Natural Rights

[Berzerker]

loinburger -

Why would I have more of a moral claim to the land than the other person? My name isn't "naturally" written on the land, so I can't claim to have a "natural" right to own it (similarly to how nobody can claim to have a right to own me).

According to some people here, others do have a right to own you if "society" says so. But were you first on that plot of land or did you buy it from someone else who was first? Consider a virtually empty world with the first people setting out from their homeland. As they settle other lands, they are the first to lay claim - that is the basis for their right to that specific land. Obviously since that time, lands have exchanged hands numerous times and not always legitimately, but that doesn't mean someone else has a moral claim to the land you settled first.

Even if I've worked the land, then what gave me the natural right to work it? What level of working the land "naturally" constitutes ownership?

No level is needed.

Sava -

despite your belief in a creator... a creator didn't grant any rights to me...

Was a "creator" responsible for your existence?

the founders of the US government did...

And they believed in natural rights, quite ironic huh? You say the Founders granted you rights and they believed the rights they allegedly granted came from a creator.

Humans grant rights...

And if they don't? Then you have no rights...no moral authority to exist, no moral authority to defend yourself from attack by "society", and no moral authority to resist the Saddam's of the world...

God may exist, but he doesn't work for the US government.

Which is the point.

Rights only exist because they can be protected or recognized as legitimate.

Then the Nazis violated no German's right to life.

Exactly.... since natural rights DON'T exist... it does have nothing to do with the government.

Hmm...you said God may exist but doesn't work for the government. So the fact something may have nothing to do with government has no bearing on whether or not it exists.

Freedom isn't free. It's granted and protected by those willing to fight for it.

To say a right - a moral claim - only exists as long as you can preserve it means the victims of the Nazis who failed to preserve their rights had no rights to begin with.

Spiffor -

IIUC, the Arborigines didn't know about private property. Yet, they were far more close to nature than we are. Take the conclusion you want...

So they didn't complain when white people arrived and started removing them from their lands?

[Berzerker]

Sava -

that's like saying 2+2=4 has flaws...

You think your argument that "society" gave us rights has no flaws? Then why do you keep ignoring my questions about societies slaughtering peoples?

imagine there is no society... but complete anarchy... or for that matter... you find yourself in the dinosaur's time period. Do you think a velociraptor cares whether or not you have "natural rights". No... the whole notion is silly.

I already explained in my opening post that rights are moral claims between humans, not animals and humans. *sigh*

Strangelove -

Of course it goes without saying that there is still a need to lock up gun toting, dope smoking wild men.

Then those gun toting pot smokers have the moral authority to remove you from existence.

UR -

First of all, this seems to be quite circular. Secondly, even #4 is not an argument, it's just stating a premise.

First, it isn't circular, just a statement about what constitutes a "right" - a moral claim. Second, #4 doesn't state a "premise", it states the obvious. People did not create the universe or life on this planet, someone or something else did. And we can discern from the nature of the universe and life on this planet that there is no chain around you with the end resting in the hands of "society". The chains people use to enslave others are man made...

1. Appealing to "nature's creator" turns the argument into a metaphysical one instead of remaining a philosophical one.

Do you exist? Yes, but what created you? We don't know, but we can see that who or what did create you didn't put you in chains with other people in charge.

2. Why are natural rights moral claims? For if these rights are "natural," they must be amoral - there are no morals in nature, afterall.

To distinguish them from immoral claims. They are natural because they come from the creator, not "government".

3. If rights are natural, there's no need to "understand" them, no? Isn't it a bit like eat, sleep, and pee?

Maybe you can answer that since you don't understand , but how does one have a right to bodily functions and no right to live.

No need to answer, Berz. Afterall, Complex Question is a logical phallacy.

Complex or not, you still didn't answer.

Societies don't "ignore" rights, some just grant less to their citizens. Asserting rights as "natural" means that they are intrinsic, which is something you still need to establish.

Then the victims of the Nazis had no rights, therefore the Nazis took nothing from them. But if you say the Nazis did take something from them, then what they took was intrinsic.

That's correct - that's why there are no "natural rights."

That's about the extent of the rebuttal, there are no natural rights because there are no natural rights. How did the universe come to exist if no government created it?

[BeBMan]

I must admit that I find the question if there are universal values or universal desires much more interesting /slight threadjack

[Berzerker]

Yay, a potential supporter?

[DAVOUT]

There is at least one intrinsic natural right : the right to die. Whatever are the causes of the suffering of living beings, they are entitled to enjoy their ends by dying, sooner or later, and nobody and nothing can prevent it.

[Jack_www]

Re: Natural Rights

Originally posted by Berzerker
What are they and from where did they originate?

1) Natural rights are expressions of shared, universal desires.
1a) Not wanting to be enslaved and murdered are universal desires.

2) Natural rights are moral claims of ownership beginning with oneself and his labor, but moral claims consistent with universal desires.
2a) If you "own" yourself, then you own your labor.

3) Natural rights are limited to human interaction, not interactions with other life forms.
3a) If a lion eats you, we don't say the lion has deprived you of your natural right to life.

4) They come from existence, i.e., by virtue of your existence, you have natural rights given by that which created the universe and life. In other words, the only evidence we have of this creator's "will" or "design" is what we can see in nature, and since we don't see chains around us leading to those self-appointed "leaders" of our destiny, they have no moral claim to make our decisions about how we live.

If you see a flaw, please post it so I can fine tune my philosophy. Just make sure the flaw is not negated by one of the other criterion.

Are you trying to say natural rights come form a creator or what?? This made little sense to me when I read it.

[Maniac]

This has been done to death:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=76758

The discussion ended concluding that Imran Siddiqui was a drooling monkey randomly pressing buttons on his keyboard.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Yay, a potential supporter?

Seriously, I´m thinking quite a lot about the "universality" of eg. western values. However, I´m absolutely aware that one can easily argue against this. So at the moment I´m quite undecided about this, I still try to find my position in this issue.

OTOH I wouldn´t support a concept of natural rights per se. I´d say modern views of rights can be rooted in older concepts of natural rights, but aren´t the same. IMO rights are not given by nature, however, rights are constructed by humans in a certain way due to the nature of human beings....

[gunkulator]

Originally posted by Berzerker

First, it isn't circular, just a statement about what constitutes a "right" - a moral claim.

But morality is surely manmade. Nature has no morals. If you believe rights stem from moral claims, then one need only adjust morality to adjust rights.

People did not create the universe or life on this planet, someone or something else did.

The act of creation/evolution requires no morality whatsoever therefore nothing further can be said about rights wrt creation.

And we can discern from the nature of the universe and life on this planet that there is no chain around you with the end resting in the hands of "society".

Actually, we all come into this world literally "chained" to our mothers. Yes we cut the chain, but human reliance upon others is as natural you can get.

The chains people use to enslave others are man made...

And as an interesting note, almost all societies at some point have engaged in slavery. What does this say about the "nature" of human beings?

Do you exist? Yes, but what created you? We don't know, but we can see that who or what did create you didn't put you in chains with other people in charge.

Completely untrue. Children are brought into this world completely subordinate to their parents. We dominate and overrule our children on a daily basis and not a soul in the world believes this constitutes a rights issue. Children simply would not survive otherwise.

To distinguish them from immoral claims. They are natural because they come from the creator, not "government".

Again, creation != morality.

but how does one have a right to bodily functions and no right to live.

You are confusing rights with instincts. We all have an instinct to live. This does not mean we have a right to live.

Then the victims of the Nazis had no rights, therefore the Nazis took nothing from them. But if you say the Nazis did take something from them, then what they took was intrinsic.

Time to invoke Godwin's Law? Yes the Nazi's victims had rights. The Nazis disagreed and tried to revoke rights once granted to their victims. This caused a major upheavel in the world since most societies can't absorb so rapid a change, especially one brought about by violence. Heck, there's still a sizable population in the US South today that thinks granting rights to blacks was a bad idea. Had the issue not been deciding with bloodshed, the group would not be so large.

[Agathon]

You are confusing two different issues:

1) Whether moral realism is true: that is moral principles are binding on people independently of whether any or all of them think they are, or whether there are moral "facts" like scientific facts.

with

2) Whether a particular conception of morality (a deontological conception with certain limitations) is the correct one.

These are independent questions since the standard of correctness in 2 need only be that the theory is the most coherent with our pre-theoretical moral practices.

So even if people do have natural rights, it doesn't follow that they must have the particular scheme of rights that Libertarians argue for.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Berzerker
But were you first on that plot of land or did you buy it from someone else who was first?

We'll say that I was first on the land for the sake of simplicity, though there's still the question as to whether things like inheritance are natural. There's also the problem that the original inhabitants of nearly every parcel of land have been driven off or have died off by this point (there are exceptions, e.g. Antarctica), so that raises the additional question of whether it's even possible for anybody to have a natural claim to any given piece of land (or any other form of property) at this time even if we assume that it may have been possible in the past. If my father steals a million dollars, and then gives me that money (perhaps in his inheritance), then do I have a moral claim to that money?

Consider a virtually empty world with the first people setting out from their homeland. As they settle other lands, they are the first to lay claim - that is the basis for their right to that specific land.

So it's simply a matter of claiming land that nobody else has claimed? Are there any limits as to what quantity may be claimed ("As much as you can fence in" or "4 square miles" or "As much as you want" or whatever)? Are there limits regarding proximity ("You cannot claim land that is still 200 miles away" or "You cannot claim land until you have slept upon it for one night" or whatever)? Do you "de-settle" land if you're away from it for, say, five years, or fifty years, or whatever, thus making the land fair game once again?

Obviously since that time, lands have exchanged hands numerous times and not always legitimately, but that doesn't mean someone else has a moral claim to the land you settled first.

You'll have to define what you mean by "settled" -- that could clear quite a few things up. If you don't mean "settle" to mean "improve the land" ("No level [of improvement] is needed"), then what does it mean?

Originally posted by Maniac
The discussion ended concluding that Imran Siddiqui was a drooling monkey randomly pressing buttons on his keyboard.

I was on a different side that time, though.

[SpencerH]

Re: Natural Rights

Originally posted by Berzerker
What are they and from where did they originate?

Shouldn't the first question be, Do natural rights exist?

As I see it, 'rights' are the codification of the rules of a society. There is nothing natural about them except that they originate from biological organisms. Therefore, there are no 'natural rights' and defining them is meaningless.

[Japher]

I agree that the concept of "rights" are social constructs, yet they do stem from human "desire". One would confuse human rights with the general consensus of desires.

I wish not to die, ergo the right to live. However, not everyone wishes to live... Society, thus, creates rights surrounding ones "right" to live, either how they choose, or how that society wishes to suppress that right... Either way that society has addressed the concept of the "right"...

Me? Human rights does exist, yet not in a form dictated by pagan dogma, rather in the form of more modern dogma... Yet, these "rights" are a product of human desire... something which does exist.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
I believe that the validity of natural rights can be traced to this human property, that sharing and empowerment within a group of people permits a more productive group. If you look through human history I think you'd find that prior to the evolution of civilization people generaslly lived essentially without much in the way of formal leadership. As humans adopted a stationary form of agriculture, which permitted and perhaps even demanded the evolution of larger communities more definitive social hierarchies evolved. I'm not sure whether this occured because at this stage a dictatorial structure was required in order to keep order, or because the structure of society at this level simply made such power structures possible. Regardless, from about the time of the evolution of the first cities (though there may have been a few exceptions), until just before the industrial age dictatorial government was the general rule. What began to reverse this trend at the end of the eighteenth century?

The fact that social beings like early homonids created social strcutures does not equate with rights. Without a formal ladership, who or what would have the power to "define" rights?

As for the second part: I agree that the immense change from semi nomadic hunter gatherers to setted agriculturalists necessitated an immense change in the social strcutures of man, specailly the fact that 1)surplus allowed for porfessions beyond those necessary fpor base survival, and 2) land became a commodity as it had never been before.This to a certain extent demands the creation of an authority to sort out the new porblems that the new opportunities created. As for the 18th century: I think that the changes begun earlier, in the 17th century, at least philosophicaly. I think it was a shift in economies: as professions other than agriculture begin to take precedent, new systsmes are needed to manague society. NOw, farmers may remain the core of the population till the late 19th century but they were no longer the most important economic nor political sector, and thus a change in the rights regime was possible.


Oh, and Berz knows my position on the notion of natural rights already.

[Sava]

Japher: I would agree that human rights exist as they are defined by humans. But the notion of "natural" rights is silly. Nature has not defined or set aside any rights to any living thing. Assuming there is a creator, we were given brains to decide and define our own rights.