Rights

[jiggawutt]

I'm curious to know everyone's positions on the idea of "rights," particularly "natural rights." Do you think such rights exist and if so, how are they derived? Being an insufferable liberal atheist, I often find myself speaking on rights but inevitably back down when asked to defend the basis of such rights. The reason being is that the Declaration of Independence derives these rights from a creator, or lawgiver . . . this is obviously bad because I can hardly call myself reasonable if I contradict my own beliefs the moment I invoke the very rights that U.S. citizens cling to.

Another idea I've encountered is that rights are somehow derived naturally or are somehow intrinsic to human nature. If that's true, how can we define these rights when they don't have much basis on natural law? I mean, a right to life is all well and good, but my life is only sustained from the countless deaths of plants and other animals. Doesn't my "right to life" infringe others rights and is therefore not universal?

I'm interested to know what you think.

 

[Laurens]

I think rights are derived from our own needs and desires as individuals. All sane people desire freedom from harm, loss, degradation, humiliation, pain, violence, murder, and so on. I say that rights are an attempt to meet these needs in all individuals.

 

[nudger1964]

no such thing as natural rights in my book.
I can have the view i have a right to life, but that aint gonna help me if the star i live next to goes supernova.
All you can do is define your own rights and lobby society to embrace and enforce them.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I think rights are derived from our own needs and desires as individuals. All sane people desire freedom from harm, loss, degradation, humiliation, pain, violence, murder, and so on. I say that rights are an attempt to meet these needs in all individuals.

I disagree slightly, because individuals don't have or need rights based on their individuality. We have rights because we come together in societies and rights help define how we're going to treat each other.

 

[Laurens]

I disagree slightly, because individuals don't have or need rights based on their individuality. We have rights because we come together in societies and rights help define how we're going to treat each other.

Yes, my point was that when we come together as a society, the constructs we call rights are generally based upon the universal needs of individuals (if that makes sense). If humans didn't have a desire for their own property for example, and to not have other people come and take it from them, then I don't think property rights would exist. The fact that they do, is because we do desire to own property and to prevent others from taking it - thus the society establishes this as a right.

 

[devilsadvocate]

I agree with Laurens pretty much on everything he's posted on the thread. Since I saw this thread in the morning with one reply on it at the moment, I thought I've got to post something about the how we find ourselves in the world with the needs we have, as slaves of passions, if you will, and how a social contracts seems to follow from that quite naturally, but Laurens already beat me to it.

I don't think human needs and wants are either good or bad, right or wrong, but just something we are wired to have for what we are. Social contracts are ways to deal with conflicting desires, like a hierarchy of what needs trump other peoples needs and wants - If I was bothered because someone laughed at the wrong spots during a comedy quite loudly, it wouldn't be alright for me to murder the guy with an axe, since my annoyance doesn't warrant the ending of his whole existence.*


In any case, social contracts do not form inalienable natural rights in themselves, but, I think, are instrumental to the (quite inalienable) needs we have and probably couldn't rationalize away if we wanted to.


*I guess that's a bit of problem for contractarian theory, as I wouldn't be signing a contract that said it's ok for anyone to murder given the slightest annoyance (it might be me getting the axe in the head), but if it only said that it was ok for me, there's a couple spots in my life where that could've been handy. If I, or someone else with more psychopathic tendencies, would be in power to enforce that kind of contract, it wouldn't be in his self-interest to have any other kind. You'd have to show how manipulating the contract in this way wouldn't be in the person self-interest, or that being motivated by self-interest in general is irrational.

 

[Dean]

no such thing as natural rights in my book. ["¦]

Nor mine. In my opinion, in order to fully grasp what 'rights' actually are, you must understand that they are a creation of human beings. They are NOT an intrinsic feature of societies, land, or property. While I appreciate the efforts of philosophers like Ludwig Von Mises to argue for the existence of natural rights, or natural laws, I have yet to see an argument that is particularly compelling. . .