Are there really unalienable rights?

[AtWhatCost]

We've been taught we've got them, but do they really exist? And, if they do, where in the Bible are the rights? Do we truly have rights?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Politially maybe, but cosmically no. They depend on human and social will etc.

 

[SkyWriting]

We've been taught we've got them, but do they really exist? And, if they do, where in the Bible are the rights? Do we truly have rights?

Only if the people around you choose to grant them to you.

 

[Eryk]

Some believe that the right to life can only be possessed by beings who want to live - conscious beings who want to continue their own existence. Mentally immature or disabled beings who are below this threshold do not have an intrinsic dignity.

But this is a dualistic way of thinking about minds and bodies, when consciousness gives someone more rights than a merely physical being. This used to be the way we made the distinction between humans and animals, and we did away with all that. We're trying to make the same distinction all over again between some humans and others and it won't work if consciousness is just another physical process in a material universe. More complex but certainly not special. We really haven't come to terms with the fact that there is no ground for the concept of inalienable rights in philosophical materialism. There's nothing left in the political sphere but the distinction between who has power and who does not.

 

[AtWhatCost]

Well, that does explain better why Jefferson's group decided the right to land wasn't an unalienable right, so they replaced it with pursuit of happiness.

 

[variant]

Rights are just ideas; they are as inalienable as we (humanity as a whole) make them.

 

[variant]

We really haven't come to terms with the fact that there is no ground for the concept of inalienable rights in philosophical materialism. There's nothing left in the political sphere but the distinction between who has power and who does not.

The political sphere is dominated by the question of who SHOULD have power and why, which is a moral question.

You don't have to imagine a great distinction between physical substances and minds for it to be a meaningful question.

 

[SkyWriting]

But this is a dualistic way of thinking about minds and bodies, when consciousness gives someone more rights than a merely physical being. This used to be the way we made the distinction between humans and animals, and we did away with all that.

Was that when we stopped killing & eating animals?
Or when we afforded animals the rights of humans?
When was that?

 

[Chad Farwell]

All we got is the right to be wrong

 

[Ana the Ist]

I think we have the inherent right to obey/disobey. The only way I can see this being taken from you would be through hypnosis or something similar.

 

[Eyes wide Open]

Was that when we stopped killing & eating animals?
Or when we afforded animals the rights of humans?
When was that?

People are affording rights to animals all the time with new legislation etc. Its an incremental process of change. Others don't need to wait for legislative measures and choose not to kill and eat animals, they feel an animal does have a right to live.

 

[Eyes wide Open]

I think we have the inherent right to obey/disobey. The only way I can see this being taken from you would be through hypnosis or something similar.

Or death.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Or death.

Correct. Other than that, it's pretty unalienable.

 

[AtWhatCost]

I think we have the inherent right to obey/disobey. The only way I can see this being taken from you would be through hypnosis or something similar.

Actually, they can't take away that through hypnosis. On the other hand, how about dementia, sociopaths, or psychopaths? (Not putting all those folks in the same boat. Just picking out some people who may not have the ability to choose obey from disobey.)

Can they choose obey or disobey?

 

[quatona]

Are there really unalienable rights?

If rights were unalienable we wouldn´t have to discuss them, declare them, defend them and/or protect them.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Actually, they can't take away that through hypnosis. On the other hand, how about dementia, sociopaths, or psychopaths? (Not putting all those folks in the same boat. Just picking out some people who may not have the ability to choose obey from disobey.)

Can they choose obey or disobey?

A severe enough dementia could impede such abilities....the others I'd doubt.

This is beside the point though. In most cases is unalienable.

 

[Crowns&Laurels]

We've reached a point in which the gas chamber was ruled cruel and unusual punishment, but the death penalty still exists nonetheless. It's progress, I suppose, in how we treat those we declare have forfeited their right to live.

You get to choose your way of dying here in Virginia- the electric chair is most common, but you can do lethal injection, fire squad, or hanging. What a medley of choices- what do you choose!

Us and Texas are the main death penalty states, and also the most conservative in Christian virtue.
Ironically.
You learn pretty quickly that a cross over a group of people does not make a Christian body- the death penalty is an act of revenge, and it does not deter murder. It has no place among those who cherish Christ.

 

[David Colin Gould]

We've been taught we've got them, but do they really exist? And, if they do, where in the Bible are the rights? Do we truly have rights?

I have never understood the notion of inalienable rights. Human communities determine what rights are given to which people at which times and under what circumstances they no longer possess them. There are some reasonable things that people can usually agree on, but not always and they are not always applied universally in any case.

 

[Eudaimonist]

We've been taught we've got them, but do they really exist? And, if they do, where in the Bible are the rights? Do we truly have rights?

Yes, I think that we do have inalienable rights, by which I mean that there are certain ways in which it is unethical for governments to treat their citizenry, and the defense of rights justifies the institution of government.

Right have zilch to do with the Bible.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[durangodawood]

What is an "inalienable right"?

I dont understand.
.