Natural rights: Do they exist? Where do they come from? Are they relevant today?

Thats all you are willing to accept! Of course that is an authority fallacy..... but oh well....

 

What is the inherent right to life?

This means that nobody, including the Government, can try to end your life. It also means the Government should take appropriate measures to safeguard life by making laws to protect you and, in some circumstances, by taking steps to protect you if your life is at risk.Jun 3, 2021

Article 2: Right to life | Equality and Human Rights Commission
https://www.equalityhumanrights.com › human-rights-act


Speech, religion, protection are all subsets to our inherent (natural) right to life, why do you ignore the obvious?

You seem to love authority until it runs contrary to your theme then you look the other way.

Yes thats all you have is authority so that what I give you in return is authority.

 

How could I forget you butchering of that poor man's theory?

 

Thats a funny twist.
Do I understand what you are saying?
Why would you think rights between you and other humans has anything to do with rights between you and a starving tiger?
Humans dont give birth to animals that will eat us as far as I know?
So then your philosophy is rights are based in who ever is the meanest and most brutal? I thought that was far closer to slavery?

 

I remember your trying to substitute his unsophisticated tribal style religion with his more contemporary sophisticated version, I didnt forget.

 

I have never heard of natural rights applying to any other than man since it is based upon mans interaction with others of the same species. In nature simply means without government, not in the jungle. If you are alone on an island than rights are immaterial. We cant give a tiger a copy of the Bill of Rights and expect he will no longer look at you as if you were dinner. That would run contrary to 'his' nature. IOW we do not share the same nature so rights apply between men in a natural state, not between men and tigers in their natural states,

So do the weak, even chimps rarely kill any other from their own clan. they will kill others from another clan if they see them as a threat to them or their clan.

 

[

Thanks for joining in. The State of Nature in natural rights theory never existed in the real world. At best, it was a hypothetical or metaphorical device for getting at what would be an arrangement all could accept because the State was defending their interests. Hobbes thought that people in the State of Nature would be mainly concerned with protecting their lives from the "war of all against all",, and would therefore surrender all right to a sovereign who could protect the one right that counted: the right to life. Locke, of course--the philosopher who was most influential on the Declaration of Independence, thought they needed government to protect a wider range of interests: liberty and property, as well as life.

But to anyone's knowledge, there never was a time when human individuals existed on their own outside of any social units and government. Even the earliest known humans had some authority in kinship groups and hunting bands, from elders and dominant leaders. And it's highly unlikely that they ever arrived at these arrangements deliberately, as opposed to following instincts and yielding to natural patterns of dominance.

The whole device was a fiction, but one that could be useful in conceptualizing what the natural rights philosophers thought was the appropriate relationship between governments and their citizens. The contractarian perspective serves as a corrective a radical utilitarian perspective that would subordinate minority interests to majoritarian concerns of the "greatest number". Rawls in our own time used a similar device to get at the concept of justice as fairness in his A Theory of Justice. I tend to consider natural rights as important ideals and a useflu perspective along with utilitarianism in making judgments about morality, government actions, the public interest. But I think its dangerous to think of these rights as giving individuals claims they can assert against the government. The Reign of Terror illustrates what can happen when people get carried away with their metaphors.

 

I have never seen any form of "government" in the Paleolithic age?
Citation?

 

Everything has to be conceived to be realized, even God.

yes meaning without external force

had you said organization I would agree, organization however does not imply government

natural rights are 'self government', by morals, fundamental beliefs, not political organizations.
Its a completely different classification from government by political 'force' as we know it today.

Yes like I dont want to die so if you dont kill me I wont kill you, if you protect me I will protect you. That is not government however.

 

That says nothing of value however since everything conceived in philosophy and science is hypothetical, typically by 'observation' of some reality then drawing a hypothesis from that which is observed.

yes again hypotheses can be called ideas but they are much more than such a watered down word as 'idea'.

Think in terms of hypotheses, not ideas. Being idea driven leads to false facts - when opinions are accepted as reality due to a hypothesis not being proven or disproven with data. A hypothesis is a prediction or theory about what your research may find.Apr 27, 2021

Be Hypothesis Driven, Not Idea Led - First Principles


I have not seen any citation of lockes intent as you suggest, got some?

If there are no inalienable the most fundamental of rights like 'life' when man most certainly has no value beyond a common pesky bug. Then there is no reason to chase down murderes to the end of the earth of someone you loved were murdered, and if you take vengeance the law can come after you.

Sure thats because the rights identified, quantified, and so titled by locke were incorporated in to the organic law of the US.

You may convince me with a citation?

Like I said eventually it was incorporated in to the laws, not only in the US but internationally as universal rights.
In fact internationally they go even further such as the right to education, which is fine but administrative rights I do not see as unalienable.

 

The "unsophisticated" version was the basis of his classic Elementary Form of Religious Life "unsophisticated' and your mangled version of his out-of-context remark comparing religion to ideology and philosophy that you lifted from some unknown internet source "his more contemporary sophisticated version" is laughable. Can you tell us please where you got that quotation?

 

These Social Contract theories are not 'hypotheses, cuz they can't be tested. They're not empirically verifiable or falsifiable. They're speculative thought pieces.

Haven't you read Locke's Second Treatise on Government? Check it out, and get back to me. We can then discuss it.

You're confused. Of course we value our lives. That's why we have criminal penalties against homicide. To leap from that to some kind of natural right outside of, and superior to the state and its laws is just that--a logical leap.

If you read Locke or studied him in college you'd know that he did not "quantify" these rights. Jeremy Bentham was the one who was into that. He called natural rights "nonsense on stilts".

I have no idea how old you are, but I assume none of us have. We can only make inferences on the basis of archaeological findings and patterns in present-day primal hunter-gatherer societies, like Durkheim's Arunta. The cave men seemed to live in small kinship bands, not as a bunch of isolated individuals, and from what we know from these sources, it seems highly unlikely that they ever got together to decide on a government under specified conditions. For sources, try
Paleolithic: Summary, Stages, Society and Characteristics
Paleolithic societies (article) | Khan Academy
Mike Williams, Prehistoric Belief

 

Jonathan Wallace Natural Rights Don't Exist argues that Locke's theory rests on what has been called the "naturalistic fallacy": making an "is" into an ought. As David Hume, who first noticed this fallacy, explained:
"In every system of morality which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a god, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprised to find that instead of the usual copulation of propositions is and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought or an ought not. This change is imperceptible, but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought or ought not expresses some new relation or affirmation, it is necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason ought to be given for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others which are entirely different from it." For example, Locke tells us that "in the state of nature, "all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal" and therefore all men "should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection...." And again: "The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one; and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it that, being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions..."

Then there is the problem of conflicting natural rights: "If we regard rights as a human-generated rulebook, not engraven in the fabric of the universe, we can analyze many circumstances in which the rule-makers must mediate between conflicting interpretations. For example, our courts answer questions like the following every day: Does your right of free speech trump my right of privacy? In this scheme of things, rights are a binary switch, and the rulemakers simply decide which way to set the switch. If you have a right to do something, I have an obligation to respect it and not to interfere with it. It would be illogical to say you have a "right" to do something which I have a "right" to prevent."

 

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I think the notion that there are inherent limits to what a government can and cannot do and still function effectively is valid. Political scientists recognize the importance of legitimacy and authority which even despotic governments will try to claim. Legitimacy is conformity to recognized principles or accepted rules and standards. For example, Communist governments claim to rule on behalf of the people and to be guided by a scientific understanding of history and the dialectic. Th Stuart monarchs in England claimed to rule by divine right. If people believe them, they can proceed to exercise authority, which is essentially legitimated power, or government actions claiming to be backed by the right to exercise power--as in making a lawful arrest. In the case of the Stuart monarchs, they pushed too far, people ceased to believe their claims, they were deposed, and the government of England turned to new legitimating principles: popular sovereignty, parliamentary supremacy, and the English Bill of Rights. Following the late Professor Fuller of the Harvard Law School, I think the basic purpose of law is to promote order in society, so a system that promotes mostly disorder can't really be considered lawful. And I think liberty and justice are useful moral reference point in judging the quality of governmental actions. There are natural limits to governmental legitimacy and authority, just as there are natural limits on what we can do to our bodies and still stay alive and healthy. Recent uprisings in Iran and China give us some idea of what those might be. The Declaration of Human Rights is based on international ideas of the basic conditions for human flourishing, and provide concrete standards that signatory governments can defend. These are basically moral principles. Morality is important in guiding human actions, even though we might disagree about its particulars and where it comes from. If enough people share it, we can use it meaningfully in political discourse to evaluate politics and government. That, in a nutshell, is my concept of natural law and rights.

What bothers me about ShyOne's presentation so far is her inability or unwillingness to get specific about what she thinks are the limits of these rights she is claiming to limit our government. Her comments in the religion thread seemed to be trying to give religious or quasi-religious standing to any or all unidentified claims that individuals happened to consider to be matters of conscience.. There are some such matters in which there seems to be broad consensus in our society, but others not so much. We know, for example, that some people in our society feel strongly that abortions, homosexual conduct, and contraception are wrong on the basis of natural law, and that it's appropriate for government to legislate against them. Others, however, feel that these things are important parts of personal liberty and a fundamental right of privacy that government must protect. At present , these controversies are settled in political arenas through the give and take of democracy and the judicial process.It seems to me that that's the best approach. Another area of dissensus is the proper role and limits on government in the area of public health. I happen to favor vaccination requirements to control pandemics like small pox, polio, and yes--Covid. This is literally a matter of life and death, and I personally trust science on these matters than I do quacks on the internet. But again, I'm willing to let the two sides duke it out in electoral and judicial arenas.

What I see as the real danger in what seems to be ShyOne's position is in invoking natural rights to settle such controversies in areas where there is no public consensus. Rights easily become confused with wants. "Natural rights' are invoked to give an air of metaphysical gravitas to what is otherwise a statement of self-interest. Natural Rights Don't Exist I recall the chants of "1776!" by the motley crew of insurrectionists and nut jobs who stormed the halls of Congress on January 6, 2021, not to mention the sovereign citizens' movement and the Sagebrush rebellion. The principles of the Declaration of Independence are inspiring statements of foundational principles for our government, but are easily misappropriated by political demagogues and ignorant or delusional rabblerousers.

Shy's right to swing her fist ends where my nose begins; same goes with her right to give me Covid. I'm particularly concerned with her notion that the constitutional decision in McCulloch v. Maryland which is the basis of most of the powers of the federal government today, from the Air Force to civil rights laws, is a violation of the social contract. It's far to late to powder our wigs and go back to the eighteenth century when Vlad, Kim and Xi are circling. And her remark on this thread that the defeat of the Confederacy, slave state insurrectionists, was somehow a blow to natural rights is a good example of what can happen when people get carried away with their metaphors. She's obviously bought into an extreme conspiratorial view of our government, and her efforts to justify it by elaborate arguments rooted in the seventeenth century seem futile.