Rights

[Ecurb Noselrub]

The question of rights is very similar to the question of morals.  From a purely naturalistic/rationalistic standpoint, I do not think that it is possible to determine objective morality, nor do I think it is possible to determine objective, universal rights. Both end up being what we agree on, as individuals and as a society, through government or culture.  If, on the other hand, one begins with some religious system, such as Christianity or Islam, then all rights and morals flow deductively from the premises laid down in that system.  But without some agreed upon authoritative source such as religion, there is no way to determine either objective morality or objective rights, and we make up whatever rules suit us.

Actually this is probably also true with religion, as we would have to agree upon the religion in order for the rules of that faith to apply, and there is no universal agreement.  Sharia law means nothing to a Christian, just as Jesus' "New Commandment" means nothing to a Muslim.

[Recusant]

Some very good discussion here so far! Going back to the OP, as an infidel I obviously do not avail myself of the concept of "god-given" rights. However, I find the concept of "natural rights" relatively easy to accept. James A. Donald has written what I consider to be an excellent essay on the concepts of "natural law and natural rights," which uses the idea of "evolutionary stable strategy" to argue that "natural rights" do exist in a more or less objective sense. I think that Donald puts forward some very important ideas regarding the existence of natural rights, and also explains why the concept of natural rights is indispensable in the effort to combat creeping authoritarianism. I don't agree with everything that Donald says, but I do think that he makes a respectable case for the existence of natural rights.

If we say that the state is the entity that defines rights and gives them to the people, and that rights do not exist except as defined and given by the state, then we ignore the fact that people consider themselves to have rights which may not be defined by the state. And in fact, it appears that at least in some cases, the state itself can be seen to recognize rights which are inherent to people. This doesn't occur without some contention, of course. The specific example that I'm thinking of would be the right to privacy which has served as the basis for rulings by the Supreme Court of the United States such as Roe v Wade. There is no right to privacy enumerated by the Constitution of the United States; did the Supreme Court create that right with their judgment, or did they merely acknowledge its existence? According the Constitution of the US, they were acknowledging its existence, per the 9th Amendment.

Donald considers the concepts of natural rights and natural laws to be essential for the protection of freedom in the context of modern societies:

From "Natural Law and Natural Rights" by James A Donald:

Those of us who seek to protect and restore freedom must avoid using the words our enemies seek to impose on us. The only way to escape from this trap is to use the language of natural law, the language with which a free society was envisioned and created, the words for which so many people killed and died. If we submit to using words that prevent us from expressing the thought of limits to government power and authority, then there will be no limits to government power and authority.

Words carry with them systems of ideas. The only system of ideas capable of repudiating limitless and absolute state power is natural law. It is impossible to speak about limits to the power and authority of the state except in the language with which such ideas were originally expressed. No other language is available.

If someone rejects the language of natural law, refuses to use such words, pretends not to comprehend them, and rejects them as meaningless, then he is not interested in using words as a medium of communication. He is merely using them as a method of control. It is pointless to attempt to communicate with such a person.

I think that he goes too far in the last paragraph above. People can disagree about the existence of natural law, and therefore reject the language of natural law, without necessarily being uninterested in using words as a medium of communication.

Ibid:

The real issue is not "what is the nature of good" as utilitarians pretend. The real issue is: Are rights a discovery by individuals that enable them to get along peaceably with other individuals, or are they a creation of a supreme being such as a reified society or reified state, that imposes peace on a vicious multitude with no inherent knowledge of good and evil, thus forcing on them the peace that slaves of a common master possess.

Today instead of frankly arguing that human rights are nonsense, as Bentham did, modern utilitarians use elaborate euphemisms, such as "positive rights" and "positive freedom". No two people seem to mean the same thing when they make distinction between positive and negative rights and liberties, and their meanings seem to change rapidly from one paragraph to the next. The effect of this supposed distinction is always to destroy the meaning of "liberty" and "right", and usually to legitimize as slavery as liberty. This supposed concept is mere fog.

Of course, one of the first things that Donald said in the paper is that he uses the term "natural law" loosely, and with shifting definitions, so in a way he's no better than those he criticizes here.

I think that in the following section, Donald gives a very reasonable picture of the development of natural rights and natural law. Really, I think that he bases most of his argument on the concept of "rightful opposition," and that on the approach of a "reasonable man." These admittedly are vague concepts, and maybe I'm willing to forgive that because I agree with much of what he says. *shrugs*

Ibid:

Throughout most of our evolution, men have been in a state of nature, that is to say. without government, hierarchically organized religion, or an orderly and widely accepted means of resolving disputes. For the past four or five million years the capacity to discern evil lurking in the hearts of men has been an even more crucial survival capability than the capacity to discern tigers lurking in shadows.

The primary purpose of this capability was to guide us in who we should associate with, (so as to avoid having our throats cut in our sleep), who we should make alliance with (to avoid betrayal), who we should trade with, (to avoid being cheated), who we should avoid, who we should drive away, and who, to make ourselves safe, we should kill.

It would frequently happen that one man would, for some reason good or bad, use violence against another. When this happened those knowing of this event needed to decide whether it indicated that the person using force was brave and honorable, hence a potentially valuable ally, or foolish and eager for trouble, hence someone to be avoided, or a dangerous criminal, hence someone to be driven out or eliminated at the first safe opportunity to do so. Such decisions had to be made from time to time, and making them wrongly could be fatal, and often was fatal.

A secondary purpose of this capability was to guide us in our own conduct, to so conduct ourselves that others would be willing to associate with us, ally with us, do deals with us, and would refrain from driving us away or killing us.

Not all things that are evil, or contrary to nature, are violations of natural law. Violations of natural law are those evils that may rightly be opposed by force, by individual unorganized violence.

[Pharaoh Cat]

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

The two concepts are inseparable.  My rights within the game are whatever the rules of the game permit me to do.  If there aren't any rules, then my rights within the game are open-ended.  As soon as the game has even one rule, my rights have been narrowed.  If the rule is, don't defecate on the rug, then I don't have the right to defecate on the rug.  Absent any other rules, I have the right to read a book while hopping on one foot, or to drive my car while humming a tune, or to perform any other action realistically available to me - but I don't have the right to defecate on the rug, unless I take myself out of the game.

[Pharaoh Cat]

Donald considers the concepts of natural rights and natural laws to be essential for the protection of freedom in the context of modern societies:

Recusant, I wasn't able to pick out, in what you shared, an argument for the existence of natural rights.  The argument (which I may be failing to grasp) seems to me to be, "We have to claim the existence of natural rights or else cede absolute power to government; therefore, natural rights exist."  I must be missing something.

I would say, instead, that if we don't want to cede absolute power to government, then let's not.  Let's simply refuse to do so.  It doesn't seem to me to be a question of logic or fact, but rather, a question of desire and action.  Let's refuse to play the totalitarian game.  Why play a game we don't like?  The only reason I ever would, is if I had a gun to my head.  Even then, dignity and/or stubbornness might compel me to rebel, despite the likelihood of a bullet in the brain.

[Recusant]

Yes, I didn't do a very good job of presenting his argument, but then again, that really wasn't my intention. His paper is fairly long, and maybe his argument isn't all that strong to begin with, but I find it compelling. Again, this may only be because I sympathize with it.  

I personally take the same sort of position in regard to natural rights and natural law as I do in regard to morality. I don't think that the inherited tendencies toward moral behavior that humans exhibit constitute an actual morality, but I do think that those tendencies serve as the basis for human morality as developed by any human society. In the same way, we have inherited a tendency to assert and endeavor to protect the freedom to act on our own volition, to protect the means of survival from the depredations of others, to protect those close to us, etc. This tendency forms the basis for what can be called natural rights. I don't know whether it can be conclusively argued that natural rights stemming from this tendency exist in any objective sense, but I don't think that a case can be made that the tendency itself doesn't exist. Donald makes the point that to live as a social species, as opposed to a eusocial species, there must be both some form of morality and some form of rights. Thus the basis for natural rights is our nature as a social species.

[Siz]

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

The two concepts are inseparable.  My rights within the game are whatever the rules of the game permit me to do.  If there aren't any rules, then my rights within the game are open-ended.  As soon as the game has even one rule, my rights have been narrowed.  If the rule is, don't defecate on the rug, then I don't have the right to defecate on the rug.  Absent any other rules, I have the right to read a book while hopping on one foot, or to drive my car while humming a tune, or to perform any other action realistically available to me - but I don't have the right to defecate on the rug, unless I take myself out of the game.

But by saying that you are deferring your rights to external authority which is unacceptable if the external authority is corrupt. And it is MY decision as to who I consider corrupt.

If a stranger stopped you in the street and said "You can't walk on this side of the road, those are my rules", does that then mean you have no right to walk on that side of the road? No, because it was an external 'authority' imposing his rules on you. His rules bear no relation to your rights.

It apparently depends on who imposes the rules as to whether or not rights are seen to be infringed. A 'Law' is seen as a 'rights determiner' because we can all see the value in most laws. Whereas a school bully, who might limit ones actions to the same degree is taken to be just trampling over a victims' rights.

You have argued that we have 'no right' to break the law - I disagree. If I am breaking the law while acting of my own free-will, AND I am not infringeing anyone elses rights, then I will not be made to feel I am doing something wrong. Laws are often not MY rules. I do, however, have a social conscience and choose to limit my law-breaking because I can see the benefit of some laws.

I'm surprised Davin hasn't chipped in to this thread - he's always a feisty proponent of anti-authoritarian ideals.

[The Magic Pudding]

I don't like the natural law or intrinsic rights idea, I think it is an idea which isn't worth the convoluted effort of maintaining it.
I don't give much weight to "noble savavage" or "pastroral ideal" concepts either.
Old, new, derived or novel, my values are mine and they'll determine if I refrain from acting against you.
I'm a modern human I'll argue for laws that benefit me, others will do the same.

I have doubts about this freedom thing too.
It might be OK if humans lived in isolation but they don't. 
Virtually everything you do effects me, what you eat, how you cook it, what you drive, how you drive, what you imbibe before you drive, where you park. 
Sometimes the cry of freedom is noble, other times it seems a peevish reaction to reasonable restriction.

[Siz]

I don't like the natural law or intrinsic rights idea, I think it is an idea which isn't worth the convoluted effort of maintaining it.
I don't give much weight to "noble savavage" or "pastroral ideal" concepts either.
Old, new, derived or novel, my values are mine and they'll determine if I refrain from acting against you.
I'm a modern human I'll argue for laws that benefit me, others will do the same.

I have doubts about this freedom thing too.
It might be OK if humans lived in isolation but they don't.  
Virtually everything you do effects me, what you eat, how you cook it, what you drive, how you drive, what you imbibe before you drive, where you park.  
Sometimes the cry of freedom is noble, other times it seems a peevish reaction to reasonable restriction.

I understand your position. But I do wonder if we have been a little brainwashed in our modern, civilised society into accepting authority a little too readily. The phenomenon of social law is open to abuse when the media decide that a certain activity is disagreeable. We know the power of the media and we also know it can't always be trusted to give an impartial or balanced view. And the unthinking masses blindly take their cues from media. In the States, social law is often meeted from a fundamentalist Christian standpoint - and this is wholly unacceptable. In many African countries oppression comes as standard. In Muslim society social justice for women is in tatters. In Britain I am forced to pay for the booze and cigarettes of the lazy unemployed because they apparently have a rightful claim to my money. The list goes on. I worry about Nanny-statism, erosion of free will and oppression and I feel all of those things in my own civilised country.

So the whole idea of social law as a definer of rights is not to be praised because the social conscience is subject to corruption. I'll admit that it keeps the mindless masses in order, but I won't be told what my rights are by anyone.

EDIT.: Revised 'social justice' for 'social law'.

[The Magic Pudding]

But I do wonder if we have been a little brainwashed in our modern, civilised society into accepting authority a little too readily.

I think we have been manipulated into being dissatisfied with not getting our own way in everything.  Democracy should be something revered, people fought and died for it and the alternative isn't pretty.  Compromise is necessary, we don't have to hate other members of society for receiving a perceived favour, perhaps some need a nanny to teach them not to act like spoilt children.

We could have a thread that looks at this nanny state thing, I don't like the term but I'd like to object to or support to specific issues.  I have nothing against grandmothers myself, I don't know why their name is used to deride.

[Pharaoh Cat]

In the same way, we have inherited a tendency to assert and endeavor to protect the freedom to act on our own volition, to protect the means of survival from the depredations of others, to protect those close to us, etc. This tendency forms the basis for what can be called natural rights. I don't know whether it can be conclusively argued that natural rights stemming from this tendency exist in any objective sense, but I don't think that a case can be made that the tendency itself doesn't exist. Donald makes the point that to live as a social species, as opposed to a eusocial species, there must be both some form of morality and some form of rights. Thus the basis for natural rights is our nature as a social species.

First, did you mean "eusocial" or "asocial"?  I had to look up the first of those, and Dictionary.com says it means: "of or pertaining to a form of insect society, as that of ants, characterized by specialization of tasks and cooperative care of the young."

I agree our species has a tendency to posit natural rights, but since our species also has a tendency to posit invisible, immortal super-beings, I end up viewing this line of reasoning as saying more about anthropology than anything else.
 

[Pharaoh Cat]

As soon as the game has even one rule, my rights have been narrowed.  If the rule is, don't defecate on the rug, then I don't have the right to defecate on the rug.  Absent any other rules, I have the right to read a book while hopping on one foot, or to drive my car while humming a tune, or to perform any other action realistically available to me - but I don't have the right to defecate on the rug, unless I take myself out of the game.

But by saying that you are deferring your rights to external authority which is unacceptable if the external authority is corrupt. And it is MY decision as to who I consider corrupt.

Here's my position stated more pithily, and so pleasingly to me that I made it my sig:

-----
All games are optional, and so, since only rules curtail rights, and only games contain rules, and everything with rules is a game, it follows that, prior to opting into any games, one exists in a state of open-ended rights; I.e., radical freedom.
-----

I don't have to play the corrupt authority's game, but if I choose to play it, then the rules of it bind me, just as the rules of chess bind me if I choose to play chess.

I either play or don't play.  That choice is always mine, and the consequences of whichever option I choose are my responsibility.  Put a gun to my head and I will hate you as a bully, but I don't have to obey you.  I could choose to take a bullet in the brain.

Now, I could choose a third option, which is to play the game of pretending to play the corrupt authority's game.  Underneath that pretense could lurk all manner of subversions.

If a stranger stopped you in the street and said "You can't walk on this side of the road, those are my rules", does that then mean you have no right to walk on that side of the road? No, because it was an external 'authority' imposing his rules on you. His rules bear no relation to your rights.

True, so long as I decline to play the stranger's game.  If I opt instead to play it, then I forfeit the right to walk on that side of the road.

The default position is to be opted out of all games, hence opted out of all rules, hence a condition of open-ended rights; I.e., radical freedom.

It apparently depends on who imposes the rules as to whether or not rights are seen to be infringed. A 'Law' is seen as a 'rights determiner' because we can all see the value in most laws. Whereas a school bully, who might limit ones actions to the same degree is taken to be just trampling over a victims' rights.

I would never say what you said there.  No one imposes rules on me but myself, by opting into a game, and so no one restricts my right but myself, voluntarily.

You have argued that we have 'no right' to break the law - I disagree.

Hopefully my position is clearer now.  I haven't argued what you're saying I argued.

I can opt out of the game of avoiding criminality.  Opting out, I no longer am bound by the rules that define criminality.  The facts of life are such, unfortunately, that opting out of the game of avoiding criminality automatically entails opting into one of three games, either (1) avoiding the lawkeepers, or (2) violently engaging the lawkeepers, or (3) politically engaging the lawkeepers, the last of those generally entailing a submission to arrest, confinement, and prosecution.

Games are optional but the facts of life aren't.

[Recusant]

First, did you mean "eusocial" or "asocial"?  I had to look up the first of those, and Dictionary.com says it means: "of or pertaining to a form of insect society, as that of ants, characterized by specialization of tasks and cooperative care of the young."

I agree our species has a tendency to posit natural rights, but since our species also has a tendency to posit invisible, immortal super-beings, I end up viewing this line of reasoning as saying more about anthropology than anything else.

I definitely meant "eusocial." Eusocial species do not operate in a way in which the concept of rights, natural or otherwise, would ever arise. Donald uses this idea in passing a couple of times by comparing humans, a species of intelligent apes, to a theoretical species of intelligent bees. The primary unit of bees and other eusocial species is the collective, and such species act as a collective; the individual in such species functions only to serve the greater good, and it really has no identity other than as a unit of the collective. On the other hand, the primary unit of social species is usually a family, and individuals of such species act through cooperation while still having an identity as individuals; they can and do act for selfish good. The concept of rights would be irrelevant and meaningless to an intelligent eusocial species, while it seems to be integral to homo sapiens sapiens.

Rights, whether conceived of as inherent in our nature or as something bestowed by society or a god, seem to be an inevitable component of human societies. I can imagine a human society functioning properly without a god, but I can't do the same for a society without rights. Even if rights are thought to only be applicable to a certain portion of society (as has happened in the past) they seem to exist in all human societies. Maybe this is an argument from ignorance, though.  

[Siz]

But I do wonder if we have been a little brainwashed in our modern, civilised society into accepting authority a little too readily.

I think we have been manipulated into being dissatisfied with not getting our own way in everything.  Democracy should be something revered, people fought and died for it and the alternative isn't pretty.  Compromise is necessary, we don't have to hate other members of society for receiving a perceived favour, perhaps some need a nanny to teach them not to act like spoilt children.

We could have a thread that looks at this nanny state thing, I don't like the term but I'd like to object to or support to specific issues.  I have nothing against grandmothers myself, I don't know why their name is used to deride.

Dammit! I just don't have time today to respond to these points properly.

But I'd like to clarify the interpretation of Nanny. I take this to mean a children's caregiver - a nursemaid.

A nanny state is more likely to create a society of spoilt children than a democratic meritocracy ever would.

[Siz]

PC, sorry I don't have the time today to debate this as I'd like.

I think our ultimate points coincide, but I disagree with some of your details.

You have not forfeited your rights by walking down only one side, you have had your rights unfairly violated.

[xSilverPhinx]

If a stranger stopped you in the street and said "You can't walk on this side of the road, those are my rules", does that then mean you have no right to walk on that side of the road? No, because it was an external 'authority' imposing his rules on you. His rules bear no relation to your rights.

True, so long as I decline to play the stranger's game.  If I opt instead to play it, then I forfeit the right to walk on that side of the road.

How so? Isn't it better to say that the stranger who said that you can't walk on that side of the road had no right to do so in the first place? ???

Even if you concede and don't walk on that side of the road, it still doesn't give that stranger the right.