Are Human Rights a fantasy?

[durangodawood]

Yes, human rights are an illusion.

As much as any other moral judgement.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

As much as any other moral judgement.

I wouldnt go that far unless you want to posit nihilism.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

And there I was, enjoying liberty, family life, joining associations, moving freely about my country and expressing views contrary to government! I was just kidding myself.

Are human rights owed to every single human being?

 

[durangodawood]

I wouldnt go that far unless you want to posit nihilism.

Whats the difference?

Human rights are a moral judgement that we make about what we're entitled to from other people, as I noted earlier. If rights arent that, then what are they?

 

[iluvatar5150]

Whats the difference?

Human rights are a moral judgement that we make about what we're entitled to from other people, as I noted earlier. If rights arent that, then what are they?

You could probably make a rational amoral argument that establishing and enforcing a certain set of rights maximizes the average level of benefit or flourishing enjoyed by the affected population.

 

[durangodawood]

You could probably make a rational amoral argument that establishing and enforcing a certain set of rights maximizes the average level of benefit or flourishing enjoyed by the affected population.

For sure. And I believe that a lot of human morality (tho not all) originates in natural facts about what what kind of lives humans generally want.

But that territory has been well trodden in other threads. For the purpose of examining rights, morality could be naturally derived or God given.

 

[Chesterton]

Not by yourself, but with some friends, absolutely. Within our system of government, it's pretty difficult (though not strictly impossible) for one person to accomplish that, but voters can vote in new rights or vote away old ones and legislators can legislate in new rights or legislate away old ones. Regulatory agencies can do something similar, albeit on a much more limited scale. Your ability to own a gun, for example, only exists because the other side can't get enough people together to vote to take it away.

If we were in another country with different rules, then your power as an individual could be much greater.

What if my friends are Nazi Germany?

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

Whats the difference?

Human rights are a moral judgement that we make about what we're entitled to from other people, as I noted earlier. If rights arent that, then what are they?

Indeed, what are they apart from a set of rules people may or may not agree on. If they are only that then we are free to either accept auch a framework or reject it.

But in the end they are ultimately illusionary, artifical constructions not rooted in reality, nor can they bind the conscience. Hence why I don't put much stock into human rights.

 

[Chesterton]

Indeed, what are they apart from a set of rules people may or may not agree on. If they are only that then we are free to either accept auch a framework or reject it.

But in the end they are ultimately illusionary, artifical constructions not rooted in reality, nor can they bind the conscience. Hence why I don't put much stock into human rights.

I disagree that they can't bind the conscience. A long time ago in England they wrote this thing called the Magna Carta, which basically implied that although the sovereign is sovereign, he's not absolutely sovereign. He is to be held to a higher standard of fair play and justice than himself. This would have to be something supernatural. A bit later, the same thing was stated more explicitly in the American Declaration of Independence, which has had great influence throughout the world.

 

[Whyayeman]

Are human rights owed to every single human being?

Yes.

 

[IceJad]

https://breakpoint.org/are-human-rights-a-fantasy/

In a TEDX talk years ago, Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari made the startling claim that human rights do not exist.

[H]uman rights are just like heaven and like God: It’s just a fictional story that we’ve invented and spread around. … It is not a biological reality, just as jellyfish and woodpeckers and ostriches have no rights, Homo sapiens have no rights. … Take a human, cut him open, look inside—you find their blood, and you find the heart and lungs and kidneys, but you don’t find there any rights. The only place you find rights is in the fictional stories that humans have invented and spread around.

I find people like this narcissistic and all together illogical. The notion that human rights have no biological reality is in of itself flawed. The very nature of a human rights indicate biological reality. The biological reality of self-preservation. To create a condition or environment where your species will survive best.

All living beings have the inert desire to best survive. Ants & bees form hives, wolf form packs and so on. All these collectives have a set of non-physical rules governing them. The queen ant/bee have the highest priority while the rest are expendables. Alpha wolves get to lead the hunt and eat first. Dissect any of these animals you will find nothing but organs and fluids. Yet the collective rules are not any less real.

We humans as the most mentally capable (highest level of sentiency) of all livings creatures, will of course have more complex way to achieve self-preservation. We come up with rules where every human should follow to ensure that all individuals have the best chance of survival. We come up with ideas such as human rights. It is part of our nature (at least the majority of the species) to ensure maximum protection for maximum chance of prosperity; for both the collective and the individual.

Individuals who like to reduce everything to basic nature understands nothing about true nature. They only view things from the "mindless" perspective but nothing in nature is truly "mindless". Given enough time even the most basic creature will form esoteric ideals base on the need to prosper.