Does liberalism value human rights over ethics?

[danieldemol]

Does (western) liberalism value human rights over ethics?

My initial thoughts on this is that it is a contradiction in terms. Human rights are rights because they pertain to the ethical treatment of humans.

By comparison allegedly “revealed” religions tend to value these alleged revelations over ethics and human rights (at least as far as traditional Islamic sects such as the ahl e hadeeth are concerned).

Please discuss.

 

[epronovost]

human rights are derived from an ethical position called "humanism". You can't have rights "above" ethical frameworks.

 

[Piculet]

(at least as far as traditional Islamic sects such as the ahl e hadeeth are concerned).

Please discuss.

A few questions:
1. Why do you call "ahl e hadeeth" traditional?
2. Why do you single it out at all?
3. What is it? I already searched it so quoting Wikipedia won't help much as I failed to understand from there what it actually is (in practice) and, more importantly, what you mean by it.

Ethics and human rights are man made terms. Of course they would be secondary.

Yes. I would say liberalism "values" human rights over ethics in a sense, as all capitalistic societies do.

 

[danieldemol]

A few questions:
1. Why do you call "ahl e hadeeth" traditional?
2. Why do you single it out at all?
3. What is it? I already searched it so quoting Wikipedia won't help much as I failed to understand from there what it actually is (in practice) and, more importantly, what you mean by it.

Ethics and human rights are man made terms. Of course they would be secondary.

Yes. I would say liberalism "values" human rights over ethics in a sense, as all capitalistic societies do.

1. My apologies, I just read the wikipedia article, and ahl e hadeeth appears to stem from the 19th century teachings of Syed Nazeer Husain and Siddiq Hasan Khan.

Perhaps I have them confused with traditional Sunni Islam because they They regard the Quran, sunnah, and hadith as the sole sources of religious authority and oppose everything introduced in Islam after the earliest times.

2. Mispercieved affilliation of a poster from the Islam DIR who shall not be named due to RF rules who used the cover of the DIR to bash liberalism.

3. See no.1

4. “revelation” is also a manmade term.

5. Liberalism has no inherent affiliation to either capitalism or socialism.

 

[`mud]

Sometimes the straw is not for what one reaches.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Does (western) liberalism value human rights over ethics?

My initial thoughts on this is that it is a contradiction in terms. Human rights are rights because they pertain to the ethical treatment of humans.

By comparison allegedly “revealed” religions tend to value these alleged revelations over ethics and human rights (at least as far as traditional Islamic sects such as the ahl e hadeeth are concerned).

Please discuss.

I think human rights will take a back door to collective rights when it comes to liberalism and the left.

 

[Nakosis]

Does (western) liberalism value human rights over ethics?

My initial thoughts on this is that it is a contradiction in terms. Human rights are rights because they pertain to the ethical treatment of humans.

By comparison allegedly “revealed” religions tend to value these alleged revelations over ethics and human rights (at least as far as traditional Islamic sects such as the ahl e hadeeth are concerned).

Please discuss.

Ethics? Religious ethics? I don't think specific religious ethics would factor in.
Human rights take a back door to the law. The laws determine human rights and the law can take away/limit those rights.

Liberalism values the democratic process and the laws created via that process.

 

[danieldemol]

I think human rights will take a back door to collective rights when it comes to liberalism and the left.

I haven’t got a clue what you are trying to say here.
Why don’t you try using real world examples of “collective rights” triumphing over individual rights.

Then for the sake of relevance you could try relating it to whether or not human rights are different to the ethical treatment of humans.

 

[danieldemol]

Ethics? Religious ethics? I don't think specific religious ethics would factor in.
Human rights take a back door to the law. The laws determine human rights and the law can take away/limit those rights.

Liberalism values the democratic process and the laws created via that process.

I agree that liberalism values the democratic process, but not necessarily the laws created by that process as the laws created by that process are the result of compromise between liberal and non-liberal elements of society.

 

[Nakosis]

I agree that liberalism values the democratic process, but not necessarily the laws created by that process as the laws created by that process are the result of compromise between liberal and non-liberal elements of society.

Such as? Our representatives may choose to compromise. They are supposed to represent the interests of their constituents. Don't know if it really works that way. The media seems to have a lot of influence in our system.

 

[danieldemol]

I would say liberalism "values" human rights over ethics in a sense

I think you are conflating “ethics” with “Islamic ethics” (ie with what books written in the early course of Islam considered ethical) which in certain cases are not ethical at all

 

[danieldemol]

Such as?

I don’t have specific examples in mind here, but I’m sure that western liberals would not value all of the rulings of conservative political parties, even where such rulings were the result of a democratic win.

 

[VoidoftheSun]

Does (western) liberalism value human rights over ethics?

Yes

 

[VoidoftheSun]

I think human rights will take a back door to collective rights when it comes to liberalism and the left.

Maybe in 20,000 years

 

[danieldemol]

Yes

Please elaborate how

 

[Piculet]

1. My apologies, I just read the wikipedia article, and ahl e hadeeth appears to stem from the 19th century teachings of Syed Nazeer Husain and Siddiq Hasan Khan.

Perhaps I have them confused with traditional Sunni Islam because they They regard the Quran, sunnah, and hadith as the sole sources of religious authority and oppose everything introduced in Islam after the earliest times.

2. Mispercieved affilliation of a poster from the Islam DIR who shall not be named due to RF rules who used the cover of the DIR to bash liberalism.

3. See no.1

4. “revelation” is also a manmade term.

5. Liberalism has no inherent affiliation to either capitalism or socialism.

No problem.
Ahle Sunnah, Ahle hadith, barelvi, devbhandi - Islamhelpline

I think today's liberalism is connected to today's capitalism. I don't know if one could remain without the other.

I think you are conflating “ethics” with “Islamic ethics” (ie with what books written in the early course of Islam considered ethical) which in certain cases are not ethical at all

Answering your question I was comparing the ethical views of modern Western society to the way they deal with human rights.

 

[danieldemol]

Answering your question I was comparing the ethical views of modern Western society to the way they deal with human rights.

Ok, so how do you distinguish between the ethical treatment of humans from the perspective of modern western society and human rights?

 

[QuestioningMind]

Does (western) liberalism value human rights over ethics?

My initial thoughts on this is that it is a contradiction in terms. Human rights are rights because they pertain to the ethical treatment of humans.

By comparison allegedly “revealed” religions tend to value these alleged revelations over ethics and human rights (at least as far as traditional Islamic sects such as the ahl e hadeeth are concerned).

Please discuss.

In my opinion advocating for equal human rights is ALWAYS the ethical thing to do, so by valuing one you are also valuing the other.

 

[Augustus]

My initial thoughts on this is that it is a contradiction in terms. Human rights are rights because they pertain to the ethical treatment of humans.

By comparison allegedly “revealed” religions tend to value these alleged revelations over ethics and human rights (at least as far as traditional Islamic sects such as the ahl e hadeeth are concerned).

Please discuss.

They are just 2 different systems of ethics. Everyone values their ethics over other systems of ethics, and your concept of human rights is a product of your own ethical principles. To say 'group X prefer their religion over ethics' is presupposing you have some objective ethical standards with which to judge them.

For an Ancient Greek, humans were fundamentally unequal, and thus some were natural slaves. Slavery was not 'unethical' to them, it was ethical as it dealt with the world according to nature. To say Aristotle preferred 'his philosophy over his ethics' would be nonsensical. Ultimately the whole purpose of his philosophy was ethics.

Human rights (in the modern sense) and Western liberalism are really evolutions of the Christian ethical traditions that emerged gradually throughout the Middle Ages and early modern period (of course there were other additional influences too).

Would be helpful if more Western liberals understood the intellectual traditions behind why 'universal' human rights emerged when and where they did though. If people get complacent about the innateness, stability and permanence of their belief systems, they could be in for a big surprise.

 

[danieldemol]

To say Aristotle preferred 'his philosophy over his ethics' would be nonsensical.

That’s pretty much what I think of people who say western liberals prefer human rights over ethics.