A recent viral video claimed that “human rights are just a story that we’ve invented.” Here’s why that’s so wrong...

[Michie]

In a recent viral video receiving massive online blowback, the author and historian Yuval Noah Harari says,

“Human rights, just like God and heaven, are just a story that we’ve invented. They are not an objective reality; they are not some biological effect about homo sapiens. Take a human being, cut him open, look inside, you will find the heart, the kidneys, neurons, hormones, DNA, but you won’t find any rights. The only place you find rights are in the stories that we have invented and spread around over the last few centuries. They may be very positive stories, very good stories, but they’re still just fictional stories that we’ve invented.”

But no human rights advocate thinks human rights are physical objects lodged somewhere between the liver and the lungs. An autopsy can hardly abolish human rights.

In making his claims, Harari simply assumes the philosophy of materialism, the claim that only material objects exist. Yet if only material objects exist, then Harari can give us no reason for thinking that only material objects exist. Rational arguments make use of propositions, logical necessities, and metaphysical assumptions all of which (according to materialism) are not true, but just invented fictional stories. So, any justification Harari could give for materialism is self-defeating, undermining itself.

Moreover, materialism is a false philosophy. It is a reality that 2+2=4. It is a reality that 7+5=12. These realities have no length in inches, no weight in pounds, and no bodily dimensions. These realities existed before humans existed and would remain realities even if all humans died, so these mathematical truths are not human stories. If there are realities that are not material realities, then materialism is false. There are realities, like 2+2=4 and 7+5=12, that are not material realities. So, materialism is false.

Continued below.

Are Human Rights Just Fictional Stories? - Word on Fire

If there is no conflict between evolution and the doctrine of the faith, Harari’s grounds for rejecting human rights as found in the Declaration of Independence is just a fictional story.

www.wordonfire.org