The Origin of the Idea of Natural Rights

false, quote einstein.

Yes and it has data.

I never claimed 'relativity' is bunk, I claimed weeners relativity is bunk.
Resorting to intellectual dishonesty now eh....

Continuation of the dishonesty, since its weeners relativity that is wrong, not mlet.

there is a thread dedicated for this why are you and rahl taking jabs at me and arguing it here?

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/the-false-god-s-of-physics.586429/

Maybe its because Talon has your hypothesis pinned so tight in the corner on the OP that you have nowhere else to turn, but distraction?

 

self protection is ingrained in every living thing with blood.
these guys take these arguments beyond absurdity.

I asked for several citations doubtful we will get any at all from them.

 

Good question about why this is a topic here.

I responded to YOU.

 

There is a large distance between natural rights and whether you can own a gun.

One has to do with the philosophy of man. The other is an issue of government.

 

bullshit, just checked
no response found
http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/the-false-god-s-of-physics.586429/

because rahl is attacking me as usual, and you are joining him, as usual.

Now you falsify that you responded, the whole world can clearly see you did not.

 

false its a no brainer.

I suppose you could ban every possible chemical on the planet that can be used as an explosive, then when that dont work, ban swords and knives, hammers all large objects, then when that dont work pass legislation to amputate everyone.

Fine, you want to assign 2 armed secret service personnel to protect every person on the planet be my guest.

Your arguments are over the top ludicrous!

Still no quote from you in the physics thread, so you did not respond.

I am still waiting for those citations, for the plethora of groundless claims you made, cough em up.

Looks like you cant support anything you posted wil

 

Good thread topic to discuss.

I think you just lost it to the sealion, but wanted to say it's certainly relevant today.

 

nope you are the one that lost it not him.

 

Here is how natural rights can hurt us. Lets say that we believe that people have a natural right to absolute privacy, even digital records. Well, now if terrorists have more and more dangerous weapons, we need a good way of catching them before they can launch an attack. A dogmatic devotion to rights will hurt us in the long-run.

Whats better is to come up with a notion of rights as a pragmatic simplification of complex utilitarian decisions, with an understanding that things might change and we will have to change our moral framework for a changing world.

Governments can definitely be part of the problem, but they are more likely to behave than radicalized individuals. Governments want to stay in power and are usually run by rational people. So they are more careful with how they use their weapons. But a radicalized insane individual may not be that rational.

 

Yes, I agree that the rights as represented in our constitution are a pragmatic simplification, or at least lead to one. Surely it was guided by theory of government and experience with the rule of England, which emphasized certain issues over other issues. Property and representation were huge issues.

On the other hand, owning humans as property is a long way from any natural right that humans might have. Yet, slavery was built into the constitution. Also, our constitution didn't address issues such as torture or cruelty administered by government with more than a handwave toward "cruel and unusual punishment" - an undefined and sliding scale that has been constantly changing, and without any guidance on what those terms might even mean or why they are even there (in terms of "natural rights").

So, what's in our constitution concerning natural law/rights would not be even close to satisfactory as a serious treatment of that field of philosophy.

How to keep the government in line has to do with other theory of government.

 

We know how wil

The constitutional significance of a “well regulated Militia” is well documented in English and American history from the late 17th century through the American Revolution; it was included in the Articles of Confederation (1781), the country’s first constitution, and was even noted at the Constitutional Convention that drafted the new U.S. Constitution in Philadelphia in 1787. The right to “keep and bear Arms” was thus included as a means to accomplish the objective of a “well regulated Militia”—to provide for the defense of the nation, to provide a well-trained and disciplined force to check federal tyranny, and to bring constitutional balance by distributing the power of the sword equally among the people, the states, and the federal government.

You want to talk about intent of the second wil?, whatever the guv has we have a right have, NOOKS, F16's, Stealth Bombers!

--------------------------------

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
First published Fri Feb 7, 2003; substantive revision Thu Apr 11, 2019​

The philosophy of human [inherent/natural] rights addresses questions about the existence, content, nature, universality, justification, and legal status of human rights. The strong claims often made on behalf of human rights (for example, that they are universal, inalienable, or exist independently of legal enactment as justified moral norms) have frequently provoked skeptical doubts and countering philosophical defenses (on these critiques see Lacrois and Pranchere 2016, Mutua 2008, and Waldron 198.

This entry addresses the concept of human [inherent] rights, the existence and grounds of human rights, the question of which rights are human rights, and relativism about human rights.

Human rights are norms that aspire to protect all people everywhere from severe political, legal, and social abuses.

Examples of human rights are the right to freedom of religion, the right to a fair trial when charged with a crime, the right not to be tortured, and the right to education.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights permits rights to be suspended during times “of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation” (Article 4). But it excludes some rights from suspension including the right to life, the prohibition of torture, the prohibition of slavery, the prohibition of ex post facto criminal laws, and freedom of thought and religion.

(1) Human rights are rights. Lest we miss the obvious, human rights are rights (see Cruft 2012 and the entry on rights ). Most if not all human rights are claim rights that impose duties or responsibilities on their addressees or dutybearers. Rights focus on a freedom, protection, status, or benefit for the rightholders (Beitz 2009). The duties associated with human rights often require actions involving respect, protection, facilitation, and provision. Rights are usually mandatory in the sense of imposing duties on their addressees, but some legal human rights seem to do little more than declare high-priority goals and assign responsibility for their progressive realization.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights-human/


The rest of us stand by the law of the land, meanwhile if they get too far out of line you can give them a good lip lashing, hell just ask Russia how awesome that worked out for them!

343!

 

You are WAY into the deep weeds and I'm absolutely NOT interested in discussing this topic with you.

 

Sure, you make unsubstantiated often completely WRONG claims, and cant back them up, I back mine up. Posting popular folklore around me does not cut it. The best solution is to post claims you can back up. Stop shooting yourself in the foot.

Seems it made a great philosophical discussion after all!
Unless you want to argue the stsnford philosophy dept is not qualified to make philosophical arguments?

 

The biggest terrorist you have to worry about is the guv, and they dont need arms to terrorize you, only a pen!

Now granted I posted stanford and britannica to counter the nonsense wil posted, however I would argue on the other side of the coin that stanford should not be lumping luxuries like education (which of course is state funded) into inherent rights because they are not inherent. Unfortunaely they use the term inherent and human to mean the same thing. Philosophy today is all about bluring the water to fit todays political agenda. It has the intended counter effect of watering down inherent rights to life, religion, etc.

The constitution in the bor states unequivocally the rights we reserved to ourselves.
By law it takes an amendment to change that, I see no amendments, only court legislated laws, ruled by a democracy of 9!

BTW wil slavery was a common way to pay off debts in those days, still is, just the names have been changed to protect the guilty.

 

Governments can be bad but they aren't likely to say release a genetically engineered virus because they know that will infect them. Governments tend to be more rational and will act in their own self-interest. Governments also involve a connection of powerful people, not just one person. So they are less likely to do something absolutely insane.

A good example is nukes. Governments are unlikely to use them because they know about self-assured destruction. But a radicalized terrorist? Thats another story.

 

Yes ..and it is obviously the form of government which best balances competing Rights between individuals, AND between individuals and the entire community.

Agreed, as noted above, except you are probably leaving leave out the concept of community well-being (eg manifested in a non-violent community), separate from individual rights or wellbeing.

This is where you are going astray. Violent action (which will be considered "criminal" by the establishment), eg in a revolution to overthrow an oppressive system, in an attempt to regain "natural rights" to fair compensation for work, and even the right to work above poverty level) of course ARE related "human rights".

Addressed above:

"You are living in poverty, your neighbourhoods are like war zones....."

Hence the US, the world's richest economy, is a global embarrassment, for the level of gun violence. The argument is circular: get rid of the economic disadvantage which is extreme in the US, and then you don't need guns for self-defence, as people in other first world countries will attest.

 

Yes, but humans have perceived they can live in communities largely without NEEDING "self protection", even in a predatory natural world.
1.We are now at the top of the food chain.
2. We can create economic organisation that satisfies basic needs.

Of course if we DONT create good governance which can engender universal prosperity, it's back to the 'law of the jungle'....

 

Look, I totally agree with your idealism, that is how it "should" be, I wish there was a way we could make things like that, but I am just pointing out that's not exactly the way things often turn out in reality.

That's the ideal.
But this is a misconception that most of the members of the public have, that it actually works this way. If you think it actually works that way then you do not understand how the court system actually operates, in practice.
I have tried to present numerous examples of this in the Law & Justice section of this forum. Things often do not operate like how people assume they do. Things are more complicated than that. The laws leave judges a huge amount is discretion to make decisions. Yes, of course the law creates some constraints, but decisions do not really operate on the law but on those enforcing the law. They can always find some law to use as an excuse to justify what they want to do.

 

tyranny
1. Unjust or oppressive governmental power:

Things are not necessarily "unjust" simply because you or your particular tribe does not agree with them.
Having a government that does everything the way you personally want it done...
with no regard to anyone else would be tyranny.

 

I'll just inject an idea suggested to me by my high school Language & Thought class teacher (which I'm sure she read somewhere else) that the Golden Rule is defective, in that it assumes that others would have the same wants as oneself, which is only true on a very basic level.

 

True, the golden rule is the seed of "natural" rights which is the attempt to codify the golden rule and why there is disagreement on what those rights are.

 

No; a survival of the species mechanism in ALL species cannot be the basis of "inherent human rights" , because the only reason we are talking about "inherent rights" (which don't exist in the non human natural world) is by virtue of humans possessing a cerebral cortex which endows us with self awareness and awareness of similar motivations (to ourselves) in others.

'Might makes right' of course IS merely a manifestation of the non-cerebral-cortex influenced 'law of the jungle' to which humans are certainly capable of returning when instincts overrule reason.

 

No, he failed to refute my argument, as did Kokomojo, as explained in #122 above.

 

"Inherent rights" by virtue of possessing a sufficiently evolved cerebral cortex to conceive of concepts of "justice" and "fairness". Governments attempt to best balance these concepts, as they are (albeit self-interestedly) held by all human individuals.
[Absence of government is anarchy, and a return to the 'law of the jungle' where 'might is right'].

 

Inherent rights are based in instinct, the instinct to kill another when your domain is trespassed.

This can be seen in anything with blood pumping through their veins.

Humans evolved to the point they ae capable of identifying such things, both in ourselves and the animals we share the planet with.

Crime is a good example of instincts overruling reason.

In ancient times all those types of infringements were understood as trespass.