"Natural rights"?

Urban Ranger · April 5, 2002, 09:02

Libertarians are fond of throwing around this "natural rights" concept in a lot of political debates. It appears that this is one of their fundamental ideas.

The only problem is they do it without backing the concept with any sort of arguments, which makes it problematic to have any sort of political debates with libertarians.

So, is any one of them going to present a philosophical argument for this concept, particularly on why only humans have "natural rights?"

Remember, the US Constitution is not a basis for a philosophical argument.

Thrawn05 · April 5, 2002, 09:20

That reminds me how irratating it is for someone to throw the "Race Card" in any debate.

Ecthy · April 5, 2002, 09:20

There's only one natural right, namely to serve the Kollektiv.

April 5, 2002, 09:23

I believe that every person is free from any sort of control and they should be allowed to live their life accordingly. But... and this is a big but... by living in a society, you must choose to relinquish some freedoms to the greater good of society. My answer to people who claim "the government can't do this, blah blah" is... Move to the mountains and become a hermit if you wish to be free. Nobody will care to tell you what to do.

If you choose to live in a society, you must agree to the laws which that society has set. If you don't like the laws, you can either try to change them, accept them, or become a hermit.

I agree with some Libertarian views. Drugs should be legal, all of them. But there needs to be more education.

I disagree with Libertarian views on taxation. Libertarians believe that the government doesn't have the right to take their money. Without taxes, there would be no freedom because their would be no military to protect that freedom.

IMO, freedom from taxes and economic laws, is freedom for corporations to engage in dishonest practices and fleece America. There would be hundreds of Enron's a year without the government watchdog protecting Americans.

Thrawn05 · April 5, 2002, 10:22

I could care less what you (in general) or anyone wants to do, as long as they don't endanger the lives of anyone else.

The safty of society comes before ones personal pleasures IMHO.

red_jon · April 5, 2002, 10:28

Why shouldn't we have natural rights?

Sava, as a social democrat (left-libertarian), I believe a decent education to be a right.

Spec · April 5, 2002, 10:53

Quote:

Originally posted by Ecthelion
There's only one natural right, namely to serve the Kollektiv.

Good one!

Spec.

April 5, 2002, 10:56

Quote:

Originally posted by red_jon
Why shouldn't we have natural rights?

Sava, as a social democrat (left-libertarian), I believe a decent education to be a right.

I didn't say we shouldn't have natural rights.

I said some rights need to be relinqueshed for the greater good. The right to murder, for one. The right to child porn is another that comes to mind.

I don't disagree with you on the education factor. But decent education costs money. And Libertarians scoff at the notion of tax supported pubic schools. The right to not be taxed is a big right that needs to be relinqueshed in order to improve society. That was my main point.

Again, as with any political party, Libertarians have good ideas, and bad ones. I agree with the Green Party more than any other party. I guess it boils down to the individual. I never vote for a party. But I often vote against a party. Mostly the republican party.

Wraith · April 5, 2002, 12:17

--"The only problem is they do it without backing the concept with any sort of arguments,"

So we've been overestimating our opponent's education? And underestimating their willingness to dismiss a concept they don't understand? I see.

You can start by a quick web surf to get such things as an encyclopedia entry, which should lead you to John Locke's treatsy.

The idea isn't that complicated, based on ownership of self.

Wraith
--"The right to be heard does not include the right to be taken seriously."

MrFun · April 5, 2002, 13:53

Look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Those are the natural rights that humans have towards.

Kropotkin · April 5, 2002, 14:08

I think that "natural" is a pretty bad word for rights since it would imply that these rights can be found in nature. What's natural, what's the result of society and what parts of natural should give us right? (For example; being unfaithful exists amoungst animals, is that a right then?). Thus (and for other reasons) I don't belive in natural rights and that rights are the result of a society.

But this doesn't mean that I'm strictly utilitarian. There's some rights that I do think are so essential for any society to work that they shouldn't be broken regardless of short time gains.

Goingonit · April 5, 2002, 14:46

I'm sure that almost every single person disagrees with me on this issue, but I believe that a natural right is anythig that you could do were there no laws or society or restrictions of any kind. You have freedom of movement, religion, et cetera, BUT you also have "rights" which must be limited in order to create a viable society: "right" to kill people, for instance.

Animals have rights, therefore, but, in order to maintain a carnivorous and fur-wearing cociety, we choose to limit them.

Inverse Icarus · April 5, 2002, 15:04

[OPINION]
there are no natural rights. human beings are a commidy, as are steel and woord. their lives are merely tools for the state to use as they see fit. they are not born with any right but the right to die. they can use that right on themselves any way they see fit.
[/OPINION]

Rex Little · April 5, 2002, 15:53

Quote:

I believe a decent education to be a right.

If you say that you have a right to education, or health care, or anything else that has to be provided by others, then you're saying that those others have an obligation to provide those things to you, whether they want to or not.

In other words, to the extent you need them to provide these things for you, other people are your slaves.

If you understand this, and still believe in a right to education, we can either debate further or agree to disagree. But let's be clear about what we mean.

Quote:

I said some rights need to be relinqueshed for the greater good. The right to murder, for one.

Is there anyone who believes you have the right to murder? If you don't have it in the first place, it doesn't need to be relinquished.

loinburger · April 5, 2002, 15:58

Quote:

Originally posted by UberKruX
[OPINION]
there are no natural rights. human beings are a commidy, as are steel and woord. their lives are merely tools for the state to use as they see fit. they are not born with any right but the right to die. they can use that right on themselves any way they see fit.
[/OPINION]

I see somebody has been neglecting to brush up on his Newspeak. Beware, UberKrux: even the best of us can commit thought crime if we are not vigilant in enslaving ourselves to the will of the State.

Goingonit · April 5, 2002, 16:11

Quote:

Originally posted by Rex Little
Is there anyone who believes you have the right to murder? If you don't have it in the first place, it doesn't need to be relinquished.

rights must be separate from belief: you can't impose arbitrary rights nor arbitrary "non-rights".

Kropotkin · April 5, 2002, 16:51

Quote:

Originally posted by Rex Little
In other words, to the extent you need them to provide these things for you, other people are your slaves.

In chase there's no public welfare to talk about those slaves are usually refered to as "parents".

-----
(that rex little don't know what defines a slave is an issue hardly worth noticing)

MrFun · April 5, 2002, 16:55

What about my comment about Maslow's hierarchy of needs??

Rex Little · April 5, 2002, 16:58

What about it? How does it relate to rights?

loinburger · April 5, 2002, 17:02

Quote:

Originally posted by MrFun
What about my comment about Maslow's hierarchy of needs??

True/false/indeterminate/undefined. That oughta cover my bases.

Quote:

Originally posted by Goingonit
rights must be separate from belief: you can't impose arbitrary rights nor arbitrary "non-rights".

If you have a natural right to life, then you must either a. recognize the right to life of others, or b. you must justify why you have a right to life but somebody else does not. Any other behavior (like wanton unjustified killing) is inconsistent.

MrFun · April 5, 2002, 17:06

Maslow's hierarchy of human needs seems to be a good outline of what the natural rights of humans are, since striving for the needs of Maslow's hierarchy are so basic, that all humans have the natural right to achieve towards them.

OzzyKP · April 5, 2002, 17:07

While I'm not looking over my Locke at the moment, from what I recall Natural Rights stems from life in the state of nature. Self-preservation and self-defence being a chief right. Each philosopher picks out different qualities that are described as "natural rights". I'm not entirely sure I believe in and support the idea of natural rights. I see things as pretty relative on most things, and natural rights is a very universalist idea.

Despite not being a gung-ho supporter of "natural rights" I am a gung-ho Libertarian. I am in fact sitting now in the US National Headquarters for the Libertarian Party.

So i'm interested in this thread.

OzzyKP · April 5, 2002, 17:15

Quote:

Originally posted by Sava
I disagree with Libertarian views on taxation. Libertarians believe that the government doesn't have the right to take their money. Without taxes, there would be no freedom because their would be no military to protect that freedom.

Well most libertarians don't say this. It is generally accepted that government does need to exist in some form. Police and the military still need to exist. Murderers need to be sought out and punished and people need to be protected from each other to a degree. The nation still needs to be protected from direct attacks from its neighbors.

This however is a VERY limited understanding of government compared to what we have now. This far reduced government could be paid for either with a very limited tax, or some other way to raise revenue.

Libertarians are NOT anarchists, we believe government must exist to protect freedom, but anything above the base minimum outlined in the constitution turns into taking away freedom rather than protecting it.

Quote:

IMO, freedom from taxes and economic laws, is freedom for corporations to engage in dishonest practices and fleece America. There would be hundreds of Enron's a year without the government watchdog protecting Americans.

Why is the government the only possible watchdog to keep corporations in check? It certainly didn't do a good job with Enron, why do you believe it will work well with other corporations? The only way to ensure corporations act honestly is for the people themselves to pressure the corproations. This is done with market forces. People need to band together into Consumer's Unions, to challenge directly the policies of corporations. Using the government as a middle-man only makes things worse.

MrFun · April 5, 2002, 17:16

Wow -- I guess everyone agrees with me about the connection with natural rights and Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

chequita guevara · April 5, 2002, 17:17

Quote:

political theory that maintains that an individual enters into society with certain basic rights and that no government can deny these rights. The modern idea of natural rights grew out of the ancient and medieval doctrines of natural law, i.e., the belief that people, as creatures of nature and God, should live their lives and organize their society on the basis of rules and precepts laid down by nature or God. With the growth of the idea of individualism, especially in the 17th cent., natural law doctrines were modified to stress the fact that individuals, because they are natural beings, have rights that cannot be violated by anyone or by any society.

Or, more simply, that there are certain rights that human beings have simply by being human. It's an interesting idea.

In what part of the human body does the rights organ exist? What part of the human body produces rights (since it is an inherent property of being human)? Human rights are a product of the human brain.

Did we always have these natural rights? Historically, no. The idea of these rights dates back approximately 300+ years, to the late 17th Century.

So, if we've only just come up with this idea of rights, how can we have had them inherently? . . . ?

Rights are not inherent in being human, though no other animal has them. Being human is therefore a prerequesite to having rights. But throughout most of human history, rights either did not exist at all or were merely the perogative of Kings and nobility. It was only with the rise of capitalism and the middle class that rights came to be seen as universal.

But just because a right is seen as universal doesn't make it so. If a right is not claimed and defended, it does not exist. It took war to abolish the rights of kings and establish "universal" rights. (I put universal in quotes, because even then, they weren't universalized, but only for propertied white men of the correct religion). It took much more civil strife and war to gradually make these universal rights apply to everyone.

Rights are not inherent in being human. A human being only has such rights as his or her society recognizes. If that person wishes to claim more rights, they must force society to recognize them, either through law or might, and generally it must be might. Rights are socially determined, dependent historically on specific modes of existence. A human being only has such rights as he or she can defend.

Rights often involve conflicting claims. My right to swing my fist ends right at your nose. Why? Because your right to be free of violence trumps my right to be swinging my fist around wildly, but only because we agreed as a society that that is the case. Rights are socially determined.

We depend on society to protect our rights, since individuals alone have no rights. Rights are only meaningful in a society. Rights come out of our interaction with others. Rights come from our participation in a society. In order to have our own rights, we are obligated to respect the rights of others. Rights impose duties and obligations on us, if rights are to have any meaning at all.

I am obligated to respect your right to be free from violence. If my right to be free from violence is to have meaning, I need to ensure other's rights to be free from violence, and not simply abstain from doing violence to others. My right to be free from violence imposes upon me an obligation to protect others, so that they will also protect me. Without society protecting my right to be free from violence, my right will be meaningless when the first larger, more violent person decides to violate it.

As a society, we decide what rights we have. They are not inherent in being human. They are a part of being a society.

OzzyKP · April 5, 2002, 17:22

Hot damn, the Communist is making good sense!

I don't know if you were expressing your views on the subject, or relaying what others thing, but either way, i agree.

Rex Little · April 5, 2002, 17:36

Quote:

My right to be free from violence imposes upon me an obligation to protect others, so that they will also protect me.

Not quite. Your right to be free from violence imposes on you an obligation not to initiate violence against others. It gives you the right to participate in an arrangement whereby you and others agree to help protect each other, and/or pay specialists to do the job for you. (Ideally, that's all a government is.) But it does not require you to protect anyone else, unless you have chosen to take on that obligation as part of an agreement.

chequita guevara · April 5, 2002, 17:41

It is my interpretation of Marx's view on rights. If you are interested, you might look at his 1844 notes. They are alternativealy titled the 1844 Manuscripts, the Economic and Philisophic Manuscripts of 1844, and various combinations thereof, since there weren't made for publication, but his own mental clarification. http://www.marxists.org

You can see his view of rights peaking through in The Communist Manifesto, without being explicitately states. In turn, his view of rights comes from Hegel, whose On the Philosophy of Right, is simply one of the most amazing works I have ever read. Marx simply (in his own words) stands Hegel on his head, and places his evolution of theory of rights on a material grounding.

OzzyKP · April 5, 2002, 17:48

Well I am going off topic from this thread, but I'm not totally against Socialism and Communism. I would love for humans to truly relate to each other as brothers and live communially. However government coercion, or coercion of any kind is never a moral or effective means to reach this state. It should always be done willingly.

For me it is more a state of mind than a system of government. Marx claims a "temporary dictator" is needed to reach this perfect system of Communal Anarchy. This is as foolish as it is wrong. No dictator is going to give up their power willingly, and even if they did, I would not submit to a dictator for even the smallest amount of time.

chequita guevara · April 5, 2002, 17:50

Quote:

Originally posted by Rex Little
Not quite. Your right to be free from violence imposes on you an obligation not to initiate violence against others. . . . But it does not require you to protect anyone else, unless you have chosen to take on that obligation as part of an agreement.

Yes, the jouvenile theory of rights with no duties.

Just like teenagers who want to be treated like an adult without having the responsibilities of being adult.