Cracking our humanitarian teeth on Godless Human Rights ...

[hedrick]

I would suggest that "Prescriptive admonishment to treat other human beings with respect, compassion and care" is exactly where we're going. It's just that conservative Christians don't have quite the same view of what that means as the rest of us. It's difficult to make laws to treat others right. When you try to define enforceable limits, they look at lot like rights.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I would suggest that "Prescriptive admonishment to treat other human beings with respect, compassion and care" is exactly where we're going. It's just that conservative Christians don't have quite the same view of what that means as the rest of us. It's difficult to make laws to treat others right. When you try to define enforceable limits, they look at lot like rights.

Oh, I don't know about that Hedrick. The metaphysics involved in current Human Rights thinking is paltry and not at all something that all people everywhere can even agree on when thinking about whatever praxis should go into the notion of our having a 'common' ethical code of practical import pertaining to human social well-being.

At best, today's human rights thinking is a decades old knee jerk reaction against Hitler and the maniacal machinations of his Nazi Regime; at least, this has been the case among socially perceptive, empathic and caring people, and that in itself is something to work with I suppose.

 

[hedrick]

Oh, I don't know about that Hedrick. The metaphysics involved in current Human Rights thinking is paltry and not at all something that all people everywhere can even agree on when thinking about whatever praxis should go into the notion of our having a 'common' ethical code of practical import pertaining to human social well-being.

At best, today's human rights thinking is a decades old knee jerk reaction against Hitler and the maniacal machinations of his Nazi Regime; at least, this has been the case among socially perceptive, empathic and caring people, and that in itself is something to work with I suppose.

I thought rights thinking went back to the founding fathers. The Bill of Rights certainly isn't a response to the Nazis.

It's actually the places that want an ethical code of practical import pertaining to social well-being that conservative Christians have the most problems with, because to everyone else it's obvious that it should include things that don't fit your ideals.

Rights are more practical if we have disagreements on ideals, and want to allow for a range of them. Of course even then the range can't be unlimited.

 

[FireDragon76]

I would suggest that "Prescriptive admonishment to treat other human beings with respect, compassion and care" is exactly where we're going. It's just that conservative Christians don't have quite the same view of what that means as the rest of us. It's difficult to make laws to treat others right. When you try to define enforceable limits, they look at lot like rights.

Many conservative Christians believe in divine command ethics to the point they simply don't care, and that's part of the problem.

The direction of ethics in academia as a whole is increasingly influenced by phenomenology and ethics of care rather than moral absolutes, and some Christians can't seem to grasp how that's actually better than adhering to rigid and inflexible external rules about behavior.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I thought rights thinking went back to the founding fathers. The Bill of Rights certainly isn't a response to the Nazis.

It's actually the places that want an ethical code of practical import pertaining to social well-being that conservative Christians have the most problems with, because to everyone else it's obvious that it should include things that don't fit your ideals.

Rights are more practical if we have disagreements on ideals, and want to allow for a range of them. Of course even then the range can't be unlimited.

... No, today's globalizing 'rights conscience' is one that has developed out of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As for the U.S. Bill of Rights, it has lead Americans to think in terms of Civil Liberties, which isn't exactly the same thing as the current notion of Universal Human Rights that we see moving on a global scale.