminding him that you have a god granted right to life and liberty will probably serve as a source of amusement.

 

[fskimospy]

I think you are trying to pass off natural rights as natural protections. You aren't defeating the concept of natural rights with your argument, you are simply pointing out that these rights do not offer protection. How best to go about protecting those rights seems to be the topic for the last few posts though.

Well what is a right if it is unenforceable? What is its purpose and how would we even know if such a thing existed? These rights are clearly based on a communal acceptance of them.

 

[momeNt]

Well what is a right if it is unenforceable? What is its purpose and how would we even know if such a thing existed? These rights are clearly based on a communal acceptance of them.

They are enforceable, but god or nature is not the enforcer.

The bold is probably a good way of saying what they ACTUALLY are. It's a least common denominator of acceptable behavior.

 

[werepossum]

I mean I think human history pretty obviously shows that people have no rights other than what we decide to grant ourselves. That's just a simple acknowledgement of reality.

If you want to simply declare the people have certain rights that exist in perpetuity and come from god or nature or whatever you are of course free to do so, but none of that matters in the end because the only vehicle for such enforcement comes from people. As has been mentioned earlier, I doubt that notifying a bear of your right to life will dissuade him, and were someone to choose to kill you, enslave you, or anything else, reminding him that you have a god granted right to life and liberty will probably serve as a source of amusement.

You are conflating existence of such rights with their protection. If such rights exist, then we as people have a moral obligation to protect them as we are able. If such rights do not exist, then we as people can have no such moral obligation. Whatever we communally decide are our rights is as equally valid as any other outcome. Slavery is perfectly acceptable if the majority decides to enslave the minority; genocide can be morally fine as long as we communally agree on it. Marxism is an equally valid form of society to a free democratic republic, because people have no inalienable rights and therefore neither government nor outlaws can infringe these rights.

As CWJerome pointed out, this is an assault on the entire history of Western civilization and the Enlightenment. We would be less than human, no more than clever, dangerous animals.

 

[fskimospy]

You are conflating existence of such rights with their protection. If such rights exist, then we as people have a moral obligation to protect them as we are able. If such rights do not exist, then we as people can have no such moral obligation. Whatever we communally decide are our rights is as equally valid as any other outcome. Slavery is perfectly acceptable if the majority decides to enslave the minority; genocide can be morally fine as long as we communally agree on it. Marxism is an equally valid form of society to a free democratic republic, because people have no inalienable rights and therefore neither government nor outlaws can infringe these rights.

My point is that it is quite clear from history that people have no inalienable rights as they are breached constantly. I find it odd that you would argue that without natural rights all those things would be acceptable and that this is an assault on Western civilization, considering the fact that western countries have repeatedly engaged in all of those things. Morals are also obviously human constructions, so the idea that acknowledging that one idea (rights) is a human construction would somehow create issues with how we enforce another human construction (morality) is confusing.

We are free to find whatever we want acceptable, in fact there's no other way to do it. That's how our founding fathers were able to so neatly argue for the right of every man to be free while engaging in mass enslavement. I understand that you are arguing what you want to be true, but I'm telling you what IS true. We define both our rights and our morals, just as humans have for literally the entirety of human history. Wanting it to be different won't make it so.

As CWJerome pointed out, this is an assault on the entire history of Western civilization and the Enlightenment. We would be less than human, no more than clever, dangerous animals.

That's ridiculous hyperbole and to declare this an 'assault on the history of Western civilization' would be to discount all of the work of numerous philosophers who have dismissed the idea of magical inalienable rights as baseless and unfounded in any human experience.

 

[werepossum]

My point is that it is quite clear from history that people have no inalienable rights as they are breached constantly. I find it odd that you would argue that without natural rights all those things would be acceptable and that this is an assault on Western civilization, considering the fact that western countries have repeatedly engaged in all of those things. Morals are also obviously human constructions, so the idea that acknowledging that one idea (rights) is a human construction would somehow create issues with how we enforce another human construction (morality) is confusing.

We are free to find whatever we want acceptable, in fact there's no other way to do it. That's how our founding fathers were able to so neatly argue for the right of every man to be free while engaging in mass enslavement. I understand that you are arguing what you want to be true, but I'm telling you what IS true. We define both our rights and our morals, just as humans have for literally the entirety of human history. Wanting it to be different won't make it so.



That's ridiculous hyperbole and to declare this an 'assault on the history of Western civilization' would be to discount all of the work of numerous philosophers who have dismissed the idea of magical inalienable rights as baseless and unfounded in any human experience.

Lobsters' shells get breached all the time, but lobsters DO have shells, correct? That something is breached does not mean that it does not exist, but rather it is proof of its existence.

Morality must be based on inalienable rights. Thus, we can recognize that a law is immoral, because we recognize the disconnect between what we make of our society and what we SHOULD make of our society. If both morality and legal rights are simply human constructs, then morality is a useless redundant concept, for it has no basis, and whatever we collectively decide are our rights ARE what is moral. Having decided that blacks are property, we would have no moral duty to change this. Having decided that gays cannot marry, we would have no moral duty to change this.

 

[fskimospy]

Lobsters' shells get breached all the time, but lobsters DO have shells, correct? That something is breached does not mean that it does not exist, but rather it is proof of its existence.

Morality must be based on inalienable rights. Thus, we can recognize that a law is immoral, because we recognize the disconnect between what we make of our society and what we SHOULD make of our society. If both morality and legal rights are simply human constructs, then morality is a useless redundant concept, for it has no basis, and whatever we collectively decide are our rights ARE what is moral. Having decided that blacks are property, we would have no moral duty to change this. Having decided that gays cannot marry, we would have no moral duty to change this.

The people enslaving blacks and preventing gays from marrying clearly do not believe they have a moral duty to change it. Others have different morality. This is yet another example of how these are all human constructs as different people have different concepts of what is right and moral.

 

[werepossum]

The people enslaving blacks and preventing gays from marrying clearly do not believe they have a moral duty to change it. Others have different morality. This is yet another example of how these are all human constructs as different people have different concepts of what is right and moral.

So you are arguing that it was not wrong to enslave blacks until we collectively decided it was wrong, since there is no absolute morality? How is such a view not a prescription for evil? It's difficult enough to keep evil at bay while recognizing natural rights; how can we possibly hope to do so if we deny that people even HAVE rights?

I find it odd and disconcerting that the progressive movement, originally aimed at gradually implementing Marx's philosophy of empowering the proletariat to achieve their natural rights, is now arrayed to deny that such natural rights even exist. I suppose I can objectively understand how that might seem expedient and perhaps even necessary - much easier to justify taking 90% of someone's income if you simply deny that person has any right to her income - but I still find it appalling and distasteful. But perhaps I simply haven't read these philosophers who overmatch Locke et al.

EDIT: Consider how difficult it was to end slavery even while believing that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Now imagine that same struggle among a people who believed there are no inalienable rights. Hardly any point to it.

 

[fskimospy]

So you are arguing that it was not wrong to enslave blacks until we collectively decided it was wrong, since there is no absolute morality? How is such a view not a prescription for evil? It's difficult enough to keep evil at bay while recognizing natural rights; how can we possibly hope to do so if we deny that people even HAVE rights?

Of course there's no absolute morality. Of course it was wrong to enslave blacks, but that's according to my morality. Human morality shifts and adapts over time, as clearly shown throughout history. Nowhere do I deny that people have rights, I just think the idea that people believe rights are poofed into existence is hopelessly naive. We have only the rights we agree upon and can protect.

I find it odd and disconcerting that the progressive movement, originally aimed at gradually implementing Marx's philosophy of empowering the proletariat to achieve their natural rights, is now arrayed to deny that such natural rights even exist. I suppose I can objectively understand how that might seem expedient and perhaps even necessary - much easier to justify taking 90% of someone's income if you simply deny that person has any right to her income - but I still find it appalling and distasteful. But perhaps I simply haven't read these philosophers who overmatch Locke et al.

This has nothing to do with progressivism, so I have no idea why you brought it up. (outside of your strange fetish for it) David Hume, one of the most influential thinkers of modern times, thought the concept was "illogical". As I said before you are free to believe in these rights if you want to, but there is simply no evidence for these being anything more than cultural norms you wish to have codified.

EDIT: Consider how difficult it was to end slavery even while believing that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Now imagine that same struggle among a people who believed there are no inalienable rights. Hardly any point to it.

Consider how the same men who claimed to believe all men were created equal ruthlessly enslaved and repeatedly raped those they enslaved. Shows just how malleable those ideals are, huh?

Also consider that other cultures that did not have these same concepts still had slavery in many cases, but a far more humane form of it, and in most cases it has also been abolished despite the absence of western ideals. Not only are western ideals not necessary for the abolition of slavery, but western slavery was among the most evil of all slavery's forms.

 

[Moonbeam]

Well, here we go again, the paradox of duality, the struggle with modes of perceiving, the difference between the analytical and the holistic, the separation of the discrete from a pattern and the identification of the pattern from segments.

We can perceive the world from two different modes of thinking and the rarer methodology that is a synthesis, the integration of opposites in a higher understand, the flash of insight, enlightenment and realization and the ending of questions.

From the point of view of thought and thoughtful analysis, there can be no ultimate truth because there is no ultimate meaning to anything. We are merely the product of chance in operation, a huge joke the universe has played on us, the illusion of life affixed to a bunch of swirling atoms. This left brained view of the world, I think, is adequately represented by eskimospy.

werepossum, however, perceives with his right hemisphere, that the complexity and emotional content of existence suggests a purpose, a pattern, not of chance on which the universe is built, that there is ultimate meaning and purpose out there.

So lets look at these two in monster form. eskimolie can be morally anything because the world is without any ultimate truth. He can decide that he knows what is best for me based on some notion of utility. werewolf, on the other hand, may decide what is best for me based on the words that have flown from God's hand in one or another of the millions of only truths He has dictated to this or that society as the final, only, and ultimate word on everything.

So we have plastic and concrete. We have one who can be anything and another who makes a good brick. But given both we might be able to make a house.

I used to be like werepossum, a believer in absolute truth but I started to question remorselessly and because eskimospy, but full of suffering for lost certainty, from the utter meaninglessness of it all. But for some reason or another, stripped of all belief, I let go of one last assumption I held dearly to, the notion that meaning means something. I realized that the need for meaning is as meaningless as everything else. So stripped of everything I had held sacred and that had given meaning to my life I was left with just the one thing that couldn't be taken so long as I exist, and that is my very being and the deepest part of my being is love and that is the absolute truth. So I believe in me and what I wish for you is that you know the same self I found in me because that self wishes you the very best. And as long as there are those who know who they are, I will always exist.

So the inalienable rights that adhere to human beings are neither relative nor do they exist out there in some external absolute sense. They are the essence of what it means to be real. They are the truth and foundation of our existence.

So the atheist and the religious believer, beyond external appearance, are driven by the same thing, the desire to gaze into the glass darkly, to perceive the true nature of things because the ultimate in utility is the absolute truth.

 

[woolfe9998]

Agreed. It's perhaps the biggest threat to our future as a species, this concept that freedom and rights are artificial and should be subordinate (if not downright antithetical) to entitlements. It's the new serfdom, and far too many people are willing to step up, penny in hand and noose around neck, if they believe they'll come out "ahead".


If there is no such thing as natural or G_d-given rights, only rights that come from government, then whether other forces can infringe on those rights is irrelevant because you've already ceded that power to government. You've already accepted that you have NO rights, and therefore whatever we collectively decide is right - including slavery, ethnic cleansing, euthanasia - is just as valid as any other possible decisions. It is, as CWJerome says, a deconstruction of Western Enlightenment, both religion-based and humanist-based.

Point of clarification: I believe in those rights as things which must be respected. That is not the same as saying that I believe these rights are sourced from "G-d" or nature. I don't feel the need to assume that things I believe are important are sourced from the cosmos. While that belief may cause some people to pause a moment before infringing on rights, that is immaterial to the truth of the matter. And the truth of the matter is that human society is the source of these rights.

I'm not suggesting that anything be ceded to your government boogeyman. That conclusion does not follow from this discussion.

 

[Moonbeam]

woolfe: Point of clarification: I believe in those rights as things which must be respected.

M: But where is the source of this must. What force causes you to believe such a thing?

w: That is not the same as saying that I believe these rights are sourced from "G-d" or nature. I don't feel the need to assume that things I believe are important are sourced from the cosmos. While that belief may cause some people to pause a moment before infringing on rights, that is immaterial to the truth of the matter. And the truth of the matter is that human society is the source of these rights.

M: How am I too to arrive at this truth? Do your rights as a human being disappear if you are alone or enslaved by an alien race? I don't see how you could argue that slavery is wrong in a slave holding society is the rights are what some group says they are.

w: I'm not suggesting that anything be ceded to your government boogeyman. That conclusion does not follow from this discussion.

M: How so? It did for werepossum.

 

[woolfe9998]

woolfe: Point of clarification: I believe in those rights as things which must be respected.

M: But where is the source of this must. What force causes you to believe such a thing?

I'm not entirely sure. But I don't believe in a universal system of morality that comes from a deity. Our sense of morality probably starts with what I referred to in a previous post - the evolutionary trait of altruism, and is then filtered through multiple layers of socialization. So to answer your question, my belief in the importance of these rights comes first through biology, then socialization. I'm sure my civics lessons in school influenced it, and probably many other variables.

Do you always know precisely why you believe what you believe?

M: How am I too to arrive at this truth? Do your rights as a human being disappear if you are alone or enslaved by an alien race? I don't see how you could argue that slavery is wrong in a slave holding society is the rights are what some group says they are.

A "right" is not a tangible thing. It's isn't like a pencil that's in my hand and you can take it away. "Right" is a word we use to describe a standard of conduct we think people should obey in how they relate to others. "Rights" are abstract. The notion that you "own" them is reification.

I already said the concept is irrelevant if you are the only person on earth because "rights" are about how people treat other people.

M: How so? It did for werepossum.

Werepossum made the assertion. Perhaps he should explain why he thinks my argument implies this, rather than me having to explain why it doesn't.

So far as government is concerned, I believe it can be limited in such a way as to protect people from the government infringing rights, but I also think that government can do things to protect people from having their rights infringed by others. I'm not so sure that Werepossum recognizes that latter point, which is the source of our disagreement.

 

[Moonbeam]

woolfe: I'm not entirely sure. But I don't believe in a universal system of morality that comes from a deity.

M: I don't believe that either. I believe that the morality and God are basically the same thing, or come from the same place, the ground of being as one set of words to describe it, realization of the true nature of self, the understanding that there is noting to be come or regret because one has always been everything, that altruism, as you put it adheres to our being, is our being, that it is when we are.

w: Our sense of morality probably starts with what I referred to in a previous post - the evolutionary trait of altruism, and is then filtered through multiple layers of socialization. So to answer your question, my belief in the importance of these rights comes first through biology, then socialization. I'm sure my civics lessons in school influenced it, and probably many other variables.

M: I agree. I just add that when your attachment to your particular socialization is lost as just one more relative thing that has no real meaning, the deeper reality can be seen because it was basic and fundamental and not inculcated.

w: Do you always know precisely why you believe what you believe?

M: Well I sometimes say that I don't know anything but I guess if I know that I could be wrong.

But it is attachment to belief, belief as a support of ego, that I call bigotry and bigotry has one remarkable characteristic, we don't remember where we got it without enormous effort. This is the problem with knowing what we feel. It hurts, or hurt long ago and we don't want to remember because of that pain. For reasons I can't explain, it seems as though some people just can't bury if deep enough not to be forced to feel it depending on the turns of their lives.

w: A "right" is not a tangible thing. It's isn't like a pencil that's in my hand and you can take it away. "Right" is a word we use to describe a standard of conduct we think people should obey in how they relate to others. "Rights" are abstract. The notion that you "own" them is reification.

M: Well I would say you own what adheres to your being, is who you are.

w: I already said the concept is irrelevant if you are the only person on earth because "rights" are about how people treat other people.

M: But if you were the last person on earth your altruism would not disappear nor would your sense of right and wrong.

w: Werepossum made the assertion. Perhaps he should explain why he thinks my argument implies this, rather than me having to explain why it doesn't.

M: Well I thought it did because your idea of rights seem to imply a subjectivity I do not think exists. In other words, in a slave society slavery would be moral but it isn't moral at all, objectively.

w: So far as government is concerned, I believe it can be limited in such a way as to protect people from the government infringing rights, but I also think that government can do things to protect people from having their rights taken away by others. I'm not so sure that Werepossum recognizes that latter point, which is the source of our disagreement.

M: Well, I agree with this but he does offer the notion that nobody, not government or the individual should take the rights of others, when seen as an absolute, goes in a favorable direction, it seems to me. Otherwise, I may become so altruistic as to know what is best for you even if you disagree, as I often do anyway, but with that much more temptation to act on it.

 

[woolfe9998]

woolfe: I'm not entirely sure. But I don't believe in a universal system of morality that comes from a deity.

M: I don't believe that either. I believe that the morality and God are basically the same thing, or come from the same place, the ground of being as one set of words to describe it, realization of the true nature of self, the understanding that there is noting to be come or regret because one has always been everything, that altruism, as you put it adheres to our being, is our being, that it is when we are.

Unfortunately, there are many other things which "adhere to our being" besides altruism. We differ in that I don't think we can condition ourselves to not desire to do wrong to others, because some of those bad intentions are hardwired just as are some of our good intentions. You can condition your behavior, to be sure, but desires can't easily be conditioned away. And they vary in degree from person to person.

w: Our sense of morality probably starts with what I referred to in a previous post - the evolutionary trait of altruism, and is then filtered through multiple layers of socialization. So to answer your question, my belief in the importance of these rights comes first through biology, then socialization. I'm sure my civics lessons in school influenced it, and probably many other variables.

M: I agree. I just add that when your attachment to your particular socialization is lost as just one more relative thing that has no real meaning, the deeper reality can be seen because it was basic and fundamental and not inculcated.

Yes, but there is much else to basic un-socialized human nature besides morality and respecting the rights of others. If morality is set in stone as part of the core of our being, so too are less admirable qualities.

w: A "right" is not a tangible thing. It's isn't like a pencil that's in my hand and you can take it away. "Right" is a word we use to describe a standard of conduct we think people should obey in how they relate to others. "Rights" are abstract. The notion that you "own" them is reification.

M: Well I would say you own what adheres to your being, is who you are.

I'm talking evolutionary biology, and what I believe "adheres" is that there is some tendency to want to protect others, the reason being that it improves the reproductive fitness of the group. That is a far cry from "rights" adhering to our being, particularly since other things less laudable "adhere" as well.

w: I already said the concept is irrelevant if you are the only person on earth because "rights" are about how people treat other people.

M: But if you were the last person on earth your altruism would not disappear nor would your sense of right and wrong.

No those things would not disappear, but they are not "rights." "Rights" is a behavioral standard: thou shalt not do X to another person. If there are no other people, the concept is irrelevant. I understand that you think "rights" are an underlying feeling but you're talking about something which is more of a precursor to why we have created rights in the context of society rather than the rights themselves. If the rights themselves are so etched in stone, then why do different cultures and societies have different ideas of what people's rights are, and why does a given society change its conceptions of rights over time?

w: Werepossum made the assertion. Perhaps he should explain why he thinks my argument implies this, rather than me having to explain why it doesn't.

M: Well I thought it did because your idea of rights seem to imply a subjectivity I do not think exists. In other words, in a slave society slavery would be moral but it isn't moral at all, objectively.

Morality is indeed relative. However, that has nothing to do with my own personal sense of morality, or whether I would "cede" something to the government.

An instructive example is how we may judge other cultures for violating our own conception of "human rights." I think we're perfectly entitled to do that, and I don't think the relativism of morality is a reason not to. We believe in the rights and morality we believe in because, at least in theory, we think they constitute the best moral system. Not judging others for violating those standards is abdicating our role as moral actors.

That said, there may be a situation where what is wrong here may be right somewhere else. Since you mentioned a Star Trek episode earlier, I'll mention another. In The Menagerie, a race of beings with the mental power to insert illusions in people's minds takes people captive and feeds off the emotions they experience from the illusions being projected. They style it as a beneficent captivity because the captive can live out whatever bliss they desire. However, when they discover that humans have a tendency to despise even pleasant captivity, they let Captain Pike go because they do not want him to suffer in captivity. However, the other human they have in captivity is disfigured and would rather stay on living in the fantasy world they create because she can be beautiful and healthy.

Morality is quite complicated, and it does vary depending on the situation. One can start with certain core principles but end up advocating different results depending on circumstance.

w: So far as government is concerned, I believe it can be limited in such a way as to protect people from the government infringing rights, but I also think that government can do things to protect people from having their rights taken away by others. I'm not so sure that Werepossum recognizes that latter point, which is the source of our disagreement.

M: Well, I agree with this but he does offer the notion that nobody, not government or the individual should take the rights of others, when seen as an absolute, goes in a favorable direction, it seems to me. Otherwise, I may become so altruistic as to know what is best for you even if you disagree, as I often do anyway, but with that much more temptation to act on it.

Well, first of all, legally your "rights" are qualified. They can't take them away unless you do X, Y or Z, and then they must give you a fair hearing before taking them away. Indeed, all moral propositions are qualified. Where it says "thou shalt not kill" in the Bible, they left out all the generally recognized exceptions: self-defense, warfare, mercy killings, possibly the death penalty (controversial).

 

[sandorski]

Natural/God-Given Rights is just a fancy way of saying Assumed Rights. This assumption is based upon some assumed principles, which are based upon some assumed Positive Outcomes. The purpose of all these assumptions is to create a system that best, to our knowledge, produces those positive outcomes. This is why the US FF left in place a system whereupon these issues could change the Constitution. They knew their limitations, their fallibility, that their understanding of things may not be entirely correct.

 

[HumblePie]

There certainly are "natural" rights and derived natural rights as well.

The one and only natural right conferred by "nature" is simply the right to exist. While others can take this from you, the fact you started with this right to exist by the fact you are born is what it is. The derivation of that right is the right to continued existence. True, others may try to take that right, but just because a right can be taken away doesn't make it any less a right. The right to exists, and thus the right to defend and continue your existence are the only real natural rights.

Everything else is an extension of that right to exist and continued existence.

 

[werepossum]

Point of clarification: I believe in those rights as things which must be respected. That is not the same as saying that I believe these rights are sourced from "G-d" or nature. I don't feel the need to assume that things I believe are important are sourced from the cosmos. While that belief may cause some people to pause a moment before infringing on rights, that is immaterial to the truth of the matter. And the truth of the matter is that human society is the source of these rights.

I'm not suggesting that anything be ceded to your government boogeyman. That conclusion does not follow from this discussion.

We both agree that government can (and should) take steps to protect our rights; only one of us can present a cogent reason why government MUST protect our rights. If there are no inherent human rights, then there can be no inherent reason to protect those rights. A government such as North Korea, a nation of starving virtual slaves utterly ruled by one man as administered by an especially draconian form of Communism, would be just as morally acceptable as our own democratic republic (or European democratic socialism if you prefer) because there are no inherent rights to be violated or respected. If morality is only what people think it is, then it cannot be immoral for him to force people to accept his version of morality. Slavery cannot be immoral because no one has an inherent right to liberty. Murder cannot be immoral because no one has an inherent right to life. Robbery cannot be immoral because no one has an inherent right to own property or to the fruit of his labor.

This is especially relevant because in every society, there are haves and have-nots. Even the lowest hunter-gatherer society has some that are less successful than others. If there are no G_d-given or natural rights, then those at the bottom SHOULD prey on their fellow man to improve their station in life. It's perfectly okay for them to rob, rape, even murder to make room for their own rise, because society's morality is just an arbitrary construct, a tool for the majority to maintain its position.

 

[fskimospy]

We both agree that government can (and should) take steps to protect our rights; only one of us can present a cogent reason why government MUST protect our rights. If there are no inherent human rights, then there can be no inherent reason to protect those rights. A government such as North Korea, a nation of starving virtual slaves utterly ruled by one man as administered by an especially draconian form of Communism, would be just as morally acceptable as our own democratic republic (or European democratic socialism if you prefer) because there are no inherent rights to be violated or respected. If morality is only what people think it is, then it cannot be immoral for him to force people to accept his version of morality. Slavery cannot be immoral because no one has an inherent right to liberty. Murder cannot be immoral because no one has an inherent right to life. Robbery cannot be immoral because no one has an inherent right to own property or to the fruit of his labor.

This is not logically consistent. If everyone is free to create their own morality (as is the case), it can most certainly be immoral for North Korea to imprison and murder its citizens. It may not be immoral to those who are doing it there, but it is immoral to us.

This is especially relevant because in every society, there are haves and have-nots. Even the lowest hunter-gatherer society has some that are less successful than others. If there are no G_d-given or natural rights, then those at the bottom SHOULD prey on their fellow man to improve their station in life. It's perfectly okay for them to rob, rape, even murder to make room for their own rise, because society's morality is just an arbitrary construct, a tool for the majority to maintain its position.

Or they could also determine that they gain more from the structure of society as it is than were they to embark on a rape and murder spree. All you are really describing is how the lower classes should want a revolution... which they can and frequently do. Interestingly enough, the rights desired by the revolting class are usually enshrined in a new constitution, etc. This further shows how rights are human determined, not some set of eternal natural principles.

 

[Moonbeam]

woolfe: Unfortunately, there are many other things which "adhere to our being" besides altruism. We differ in that I don't think we can condition ourselves to not desire to do wrong to others, because some of those bad intentions are hardwired just as are some of our good intentions. You can condition your behavior, to be sure, but desires can't easily be conditioned away. And they vary in degree from person to person.

M: You think because you do not know. I believe that everything you say here is because you do not know your own story, how you came to believe as you do, how you were conditioned, that you do not know what you feel and therefore do not remember the origin of those feelings. In order to understand this subject you need to a different perspective on the origin of good and evil and it is given in the Bible allegorically.

You were born in the Garden of Oneness, of perfection and unity, a being not separated from feeling by the presence of any defensive device capable of feeling any feeling to the maximum of your capacity, without any guilt to prevent you from feeling maximum pleasure or any defense against any violent pain. And then you learned language and the illusion of duality, that things can be good or evil including yourself. In this way you learned to be afraid, and to be manipulated, be good and you will be loved or not and suffer pain. You ate from the tree of Knowledge and learned to divide yourself from things, to compare, to judge, to value this and reject that, to divide against your self, the thinker and the object of thought. You became unreal, a believer in things that do not exist. So none of these things adhere to you but were created by thinking. Every time you think you are unreal. The eye cannot see itself, there is no fragment of self called you separate from reality except the figment of self called the ego. And this programming is total and runs very very deep.

w: Yes, but there is much else to basic un-socialized human nature besides morality and respecting the rights of others. If morality is set in stone as part of the core of our being, so too are less admirable qualities.

M: So it isn't the un-socialized human nature that does this but the self that is divided from reality. The acting out of evil because of belief, the feeling that one is evil so why not, the desire to get even for the fall from grace.

w: I'm talking evolutionary biology, and what I believe "adheres" is that there is some tendency to want to protect others, the reason being that it improves the reproductive fitness of the group. That is a far cry from "rights" adhering to our being, particularly since other things less laudable "adhere" as well.

M: We are a biological entity, an animal like any other, but with a capacity to use language to abstract and compare, to invent the concepts of good and evil and use pain to inculcate that belief. But there is no such thing as evil. We were made to believe a lie and we had to do it or we would have died. We were born dependent of the love of others and wanted only to please.

w: No those things would not disappear, but they are not "rights." "Rights" is a behavioral standard: thou shalt not do X to another person. If there are no other people, the concept is irrelevant. I understand that you think "rights" are an underlying feeling but you're talking about something which is more of a precursor to why we have created rights in the context of society rather than the rights themselves. If the rights themselves are so etched in stone, then why do different cultures and societies have different ideas of what people's rights are, and why does a given society change its conceptions of rights over time?

M: Because we are all at different distances from reality, at different understandings about its nature, lost at different levels of hell.

w: Morality is indeed relative. However, that has nothing to do with my own personal sense of morality, or whether I would "cede" something to the government.

M: werepossum is afraid of himself. He believes in evil but sees it out there in other people. He knows what the twisted self would do to others if it had power. It would cause others to experience the pain that created them.

w: An instructive example is how we may judge other cultures for violating our own conception of "human rights." I think we're perfectly entitled to do that, and I don't think the relativism of morality is a reason not to. We believe in the rights and morality we believe in because, at least in theory, we think they constitute the best moral system. Not judging others for violating those standards is abdicating our role as moral actors.

M: Yes, I know but let him who is without evil cast the first stone.

w: That said, there may be a situation where what is wrong here may be right somewhere else. Since you mentioned a Star Trek episode earlier, I'll mention another. In The Menagerie, a race of beings with the mental power to insert illusions in people's minds takes people captive and feeds off the emotions they experience from the illusions being projected. They style it as a beneficent captivity because the captive can live out whatever bliss they desire. However, when they discover that humans have a tendency to despise even pleasant captivity, they let Captain Pike go because they do not want him to suffer in captivity. However, the other human they have in captivity is disfigured and would rather stay on living in the fantasy world they create because she can be beautiful and healthy.

M: This is an allegorical representation of the difference between the true self and the ego. The human chooses to experience its pain and the ego does not. You and I are the ones who have been disfigured and live in a fantasy. Pike wants to awaken from his dream.

w: Morality is quite complicated, and it does vary depending on the situation. One can start with certain core principles but end up advocating different results depending on circumstance.

M: What morality requires, I think, is the courage to be real.

w: Well, first of all, legally your "rights" are qualified. They can't take them away unless you do X, Y or Z, and then they must give you a fair hearing before taking them away. Indeed, all moral propositions are qualified. Where it says "thou shalt not kill" in the Bible, they left out all the generally recognized exceptions: self-defense, warfare, mercy killings, possibly the death penalty (controversial).

M: I think love makes everything very simple. Here is a Rumi poem you may enjoy:

Some Kiss We Want:

There is some kiss we want with

our whole lives, the touch of

spirit on the body. Seawater

begs the pearl to break its shell.

And the lily, how passionately

it needs some wild darling! At

night, I open the window and ask

the moon to come and press its

face against mine. Breathe into

me. Close the language- door and

open the love window. The moon

won't use the door, only the window.

 

[kia75]

We both agree that government can (and should) take steps to protect our rights; only one of us can present a cogent reason why government MUST protect our rights. If there are no inherent human rights, then there can be no inherent reason to protect those rights. A government such as North Korea, a nation of starving virtual slaves utterly ruled by one man as administered by an especially draconian form of Communism, would be just as morally acceptable as our own democratic republic (or European democratic socialism if you prefer) because there are no inherent rights to be violated or respected. If morality is only what people think it is, then it cannot be immoral for him to force people to accept his version of morality. Slavery cannot be immoral because no one has an inherent right to liberty. Murder cannot be immoral because no one has an inherent right to life. Robbery cannot be immoral because no one has an inherent right to own property or to the fruit of his labor.

This is especially relevant because in every society, there are haves and have-nots. Even the lowest hunter-gatherer society has some that are less successful than others. If there are no G_d-given or natural rights, then those at the bottom SHOULD prey on their fellow man to improve their station in life. It's perfectly okay for them to rob, rape, even murder to make room for their own rise, because society's morality is just an arbitrary construct, a tool for the majority to maintain its position.

This sounds like the old chestnut that Atheists can't be good people because they lack morals, when some of the nicest and most ethical people I know are Atheists.

The first thing is empathy. I do not want to be robbed, raped or murdered, so I discourage other people to rob rape and murder. It is in everyone's best interest that there are as few robberies and rapes as possible. Heck, it's in your best interest as well, no matter how good you are at robbing and raping, there's always someone out there (or a group of people) that are better at robbing and raping then you.

You mention how we can't judge the dictator of North Korea, why can't we judge him? He's a crazy man with nuclear weapons! If there's a crazy man with a gun then you try to limit the damage he can do, the same is true with North Korea.

I believe everyone should have the right to a good education and to succeed in life. North Koreans don't have the ability to do this due to being ruled by a psycho. We totally should condemn North Korea and encourage the people to have more freedom.


IMO, the lack of Natural rights is actually an improvement, it allows us to ratchet things up and add new rights. Take IP rights for example. IP rights are the very anti-thesis of Natural rights. As the myriad legal battles have shown us, they're not self-evident. They're not universal, the bible lacks a copyright but "Jesus Christ Superstar" has one. If you told a farmer 300 years ago that he couldn't tell a story he heard at the bar in another bar, he'd laugh at you. At the same time, due to how technology has progressed IP rights are now EXTREMELY important to mankind. We acknowledge that in today's world if everyone could just copy software without paying for it then developing new software would slow down. So the idea of IP rights is being created at this moment.

If we were forced to say the only real rights were natural rights, well IP isn't property and philosophers disagree on whether property is a natural right. By ignoring natural rights, we bypass that argument altogether and are allowed to ethically come up with IP rights.

In the future we'll come up with new rights that at the moment aren't important to us but will be in 100 years from now, perhaps DNA rights or something similar. Society should always be improving and locking ourselves down to 2 or 3 rights from a hundred years ago keeps us from creating the rights we need now.

 

[woolfe9998]

We both agree that government can (and should) take steps to protect our rights; only one of us can present a cogent reason why government MUST protect our rights. If there are no inherent human rights, then there can be no inherent reason to protect those rights. A government such as North Korea, a nation of starving virtual slaves utterly ruled by one man as administered by an especially draconian form of Communism, would be just as morally acceptable as our own democratic republic (or European democratic socialism if you prefer) because there are no inherent rights to be violated or respected. If morality is only what people think it is, then it cannot be immoral for him to force people to accept his version of morality. Slavery cannot be immoral because no one has an inherent right to liberty. Murder cannot be immoral because no one has an inherent right to life. Robbery cannot be immoral because no one has an inherent right to own property or to the fruit of his labor.

This is especially relevant because in every society, there are haves and have-nots. Even the lowest hunter-gatherer society has some that are less successful than others. If there are no G_d-given or natural rights, then those at the bottom SHOULD prey on their fellow man to improve their station in life. It's perfectly okay for them to rob, rape, even murder to make room for their own rise, because society's morality is just an arbitrary construct, a tool for the majority to maintain its position.

You're arguing for result rather than for truth. I can quibble with the result in that I think humans create their own moral imperatives and we've had uneven but reasonable success in applying and enforcing these imperatives over time. We consent to morality to some degree, in part because it's in our best interests.

But the real problem with your argument is that the crux is you just don't like the implications of human created morality. Well it doesn't matter if you like the implications. I'm pointing out that there is no evidence of morality created by a deity or springing from nature. Even if the implications of that are truly as terrible as you claim they are, it wouldn't change the truth of the matter.

Your argument is akin to saying that God exists otherwise we'd have nowhere to go when we die. Your desire for an afterlife isn't evidence of God any more than your desire for rights etched in stone means such things exist.

 

[Anarchist420]

Constitution is a real body of law, not a declaration of ideals. In the real world, people don't have the unqualified right to pursue their happiness at the expense of others. That's why we have a government and laws to begin with.

The Constitution is legislation.