Rights

[Stevil]

What would atheists term as rights?

I am referring to rights without a qualifier e.g. not legal rights, but simply rights.
When a person says gay people have the right to have sex, what is meant by "right"?

Christians think of rights as an "objective" right, which is a list of approved actions as interpreted from their scripture or taught from their church.

If I am in discussion with Christians and I try to explain my stance, I find myself having to tailor my language so that at least we can have a discussion. Although I don't believe the term "rights" without a qualifier has any meaning, when I talk to Christians I find myself saying that everything is a right and that rules (e.g. law) is used to restrict the rights (or actions) that we can perform and that a government does not bestow rights, but merely restricts and infringes rights. That some rights (e.g. murder, rape etc) need to be restricted in order to produce a functional society.
My view is that government should refrain from infringing rights if it is not necessary to provide a functioning society, in this way government should be minimalist. e.g. restricting gay sex is not necessary for a functioning society hence restricting this right is unnecessary.

What do you all think?

[Siz]

A right is the freedom to express free-will, unless it conflicts with another persons' claim to the same.

Laws exists to govern the conflicts.

[OldGit]

Seems to me that we are born with no natural rights whatever.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Well, if we believed in a creator, maybe that might be so.  But most of us here do not.

Rights, for me, are granted by law and custom.  I know I have a right to walk the footpaths near my village, because the right is laid down by national law and the local paths are formally defined on a map that sits in County Hall.  But 'natural' rights?  I simply don't understand what they are.

[Pharaoh Cat]

What would atheists term as rights?

I am referring to rights without a qualifier e.g. not legal rights, but simply rights.
When a person says gay people have the right to have sex, what is meant by "right"?

Rights are defined by the rules of whatever game is being played.  In chess, for example, when it's my turn, I have the right to move one of my pieces, as the rules say that piece can move, to a space none of my other pieces occupy.  In business, if I'm operating under contract, I have the right to do what the contract says I can do, or doesn't say I can't, so long as the law of the land says I can do it, or doesn't say I can't.

When Christians talk about sex and who has the right to engage in it, they're assuming "the game of heaven and hell" is in play, and in that game, the rules says a married man and woman can have sex, nobody else can.  If no such game is in play, then no such rules apply.

If atheists, agnostics, or apatheists want to talk about a right to have sex, they will first have to name the game being played, and then reference its rules.  We can't know in advance what game they will name, because part of the essence of all three perspectives is the refusal to sit down at a game board merely because some authority, book, or group consensus insists, barring a gun to the head, and sometimes barring not even that, if the game is odious enough or the dignity or stubbornness stern enough.  

I'm an apatheist.  So what game, then, will I name, as the context for sex?  Well, for me, the game that provides context for all of life is logical consistency.  Since I apparently would claim that I submit only to a gun to the head, unless dignity or stubbornness preclude even that, it would be logically consistent for me to name some game where the rules preserve survival, dignity, and free will.  I will call this, "the game of ego."  In the game of ego, I have the right to do anything that doesn't conflict with my own*, or someone else's, survival, dignity, or free will.  I like this game because if everyone plays it, they get to keep three things I'm happy to let them have, and I get to keep those same three things, for any of which I would sacrifice much.  It all works.

In the game of ego, two men or two women can have sex without any threat to either one's survival, dignity, or free will, so they have the right to have sex.
 
*Yes, in the game of ego, it's against the rules for me to kill myself, or allow myself to be humiliated or controlled unless the only other option is death.  Not all apatheists, or atheists or agnostics for that matter, will want to play this game.  Some of them may want to preserve their right to kill themselves, or their right to engage in activities that entail their own humiliation or surrender of control.  That's fine.  They don't have to play my game.  They can find or create one of their own and play that one instead.  That's a large part of why we're apatheists, atheists or agnostics in the first place.

(Edit: added note at the bottom, marked by an asterisk.)

[OldGit]

Nowadays they have that right, because the law says they have.  Previously the law made it criminal, so they didn't have the right and could be prosecuted for gay sex.

[Too Few Lions]

I think much the same thing as you Stevil. Society / government dictates what's legal and illegal, and I personally would like those laws kept to a minimum. Laws against rape or murder seem sensible and necessary, laws against homosexual sex or the use of certain narcotics don't IMO.

I don't really like to talk about rights full stop, as I think those rights are granted by society / government. I don't think we have any natural rights to anything, we have the ability to do lots of things, and those options are either allowed or proscribed by government / society.

[Pharaoh Cat]

Nowadays they have that right, because the law says they have.  Previously the law made it criminal, so they didn't have the right and could be prosecuted for gay sex.

True, the law of the land is a game overlaying all that we do, and within that context, rights or the absence of rights can be identified.

Yet even what the law of the land permits may be prohibited by some other game that is simultaneously being played.  For example, the law of the land won't punish me if, while playing chess, I palm my opponent's queen when my opponent looks away.  But the rules of chess will declare me a cheater.

It is common for us to be playing multiple games at once.

[Stevil]

Rights are defined by the rules of whatever game is being played.

So what game, then, will I name, as the context for sex?  
the game that provides context for all of life is logical consistency.
I will call this, "the game of ego."  In the game of ego, I have the right to do anything that doesn't conflict with my own, or someone else's, survival, dignity, or free will.  

Let me challenge you on the concept of rights being defined by rules.
Do rules invent moves/actions/options for you, or do they restrict?
If you are playing a game of chess, one that has no rules, does that mean that you cannot move any of your chess pieces as you have not been given any rules as to how and when they can move?
I feel without rules, you could move them anywhere at anytime, basically you could do anything that you desire as long as it is physically possible and you are able. Introducing rules restricts your options it does not increase your options.
The rules provided by government restrict our actions, they do not increase our actions.

If we think of all possible actions as our "rights" then we have the right to do anything including murder each other.
When a government implements rules against murder then they infringe on our right to murder, but of course this is necessary to provide a functioning society.
If there is a law against gay sex, this does not mean that we have no right to perform gay sex, it means that government is infringing on our rights to perform gay sex. I feel a government would need to provide justification for infringing on this right.

In discussion with Christians they feel that government should not introduce the right to perform gay sex as they feel it is not an objective right. That we have no rights unless god grants them to us first.

[Stevil]

A right is the freedom to express free-will, unless it conflicts with another persons' claim to the same.

Laws exists to govern the conflicts.

My challenge to this statement.
This seems somewhat to lead towards an objective "morality" of "rights"
That if defining a right in the way that you do, people could come to an objective agreement on what is a right and what is not.
But working out the conflict and the impact and the priority would most likely introduce subjective elements.

But are there really rights? objective rights? Or are we simply able to do what is physically possible and that we are able to do?
Defining rights as you have above, seems somewhat arbitrary to me, why this definition, how did you come up with it?
I feel what you have defined might be a good platform for a government to use when defining law but it is not really defining a universal right.

Universally we can do what ever we please (given our physical constraints), but socially we require rules to function.
So rights really don't exist, not by my reckoning. Not as a concept. But in discussion with people that say certain people have no right to perform a specific action, how can we debate this without defining "right" to include all actions that we are physically able to perform? If we say that we have no rights then that makes them correct that these certain people have no right to perform a specific action.

[Siz]

A right is the freedom to express free-will, unless it conflicts with another persons' claim to the same.

Laws exists to govern the conflicts.

My challenge to this statement.
This seems somewhat to lead towards an objective "morality" of "rights"
That if defining a right in the way that you do, people could come to an objective agreement on what is a right and what is not.
But working out the conflict and the impact and the priority would most likely introduce subjective elements.

But are there really rights? objective rights? Or are we simply able to do what is physically possible and that we are able to do?
Defining rights as you have above, seems somewhat arbitrary to me, why this definition, how did you come up with it?
I feel what you have defined might be a good platform for a government to use when defining law but it is not really defining a universal right.

Universally we can do what ever we please (given our physical constraints), but socially we require rules to function.
So rights really don't exist, not by my reckoning. Not as a concept. But in discussion with people that say certain people have no right to perform a specific action, how can we debate this without defining "right" to include all actions that we are physically able to perform? If we say that we have no rights then that makes them correct that these certain people have no right to perform a specific action.

I do define a 'right' as to include all actions that we are physically able to perform, unless it conflicts with another persons' claim to the same.

There is nothing arbitrary about defining my rights against this backdrop of perfect freedom (which ultimately we should all have, governmental or personal oppression notwithstanding). I totally disagree with OG - I was born with infinite rights (subject to the qualification of conflict of rights) and it is absurd to call this arbitrary. This is a fundamentally anarchistic view that I am at odds to argue against.

I am a free person - an animal with no natural master and no natural slaves. If we are to assume there is no overall giver of rights (God), I am at liberty to do as I please (given our physical constraints - as you say). Any social compromises I make (and there are many) are of my own free-will for a peaceful life. I have not relinquished my rights, but have accepted a socially acceptible modus operandi in the interests of peace and harmony. And I value peace and harmony.

Laws should be simply used to try to fairly govern the conflicts.

[Siz]

Seems to me that we are born with no natural rights whatever.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Well, if we believed in a creator, maybe that might be so.  But most of us here do not.

Rights, for me, are granted by law and custom.  I know I have a right to walk the footpaths near my village, because the right is laid down by national law and the local paths are formally defined on a map that sits in County Hall.  But 'natural' rights?  I simply don't understand what they are.

Do you not have a right to paint your bottom blue if you so choose? By your logic, as there is no specific law (to my knowledge) then the right does not exist.

[Too Few Lions]

But are there really rights? objective rights? Or are we simply able to do what is physically possible and that we are able to do?
Defining rights as you have above, seems somewhat arbitrary to me, why this definition, how did you come up with it?
I feel what you have defined might be a good platform for a government to use when defining law but it is not really defining a universal right.

Universally we can do what ever we please (given our physical constraints), but socially we require rules to function.
So rights really don't exist, not by my reckoning. Not as a concept. But in discussion with people that say certain people have no right to perform a specific action, how can we debate this without defining "right" to include all actions that we are physically able to perform? If we say that we have no rights then that makes them correct that these certain people have no right to perform a specific action.

I agree that rights don't actually exist, they are what government / society decides that it is legally permissble for us to do. But I also think, like you, that actions should only be made illegal or socially unnacceptable if they are clearly detrimental to the well being of society.

I can see your dilemma, but I don't think that saying we have no objective rights supports people trying to constrain others lives just because they don't like certain things (like say Christians and homosexuality). By the same logic, I think those same homophobic Christians also have no objective rights to be heterosexual or abstinent or anything else.

If we accept there are no objective rights, I think we are then in a position to try and make our own laws and decide what we allow and prohibit as a society. Hopefully we can do this using common sense and intelligence and just prohibit those actions we deem antisocial and/or dangerous,  rather than doing so based on a book written by fairly backward goatherders a few thousand years ago who also though the Earth was flat.

Plus, I think we all know that Christians make an individual personal choice on which laws of the Bible they follow and which they choose to ignore. I suspect that those who use the Bible to argue against homosexuality are inherently homophobic people using a book to try and justify their own small-minded views.

[Pharaoh Cat]

Let me challenge you on the concept of rights being defined by rules.

Go for it.  By the rules of this forum you have the right to challenge me.  

Do rules invent moves/actions/options for you, or do they restrict?

Rules restrict options.  They also do something else.  They provide structure to the process, which is what a game is, a process by which competitors test themselves and their luck against one another and one another's luck.  Take away all rules, and if you are to have a game at all, something else will have to provide the structure.  So now I'll introduce another concept, the facts of life.  Put two assassins out in the jungle and tell them whoever kills the other wins a million dollars, no referee, no impartial observer, no rules.  The process will nevertheless have structure, provided by the facts of life.  Deny a human air and it dies.  Puncture its heart and it dies.  These are facts of life and they will structure the process whereby the assassins contend with one another.

Notice also that I put the assassins in the jungle.  I did that to eliminate any need to worry about the law of the land.  If I had put them in a city instead, the law of the land would have interposed itself on the proceedings, such that, two games would have been simultaneously under way, the game of trying to kill one's opponent, and the game of trying to elude the city's lawkeepers.  Interestingly, even the second game, that of eluding the city's lawkeepers, would have been governed (structured) primarily by the facts of life, rather than rules, unless and until one or both assassins got caught.  While the perpetrators are still at large, running free, there would only be the facts of life to really worry about, such as, lawkeepers can call in reinforcements, and lawkeepers can shoot guns in public without having other lawkeepers shoot at them in turn, whereas, in this scenario, the assassins cannot call in reinforcements, and the assassins cannot shoot guns in public without having lawkeepers shoot at them in turn.  If one or both assassins is caught, then rules will come into play; I.e, every law that was broken will constitute a justification for arrest, confinement, prosecution, and possible conviction with whatever sentence goes along with the verdict.

Even in games that have relevant rules during play, the facts of life add structure.  In a game of one-on-one basketball, the taller player can always block the shorter player's shot if the shorter player is planted on the ground, whereas the shorter player sometimes won't be able to block the taller player's shot, even if the taller player is planted on the ground.  These are facts of life and they, along with rules, provide structure to the process by which the two basketball players test themselves and their luck against one another and one another's luck.

In the absolute sense of your original question, facts of life, like rules, restrict options.  I can't kill my opponent by taking a walk on the beach, or listening to my iPod, or composing a poem, or any of a thousand other activities I might name.  Only a very narrow range of actions will kill my opponent.  Cut, bludgeon, poison, suffocate.  The facts of life restrict options.

In any game, what the rules permit are my rights, and what the facts of life permit are my realistic opportunities.  The absence of any rules means all is permitted, hence my rights are open-ended.  Now this can get tricky.  I said the game of eluding the city's lawkeepers had no rules unless and until one or both assassins got caught.  While the perpetrators are still at large, running free, I would say their rights are open-ended, they are utterly at liberty.  Once caught, they will be arrested, confined, and prosecuted in accordance with rules, and during these proceedings they will have certain rights, but fewer rights than someone who hasn't been arrested.  If convicted, they will have even fewer rights yet, presumably.  Many people will disagree with what I'm saying here.  Probably they will do so on the basis of an assumption, namely, that some games aren't optional.  For example, they may argue the game of avoiding criminality isn't optional.  I say it is.  (My hypothetical assassins presumably agree with me.)  I say every game is optional.  I stand for a radical degree of human freedom.  No game constrains me unless I choose to play it.  The game of avoiding criminality is no different from chess, which is no different from basketball, which is no different from a duel of assassins, which is no different from the Christian's game of heaven and hell.  Every game is optional.  Any game I'm not playing has no power to structure my destiny.  But any game I am in fact playing has the power to structure my destiny both with rules and with facts of life, as these define my rights and my realistic opportunities.

Now the Christian's game of heaven and hell is, to the apatheist, the same as the game of avoiding criminality to the dueling assassin.  The apatheist declines to play the heaven and hell game, even as the dueling assassin declines to play the criminality avoidance game.  The dueling assassin who is active in a city chooses to play the game of eluding the city's lawkeepers, a game that only has relevant rules if and when a player gets caught.  Likewise, the apatheist chooses to play the game of ignoring Judgment Day, a game that only has relevant rules if and when a player gets caught, which can only happen if (a) there is an afterlife; (b) there is a disembodied being powerful enough to impose its will on the ghosts of the dead; and (c) the disembodied being is inclined to pass judgment on a ghost's newly ended life.  Thus the game of ignoring Judgment Day is a kind of wager, like betting on a horse race, and that wager's outcome will be governed (structured) by the facts of life, such as, whether some, all or none of (a), (b), and (c) turn out to be reality rather than myth.  If they all turn out to be reality, then rules will kick in, whatever rules the disembodied super-being decides to bring to bear in judgment.  If only (a) and (b), or only (a), turn out to be reality, then any rules that kick in will presumably be rules for governing the afterlife, rather than rules for judging the life on earth.  If none turn out to be reality, then no rules will kick in, as there won't be a player for the game.

I'll stop there and see what you think, Stevil.

[Siz]

^

That's lovely, PC, but is this thread about 'rights' or 'rules'?

[OldGit]

Do you not have a right to paint your bottom blue if you so choose? By your logic, as there is no specific law (to my knowledge) then the right does not exist.

True.  I suppose the point is that our common law allows us to do anything not forbidden.