What are "Human Rights" and where do they come from?

[Dave Ellis]

In the context of a world populated by other humans, do you personally believe that you have a right to life, independent of any government, any constitution or any other human being?

Rights are granted by other humans, usually through a government in the form of laws or a constitution. In fact, rights are basically the things that are used to govern the relationship between a person and the government. When it comes to interpersonal interactions, rights have little relevance.

For example, if you have a right to a trial by jury, that governs how the government must deal with you if you are accused of a crime. My neighbour could consider me innocent or guilty regardless of whether a jury is around or not. If you have a right to life, it doesn't matter if there's 10 people waiting outside to beat you to death. It only matters when law enforcement intervenes and charges them with murder. Again, a government acting through laws.

So, no. Rights are not inherent. Rights have been fought for and won through centuries of struggle, and to call them inherent is an insult to all of the civil rights pioneers and fighters throughout history.

 

[FireDragon76]

What we call human rights are instinctive desires. We evolved from social primates living in smallish clans or tribes. Within that paradigm, we want the freedom to act so that we, and our tribe, reproduce ourselves and flourish. We want to live in peace. We want our families to have safe, secure homes. To be free from harm. We don't want our resources stolen from us. We don't want be oppressed, or persecuted by either our own tribe members or by other tribes. The specific ways and degrees to which these are expressed can vary among individuals and societies. But at the most fundamental level, our brains are hard-wired to value these aspirations. And we incorporate them into our social order as "rights." As a naturalist, I don't believe we got the concept of rights from any divine creator. We got them from our evolution.

So I suppose if aliens come from another world who are not social primates, who are silicon based and breath carbon dioxide, and decide to kill everyone on earth, there's really nothing wrong with it and we might as well dispense with the notion of "human rights"...

 

[FireDragon76]

I understand your point. The point that I am making is that slavery can neither be right nor wrong if human rights are a subjective.

The modern notion of human rights and human dignity as a fundamental absolute, which underpinned the discourse of most liberal democracies, and the United Nations, from the mid 20th century onward, was actually developed by Catholic philosophers and theorists such as Jacques Maritain. Trying to ignore the Christian origins of the concept is simply ahistorical, and the concept of human rights cannot easily survive in its absence, as witnessed by totalitarian regimes such as in the USSR and China. Communism, drawing upon materialism, reduced human beings to machines in an inevitable material process, not creatures with dignity and freedom.

 

[Dave Ellis]

So I suppose if aliens come from another world who are not social primates, who are silicon based and breath carbon dioxide, and decide to kill everyone on earth, there's really nothing wrong with it and we might as well dispense with the notion of "human rights"...

I'd say it's certainly immoral for them to do that, however it shows you how irrelevant your inherent rights are even if they do exist.

Rights are essentially a social contract. There's nothing inherent about them.

 

[FireDragon76]

I'd say it's certainly immoral for them to do that, however it shows you how irrelevant your inherent rights are even if they do exist.

Rights are essentially a social contract. There's nothing inherent about them.

So there's nothing really wrong about a society that decides together to liquidate undesirables and deplorables?

 

[Dave Ellis]

The modern notion of human rights and human dignity as a fundamental absolute, which underpinned the discourse of most liberal democracies, and the United Nations, from the mid 20th century onward, was actually developed by Catholic philosophers and theorists such as Jacques Maritain. Trying to ignore the Christian origins of the concept is simply ahistorical, and the concept of human rights cannot easily survive in its absence, as witnessed by totalitarian regimes such as in the USSR and China. Communism, drawing upon materialism, reduced human beings to machines in an inevitable material process, not creatures with dignity and freedom.

Oh please... The idea of human rights has gone back centuries. For example, the Magna Carta is a charter of rights. That dates to 1215. There was an idea of rights going right back to antiquity though, long before Christianity was created.

And rights not only continue to exist, but tend to expand and flourish in modern secular democracies, as we can witness in places like Scandinavia. Christianity plays very little to no role in those societies.

 

[Dave Ellis]

So there's nothing really wrong about a society that decides together to liquidate undesirables and deplorables?

When did I say that? I clearly did not, so why would you purposefully mis-characterize my argument?

That act would be an illegal one, as it should be. "Liquidating" undesirables or deplorables is also an immoral thing to do. But, rights and morality are two different things. Plenty of people have the right to do immoral things. So, what you are saying has no bearing on the existence of inherent rights or not.

How do you demonstrate that someone has inherent rights?

 

[TasteForTruth]

Rights are granted by other humans, usually through a government in the form of laws or a constitution. In fact, rights are basically the things that are used to govern the relationship between a person and the government. When it comes to interpersonal interactions, rights have little relevance.

For example, if you have a right to a trial by jury, that governs how the government must deal with you if you are accused of a crime. My neighbour could consider me innocent or guilty regardless of whether a jury is around or not. If you have a right to life, it doesn't matter if there's 10 people waiting outside to beat you to death. It only matters when law enforcement intervenes and charges them with murder. Again, a government acting through laws.

So, no. Rights are not inherent. Rights have been fought for and won through centuries of struggle, and to call them inherent is an insult to all of the civil rights pioneers and fighters throughout history.

So, you do not believe that you, personally, have a right to live. Is that statement correct?

 

[Dave Ellis]

So, you do not believe that you, personally, have a right to live. Is that statement correct?

An inherent right, no. Inherent rights aren't a thing.

A legal right, yes. It would be illegal for someone to murder, or attempt to murder me.

 

[TasteForTruth]

An inherent right, no. Inherent rights aren't a thing.

A legal right, yes. It would be illegal for someone to murder, or attempt to murder me.

Got it. Do you believe that laws that outlaw murder are just?

 

[Dave Ellis]

Got it. Do you believe that laws that outlaw murder are just?

Yes I do

 

[TasteForTruth]

Yes I do

On what basis are they just?

 

[Dave Ellis]

On what basis are they just?

If you wish to live in a functional and safe society, we can't be killing each other randomly. It's in everyone's best interests to prohibit murder.

 

[TasteForTruth]

If you wish to live in a functional and safe society, we can't be killing each other randomly. It's in everyone's best interests to prohibit murder.

So what is "just" is subject wholly and only to what a given group of people determine is "in their interest" as measured by its potential for securing "what [they] wish." Does that statement represent your position accurately?

 

[jayem]

So I suppose if aliens come from another world who are not social primates, who are silicon based and breath carbon dioxide, and decide to kill everyone on earth, there's really nothing wrong with it and we might as well dispense with the notion of "human rights"...

I don't see how that dystopian sci-fi scenario relates to my point. Which is that the human concept of rights derives from our evolution as social primates.

 

[FireDragon76]

I don't see how that dystopian sci-fi scenario relates to my point. Which is that the human concept of rights derives from our evolution as social primates.

I call shenanigans. As I pointed out above, our concept of rights in liberal democracies came from the Christian tradition. It does not exist in other cultures, except in countries like Japan where it was imposed on them.

 

[FireDragon76]

"Human rights" is a human social construct.

It recognises human behaviour and human values. I think some people would call this "natural law".
Humans value their own life and their own protection, they value shelter, food, warmth, they value freedom and choice, they value family, they value property, they value peace, they value the ability to make a living, and the ability to purchase goods and services, they value the ability to live in a society and not be discriminated against.
I think these things are inherent in our humanity regardless of culture or beliefs.

What is law without a lawgiver? Law just becomes a convention, descriptive, not prescriptive.

There are plenty of societies that haven't had as strong a commitment to things like fairness or equality, and some value honor to an inordinate degree, to the point they will kill for it. How do you explain that, if the concept of rights merely emerges from our biology?

 

[jayem]

I call shenanigans. As I pointed out above, our concept of rights in liberal democracies came from the Christian tradition. It does not exist in other cultures, except in countries like Japan where it was imposed on them.

I must have missed that when I studied history. Not many human rights were ever allowed to Jews. Freedom of speech and religious belief didn't apply even to other Christians with heterodox ideas. As you may recall in the cases of Michael Servetus and Giordano Bruno. When the RCC ran the show, Christians killed each other--at least in part--over such nonsense as whether you baptize infants or adults. (Read about the Cathar wars. Not to mention that Protestantism was officially considered heretical up to the 20th century.) In colonial New England, during the Puritan days, Quakers who evangelized for their beliefs could be whipped, have an ear cut off, a hole bored through their tongues, and a few were hanged. (Read about Mary Dyer.)

Political rights for the common man weren't codified until the late 17th century. Probably the earliest was the English Bill of Rights in 1689. This was also the beginning of the Enlightenment. Which has influenced the modern concept of human rights far more than has organized Christianity.

 

[stevil]

What is law without a lawgiver? Law just becomes a convention, descriptive, not prescriptive.

There are plenty of societies that haven't had as strong a commitment to things like fairness or equality, and some value honor to an inordinate degree, to the point they will kill for it. How do you explain that, if the concept of rights merely emerges from our biology?

It doesn't only emerge from our biology.

People have developed the capability of deep thought. The ability to think in abstract concepts. People have the capability to teach ideas to others (rather than simply being inbuilt into our DNA).

People live in communities and over the past years distances have been made shorter due to the invention of cars and boats and planes. But our history included times where societies were seperated from each other and so developed a great variety of customs, cultures, beliefs and languages. We are now becoming more global, and being a melting pot of these differences all coming together. We also often belong to multiple groups at the same time. At work I conform to a different set of norms as I do when in my family home, and that is different to the norms in my kids school.

We are influenced by a great many things, which makes living in a society interesting and makes it interesting to get to know people from various walks of life.

We unfortunately get into conflict when we attempt to force our own way of life onto others.
I think as long as certain behaviours aren't unduly impacting others, we ought to just respect the differences in others rather than try to force them to conform.

We don't want a moral society if that means confronting others and trying to force them to conform instead what we want is a safe and thriving society where we can appreciate and respect diversity.

 

[FireDragon76]

We don't want a moral society if that means confronting others and trying to force them to conform instead what we want is a safe and thriving society where we can appreciate and respect diversity.

I'm left-libertarian, but I still value Christianity and recognize its place in forming western values. I don't associate Christianity with coercion, necessarily. I associate it with concepts such as the dignity of the individual, basic decency, and compassion. I grew up Methodist and I don't recall that religion trying to force people to adopt a particular morality or coerce people into agreeing with them.