What are "rights"?

[Nous]

My question here is for everyone who has expressed or believes any such thing as that the term “rights” is not a method or an attempt to communicate some objective moral fact. That is, my question is for everyone here who has expressed something to the effect that the term “rights” does not and cannot possibly refer to something beyond what a government can bestow.

My question is this: If that were true (that the term “rights” does not and cannot possibly refer to something beyond what a government can bestow), then why fight a bloody, horrible, expensive war such as the US Civil War in order to secure the fundamental human rights of slaves? What possible rational reason would there be for such a war, if there were nothing immoral about depriving those slaves of fundamental human rights such as life, liberty and property or the pursuit of happiness?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

My question here is for everyone who has expressed or believes any such thing as that the term “rights” is not a method or an attempt to communicate some objective moral fact. That is, my question is for everyone here who has expressed something to the effect that the term “rights” does not and cannot possibly refer to something beyond what a government can bestow.

My question is this: If that were true (that the term “rights” does not and cannot possibly refer to something beyond what a government can bestow), then why fight a bloody, horrible, expensive war such as the US Civil War in order to secure the fundamental human rights of slaves? What possible rational reason would there be for such a war, if there were nothing immoral about depriving those slaves of fundamental human rights such as life, liberty and property or the pursuit of happiness?

"My rights are better than your rights." If rights were inherent, and derived from nature, a creator, god, or what have you, not a single United States citizen would have been herded into a concentration camp during WWII. Those citizens, at a time when they needed their rights the most, didn't even get their "right" to a public trial by a jury of their peers before being uprooted, branded too much of an enemy, and sealed away from the rest of the nation. As George Carlin said, the only right they had was "right this way to the internment camp." "All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights," as history showed us that only applied strictly to men, and only if they were white and owned property. Everybody else got alienable rights, and still to this day do not have full equality under the law.
They aren't rights if the state can take them away on a whim. They are privileges.

 

[Nous]

"My rights are better than your rights." If rights were inherent, and derived from nature, a creator, god, or what have you, not a single United States citizen would have been herded into a concentration camp during WWII. Those citizens, at a time when they needed their rights the most, didn't even get their "right" to a public trial by a jury of their peers before being uprooted, branded too much of an enemy, and sealed away from the rest of the nation. As George Carlin said, the only right they had was "right this way to the internment camp." "All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights," as history showed us that only applied strictly to men, and only if they were white and owned property. Everybody else got alienable rights, and still to this day do not have full equality under the law.
They aren't rights if the state can take them away on a whim. They are privileges.

You wanted to quote my post but not answer my question?

I'll repeat my question: My question is this: If that were true (that the term “rights” does not and cannot possibly refer to something beyond what a government can bestow), then why fight a bloody, horrible, expensive war such as the US Civil War in order to secure the fundamental human rights of slaves? What possible rational reason would there be for such a war, if there were nothing immoral about depriving those slaves of fundamental human rights such as life, liberty and property or the pursuit of happiness?

(I don't think any of George Carlin's one-liners is going to help answer my question.)

 

[Shadow Wolf]

What possible rational reason would there be for such a war, if there were nothing immoral about depriving those slaves of fundamental human rights such as life, liberty and property or the pursuit of happiness?

The North thought these were rights worth fighting for. These same rights, the South thought didn't equally apply to all. Both sides went to war over their own interpretation of rights.

 

[Nous]

The North thought these were rights worth fighting for.

Huh, you don't say! I wonder why "the North thought" that?

Apparently you are not able to articulate a rational reason for the Civil War if there were nothing immoral about depriving those slaves of fundamental human rights such as life, liberty and property or the pursuit of happiness. Apparently moral nihilism or relativism about rights just provides no insight into human behavior and objectives. Eh?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Huh, you don't say! I wonder why "the North thought" that?

Apparently you are not able to articulate a rational reason for the Civil War if there were nothing immoral about depriving those slaves of fundamental human rights such as life, liberty and property or the pursuit of happiness. Apparently moral nihilism or relativism about rights just provides no insight into human behavior and objectives. Eh?

I'm trying to put it in perspective that both sides had their own ideas as to what rights are, who should have them, and how they should be applied. Both sides were fighting for what they believed to be proper rights.

 

[Nous]

I'm trying to put it in perspective that both sides had their own ideas as to what rights are, who should have them, and how they should be applied. Both sides were fighting for what they believed to be proper rights.

I know exactly what "the ideas of rights" "both the sides" had in the Civil war. That isn't what I asked about.

What I asked about is whether there is any rational reason for the Civil War if there were actually, objectively, truly nothing immoral about depriving those slaves of fundamental human rights such as life, liberty and property or the pursuit of happiness.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I know exactly what "the ideas of rights" "both the sides" had in the Civil war. That isn't what I asked about.

What I asked about is whether there is any rational reason for the Civil War if there were actually, objectively, truly nothing immoral about depriving those slaves of fundamental human rights such as life, liberty and property or the pursuit of happiness.

Morality isn't objective.

 

[Stevicus]

My question here is for everyone who has expressed or believes any such thing as that the term “rights” is not a method or an attempt to communicate some objective moral fact. That is, my question is for everyone here who has expressed something to the effect that the term “rights” does not and cannot possibly refer to something beyond what a government can bestow.

My question is this: If that were true (that the term “rights” does not and cannot possibly refer to something beyond what a government can bestow), then why fight a bloody, horrible, expensive war such as the US Civil War in order to secure the fundamental human rights of slaves? What possible rational reason would there be for such a war, if there were nothing immoral about depriving those slaves of fundamental human rights such as life, liberty and property or the pursuit of happiness?

These are excellent questions. The UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights (Universal Declaration of Human Rights) also appears to echo the same idea that people are born with rights and that they're not bestowed by any government.



Article 1.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2.

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3.

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4.

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5.

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6.

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7.

All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8.

Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10.

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11.

(1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
(2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 13.

(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14.

(1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15.

(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Article 16.

(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 17.

(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18.

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19.

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20.

(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
(2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 21.

(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 22.

Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 23.

(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24.

Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25.

(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 26.

(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Article 27.

(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Article 28.

Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 29.

(1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
(2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
(3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30.

Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

 

[Nous]

Morality isn't objective.

Prove that there are no objective moral facts.

You still haven't articulated any rational reason to engage in a horrible war such as the US Civil War if it were not immoral and a violation of persons' rights to enslave them. Right? For some reason you apparently don't want to acknowledge your inability to articulate any such rational reason.

 

[Nous]

These are excellent questions. The UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights (Universal Declaration of Human Rights) also appears to echo the same idea that people are born with rights and that they're not bestowed by any government.

Yes, indeed, any such declaration logically rests on the premise that rights are inherent and are not a mere creation of governments.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Prove that there are no objective moral facts.

Morality is far too inconsistent among different cultures, and even the same place at different times. According to many, owning slaves isn't immoral, and there is no cosmic law or force that says either way. It's nothing more than the direction our own culturally morality evolved that has us agreeing slavery is wrong. Not too long ago, it was immoral to be homosexual, and even illegal. But that has mostly changed as society changed over the past century. Alcohol prohibition also provides another example where many thought it was moral to follow the law and not defy it, while many broke the law and even openly flaunted it.

You still haven't articulated any rational reason to engage in a horrible war such as the US Civil War if it were not immoral and a violation of persons' rights to enslave them.

I think you've been missing it, as I've been saying the North and the South both had completely different opinions as to what rights are and whom they apply to. If rights were truly universal, this war would not have been fought, and slavery never an issue. But because rights are not inherently given by any entity other than the state, America continued to have racial issues and it required a Constitutional amendment to allow all men regardless of ethnicity the right to vote - it took another amendment to grant this right to women. Had this been given by nature or god or the cosmos or other force, we wouldn't have needed these amendments that granted equal rights to repressed groups.

 

[Orbit]

I'm not sure "everybody knows this" or even if most people know it. Listening to the rhetoric commonly propagated out there, people talk about rights as if they're god given and sacrosanct. Politicians talk about freedom. Veterans and other pro military types routinely proclaim that they fight for our rights and,freedom. Even liberals say as much when they talk about freedom and many people take umbrage and get very emotional when anyone tries to tell them otherwise. I've seen it here on RF.

So, I don't think everybody knows this, and it almost seems heretical in the American mainstream political culture to even suggest such a thing.



Yeah, although no one says that money is "god given."



But if it's all based on faith in certain ideals which seem to be fraudulent, then society starts to break down, which does happen from time to time. The question is, is the rule of law and the principles upon which our republic was founded even legitimate at all? What makes America so exceptional or different than other nations we presume to pass judgment on (such as NK, USSR, Germany, Iran, etc.)?

The "social contract" is the basis for U.S civil society, where the people are ruled "by the consent of the governed", e.g rule is not imposed on them. Now this is according to the Founders at the outset, their version of reality. They asserted the idea of "inalienable rights" in counterpoint to the "divine right of kings" as a justification for breaking with England and forming a new country.

"Rights" are the bargain struck between the powerful few and the masses who have power by virtue of their numbers. The masses consented to be ruled on the condition of having the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights. That's how it worked in the U.S. anyway.

Generally speaking, "rights" are a social construct arising from power struggles in society.

 

[Nous]

Morality is far too inconsistent among different cultures, and even the same place at different times.

"Physics is far too inconsistent among different cultures, and even the same place at the different times. Even among physicists, there is hot disagreement as to what quantum theory means and how to interpret it. Therefore, physics is subjective."

I think you've been missing it, as I've been saying the North and the South both had completely different opinions as to what rights are and whom they apply to. If rights were truly universal, this war would not have been fought, and slavery never an issue.

No one has ever claimed that everyone believes or has ever believed exactly the same thing about what is moral and what is not. Just as with physics, chemistry and biology, people hold differing beliefs about moral facts. Nevertheless, the fact is that cultures the world over express extraordinary similar beliefs about the wrongness of murder, rape, assault, theft and certain other acts that are universally illegal. The disapproval of these acts is not culturally relative.

You have it exactly backwards: if there were no objective moral facts, there would not have been a Civil War, because there would not have been a rational reason for to engage in such a war.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Physics is far too inconsistent among different cultures, and even the same place at the different times.

With physics we have numerous laws that have math to support these laws. There is relativity, and quantum mechanics is not well understood yet, but if you think physics is inconsistent I invite you to jump off a 20-story building to test what happens.

Nevertheless, the fact is that cultures the world over express extraordinary similar beliefs about the wrongness of murder, rape, assault, theft and certain other acts that are universally illegal.

Some places in the world still have no laws against rape; murder is often subject to who the target is; assault in some places in some times is just fine - such as, some consider it proper and their right to strike their children.

You have it exactly backwards: if there were no objective moral facts, there would not have been a Civil War, because there would not have been a rational reason for to engage in such a war.

If that were objective, then both sides would have agreed from the start and not only would slavery have come to an end upon America's sovereignty, it never would have existed in the first place. But it was only when we developed new ideas and ways of thinking did we decide that slavery is wrong.

 

[Nous]

With physics we have numerous laws that have math to support these laws. There is relativity, and quantum mechanics is not well understood yet, but if you think physics is inconsistent I invite you to jump off a 20-story building to test what happens.

Some places in the world still have no laws against rape; murder is often subject to who the target is; assault in some places in some times is just fine - such as, some consider it proper and their right to strike their children.

If that were objective, then both sides would have agreed from the start and not only would slavery have come to an end upon America's sovereignty, it never would have existed in the first place. But it was only when we developed new ideas and ways of thinking did we decide that slavery is wrong.

You still haven't articulated any rational reason for engaging in the Civil War, in an attempt to abolish slavery, if it were true that there are not objective moral facts. Regardless of what anyone believes about morals, there is no rational reason to engage in a war for the purpose of abolishing slavery if there were nothing objectively immoral about slavery.

Your claims about disagreements among people about what acts are or are not moral are no different than claims pointing to the disagreements about what is true or not in the various sciences. If you were to read the scholarly literature on ethics, you would know that the anti-realist argument on disagreements about moral propositions was disposed of long ago.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

If you were to read the scholarly literature on ethics

The reason stuff like that exists is because not everyone agrees on what is moral, and certain experiments were done, and not everyone agree they were ethical. Like us as a species, morals and ethics have evolved, and some places (but not all) have created the concept of rights. And we have plenty of examples where this is not a linear "one way" path of evolvement.

 

[Curious George]

If that were objective, then both sides would have agreed from the start and not only would slavery have come to an end upon America's sovereignty, it never would have existed in the first place. But it was only when we developed new ideas and ways of thinking did we decide that slavery is wrong.

I think you are misunderstanding objectivity here. That something is objectively true does not entail all people will know it. Consequently, disagreement about truth does not contradict objective truth.

 

[Curious George]

You have it exactly backwards: if there were no objective moral facts, there would not have been a Civil War, because there would not have been a rational reason for to engage in such a war.

I think that you are misunderstanding subjective here. That something is subjective does not mean that the holder of a subjective view does not believe it objective.

Just because one believes something is objective does not mean it so. Consequently, we could have a war over subjective morality.

 

[Nous]

The reason stuff like that exists is because not everyone agrees on what is moral, and certain experiments were done, and not everyone agree they were ethical.

I'll just point out again: People disagree on the interpretation of quantum theory. That doesn't mean that there is no objective fact about it. Let me know if you grasp that at some point.