Do we have "natural" rights?

I don't think what I wrote was ambiguous. I offered that a system of ethics has been discovered from which one can derive, objectively, what is right and wrong in the political context (or other contexts if one wishes but by no means is it comprehensive) of human interactions. It is a system that allows one to make normative statements about how things should be and not be backed into a corner of one's own contradictions.

Let's start with the normative statement "all people should be equal before the law, therefore it is unjust when one (say a minority or poor person) is treated differently under the law than another (say a rich person or the politically well connected." Would you not agree that it is desirable to have equality before the law? Would you prefer to argue that people should be equal before the law rather than just speculate that it would be really great in your own subjective opinion that people should be equal before the law?

I submit to you that there is no system of ethics other than natural law in which one can make the normative statement that all individuals should be equal before the law. We extend the "is-ought" to the "is-ought-if". If you want people to be equal before the law and defend that with reason, you ought to use the system of ethics known as natural law.

I'm quite open to entertaining other ethical systems. Confucianism, derived from the Tao Te Ching, has some interesting insights into natural rights from the Asian perspective and the Tao Te Ching – which, despite the prose is extremely rational - itself is probably the earliest book on individualism to be found. But, I digress.

One cannot enslave one's self under natural rights because that would be attempting to pass on what makes up the core of the ethic: self-ownership. No one can own you. Under positive laws the state can treat you as property, but no one controls your mind or your body, so to deny self-ownership is to deny reality.

I would submit that such a anarchic system of "anything goes" exists only the movies and even then there are always systems of order even if the environment makes such order precarious. I think you are diving into irrelevant speculation here.

You accuse me of the fallacy of consequences of a belief. I only deal in the objective and logical here. If you have a case, make it, but please don't try to make more of it than is necessary. I should not have to defend my own person or my history, as much as I might enjoy talking about myself.

You are welcome to deconstruct my assertions, which I may or may not have adequately supported with logical evidence. I would encourage you that if you think it's important that you know my background that in order to get past such a need that you pretend that I am merely playing the devil's advocate here and defending something which I do not care about at all.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ad-hominem-tu-quoque.html. Whether I rationalize backwards, or forwards, or sideways, or whether I would shoot my mother in the head and vote for Hitler’s evil twin skippy in order to save technological progress from utter destruction does not change any of the *reasoning* I have provided for the ethical framework referred to as natural rights.

Here’s my question to you:

What will you accept as evidence that a) natural rights are an ethical framework, b) that it is the only framework from which one can objectively derive a system of rights that apply to all humans equally, and c) to not follow it is to be irrational in one’s application of value judgments to human interactions?

Creationists, like ethical skeptics, make normative statements that they cannot defend by reason alone. Let’s suffice to say that I will not tack anything on to a framework and I will deconstruct as much as possible any normative statements that I make in order that the logic be clear and concise. There will be no reliance on faith or mysticism or “just because.”

Please, ask away.

Oh, and libertarians involve “a lot” of let individuals choose, as in follow their own consciences on any given matter so long as it’s peaceful.

 

Just because someone says I have a "natural" right to own a machine gun doesn't mean the right is a matter of objectivity.

Glad we got that figured out.

 

Seeing as the sun isn't contingent on my opinion, yes. Tell me, does beauty exist in any objective fashion?

I was referring specifically to the idea of deriving a system based on 1) equal rights 2) just government. The term just is exactly what we are trying to determine, so unless just refers to 1) (which is rather pointless) it is somewhat ambiguous.

Ah. This essentially answers all my questions. I had thought that you were asserting that the 'objective' morality was not based on normative statements. So, I think we are in agreement here. Given certain normative statements (which I will unfortunately refer to as 'value judgements' here) we can ascertain an objective moral system which best satisfies those value judgements.

Now, should people be equal before the law? I would certainly agree. I cannot concede that this is anything other than my subjective opinion. I would however attempt to convince others of the same proposition (here it would have to be persuasion rather than argument unless I was attempting to say that it was in line with their other value judgements).

Given the above we must ask what normative statements we 'should' have. Now, each of us are going to have different value judgements and so 'which' value judgements we should take is a pointless statement. We can however ascertain given certain value judgements what system we should adopt. So, given that most people accept the right to life etc. we should probably start from there. In this context the 'equal rights' proposition is a good place to start.

Now we move to the next question. Aside from the question of which value judgements to use we also have the question of 'weighting' something lacking from the libertarian community. It may be certainly plausible to have conflicting value judgements (most people do). If these value judgements have different weights we get an interesting picture. This is precisely what I was attempting to illustrate with my technology question. I have a certain value judgement in favour of technology with a certain weight. I also have a value judgement in favour of free choice. If I discovered however that complete free choice retarded technological development to the point of the returning to the stone age then the weighting of the technology preference would come into play and so I would settle for a restriction of free choice. This has similarities with the libertarian curtailment of the 'choice to murder' as it conflicts with the higher weighted 'right to life'.

I agree with the first half here. But the statement "If you want people to be equal before the law and defend that with reason, you ought to use the system of ethics known as natural law. " requires more fleshing out. In a bizarre example we could have a Logan's run system wherein everyone has to be killed at 30. Everyone is equal before the law here, it does however conflict with the right to life.

This is covered under equal rights. I perfectly accept that one can't be owned by anyone else (even if one can be forced into slavery) due to ownership of the mind (I will return to this point later). This is covered under your equal rights part. At first glance it seems that one person enslaving another violates equal rights and it certainly does in the first sense but a lotto system whereby not getting your number picked results in slavery for a year could be seen as 'equal' in a perverse sense.

I was trying to make a particular point about value-judgements as above.

I wasn't attempting the above. I often get this accusation thrown at me. "If you don't believe in an objective right to life then why haven't you killed people?", "If you think nothing matters then why are you arguing?", "If there is no point to life then why don't you kill yourself?". The question was merely attempting point out the value-judgement point. Often libertarians and communists conflate the goal with the means. They reach a point where communism or libertarianism is the goal and no longer the means. In such a situation libertarian or communism is obviously the best way to acheive the goal. I was also attempting to determine the direction of justification, had you accepted libertarianism and were picking normative statements that lead to libertarianism or had you picked these statements for other reasons.

I accept a). b) needs more work. c) It is irrational if one holds the value-judgements that lead to libertarianism to not be a libertarian.

Ok, I'll start off with a not so deep question. To what extent do you think our value judgements are the result of our environment (social and otherwise) and to what extent are they not so? This is an important question from your perspective as currently the value-judgements of most people do not line up with a libertarian system. If this is the result of society then it could be changed but if it is due to other causes....

 

Yes.

Looking Good: The Psychology and Biology of Beauty
Charles Feng
Human Biology, Stanford University

In ancient Greece, Helen of Troy, the instigator of the Trojan War, was the paragon of beauty, exuding a physical brilliance that would put Cindy Crawford to shame. Indeed, she was the toast of Athens, celebrated not for her kindness or her intellect, but for her physical perfection. But why did the Greek men find Helen, and other beautiful women, so intoxicating? In an attempt to answer this question, the philosophers of the day devoted a great deal of time to this conundrum. Plato wrote of so-called "golden proportions,"... By applying the stringent conditions of the scientific method, researchers now believe symmetry is the answer the Greeks were looking for. (more)​

The scientific method referred to involved seeking the opinion of subjects. When a large enough pool of subjects consistently reported the same opinion rather than a statistical spread of opinions... well that consistency -- that objective fact -- couldn't be discounted by science. In the same way that people the world over, may differ in the opinion as to whether people have a right to a library card -- but demonstrate remarkable consistently in the assertion that man has a right to life.

 

See The Bill of Rights; drawn from the writings of John Locke: "universal rights theory".

 

but the supreme court said the bill of rights in as much as "inalienable rights" does not apply to you.

they lowered your status by bringing you in as a citizen with "privileges and immunities".

the rights in the declaration of independence are a wet dream! double talk. say one thing do another.

there would be no such thing as gun and speech regulation of the DOI was truly your law.

 

These rights issues go much deeper than I have ever seen anyone on these boards bring to bear.



In the reaction from the all-powerful influence of this doctrine of a social contract, and of absolute natural rights, the pendulum of modern scientific thought has swung too far in the opposite direction. A large and influential school of English jurists, whose chief apostles and expounders have been Bentham and Austin, repudiate entirely the Roman 1 doctrine of jus naturale. Defining law to be the command of a sovereign to a subject, and recognizing the will of the sovereign to be the only standard of right, they push their doctrine to the extreme of denying that the consideration of any so-called natural rights could properly fall within the province of jurisprudence, and confining it strictly to the realm of ethical questions.
Technically, this criticism of the Roman doctrine jus naturale is sound; for there can be no legal right which is not recognized or created by the sovereign power of the state. The commands of the sovereign are always law, and hence legally right, it matters not how many so-called natural rights are thereby violated. The 50 states of the United States ARE SOVEREIGN! Just like the king of England! But the error of the Austinites, in this case, as in the general question of the origin and development of law,1 lies in failing to take note of the fact that popular notions of rights, however wrong they may be from a scientific standpoint, do 'become incorporated into, and exert an influence upon, the development of the actual law. Every legal principle is the resultant of some two or more social forces; and popular notions are usually more powerful than physical facts. So far, therefore, as the doctrine of natural rights has moulded the principles of the law, a recognition of the doctrine will be necessary to a comprehension of the law; and to that extent would a study of the doctrine of natural rights fall within the province of jurisprudence.


So far as the jus naturale of the Romans became a part of the existing Roman law, it belonged to the province of jurisprudence. The adoption and promulgation of its rules by the proper authorities simply indicated that they were habitually and spontaneously obeyed by the masses, and needed only to be enforced against the rebellious minority. But so far as the rules of the jus naturale did not meet with popular obedience, whose indorsement was advocated only by the more advanced thinkers, because they approximated their highest ethical conceptions, we must concede that the jus naturale has no place in the province of jurisprudence. When, therefore, a modern writer attacks an existing rule of law, on the ground that it offends the principles of natural law, or violates some natural right, the statement would have been the same if he said that the law was ethically indefensible. In the province of jurisprudence there is, therefore -ao room for the assertion of natural rights, except so far as they are._xecognized and protected by the existing law. The same difference exists between natural rights and legal rights, as was recognized as existing between the morality of law and the morality of ethics.1


But even as a part of ethics, there is no fixed, invariable list of natural rights. ''These natural rights vary arid their characters change with the development of the ethical conceptions of the people, the development of the legal rights keeping pace with, and following behind, the development of natural or ethical rights. Indeed, the natural rights with which all men are proclaimed in the American Declaration of Independence to be endowed by their Creator, have been developed within the historical memory of man. Z-'Personal rights of all kinds were unknown in the dawn of history. *fn all the Aryan races the individual was originally deemed to be possessed of no rights. The family was the legal unit, and the patriarch, as the representative of the family, autocratically determined the fate and destiny of his[FONT=&quot] wife, children, and slaves. [/FONT]

 

Natural rights are innumerable. As they extend from self-ownership, the limit of rights is only to the extent of what a human can own and all the interactions he might have with other humans. However, they are discoverable. One can deduce, through rigorous logic, whether someone has acted (or can act) within his or her rights for any given interaction.

The philosophy is still being worked upon. For instance, what does "Creator" mean? I would argue it is self-creation. The fact that we can create our own selves, and that no outside entity can control that creation (though it can certainly interfere), leads to at least a proof of self-ownership. From there, it becomes self-evident that humans have certain natural rights. This is why it's important to distinguish between God and Creator. If it's God that grants rights, then God can take them away and God can arbitrarily assign them, say, to a monarch or to a democratic government organization. If one believes in God, and acknowledges free will, then one can still acknowledge God's role in creating rights, but only through the agency of free will, or the self-Creator of natural rights.

Today we have Hans Herman-Hoppe who has developed the argumentation-ethic, which, it is alleged, proves the existance of natural rights.

As for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, those were dead letters almost from creation, and certainly after Lincoln and the 14th amendment. Until the 14th amendment, there was no such thing as a US citizen, and people have forgotten their common-law rights as citizens of their states. We The People > State Citizen > Federal government (Congress) > US Citizen. A US citizen is a corporate fiction with no rights, but simply privileges and immunities granted by Congress. The BOR does not apply to a US citizen.

 

I think our only true natural right is freedom of thought. Anything else (property, speech, even life, etc) can be practically taken away by an oppressive government.

Freedom of thought, on the other hand, can't be taken away. It can be in theory, but any laws limiting thought couldn't really be enforced.

 

Absolutely...such rights are GOD given.

The Right to LIFE.
The Right to Defend Yourself and Family.
Freedom, Liberty, and Justice for ALL.

All men are created equal.

 

The Supreme Court is bound to rule according to "law" only. The self evidence of universal rights involves a higher power that the court cannot entertain as that itself would indeed violate the establishment clause. I agree that appears to be a conflict, yet law and religion, in that effect, must remain apart.

 

No it doesn't. It's self-evident by virtue that no human being can truly own another. And I don't mean legal ownership, but the sort of ownership that allows for control of one's property. I could own you as statutory property, were the statutes of the state under which we live were to allow it, but I cannot control your body, your life, or your mind. You own those and cannot give them away nor have them taken from you. Your life can be ended by assault but that is not the same as taking as theft (despite our tendency to use language that way) where there is someone else who now has that life.

 

That's a specious argument. Ownership of human beings was ended by war in this country and it took 100 years to bring about the full enjoyment of the founding documents for the anscestors of those that had been owned.

I own my dog, but I can't control when he pees.

 

Ownership of human beings was by statute. Slavery can only exist under the state because outside the state, it is unenforceable. Your dog is not a self-creator of morals and is therefore not capable of being a moral actor and self-ownership.

 

"Rights" are privileges enforced by the state.

 

Slave laws were created as a result of the 10th Amendment. Slavery was an institution that had existed by edict for thousands of years before that. The moral issue of slavery is not a part of this discussion in my view: morality is obvious in this case. Your concern was about ownership and natural law. As for slavery, ownership was a part of natural law according to those industrialists or monarchs who supported slavery throughout human history. Using my dog as an example was to show that even though the human body has its own schedule, slavery is created through the power of the sovereign.

 

So what happens in the absence of the state, do you no longer have any rights?

 

For most people. I use "the government" very loosely to mean any individual(s) or organization that can enforce privileges and thus turn them into rights.

 

The morality of slavery is not "obvious." You are making a normative statement which you cannot rigorously defend with logic. You don't like slavery, but do you any principled reason for holding that it's just for the state to allow or disallow it? If rights exist only by the power of the state then the state defines right and wrong. Slavery as right until it was wrong only by virtue of the state lifting the rules on it.

If you are trying to compare what a monarch saw a natural law to the ethical framework that I've put forward referred to as natural law or natural rigts, I'd like you to show me where the ideas are at all compatible.

If you own yourself, then your natural right to self-defense cannot be aliened. The only way slavery could exist is if there was external punishment for those human beings treated as property should they exercise their right to self defense or association and kill their masters or escape. In a free market for justice, everyone is equal. Under the state, one is only as equal as one is allowed to be. Slavery is an assault on the right of self-ownership, but self-ownership cannot be aliened. Under the natural rights ethic, defensible using rigorous logic, any assault on self-ownership is a crime regardless of whether the state will prosecute it.

Your dog was not a good example. Dogs aren't human, nor are they moral actors. Someday with the advancement of gene therapy dogs may be bred that are moral actors, capable of exercising the rights *and* responsibilties of self-ownership.

 

So then might is right? Do you agree that what is done to you by someone more powerful than you is right because he or she can do it? Otherwise, by what principle do you declare that person wrong even though they have the right?

 

Not according to the classical Liberal Founding Fathers.

For one thing, the Constitution doesn't "grant" rights, it "protects" them. The US government doesn't have the power to grant people rights, it only has the power to recognize them. You have more "rights" than what is listed in the Bill of Rights and not of those are "granted" to you, they are listed as protections.

On a philisohical level, our Founders believed rights were inherent aspect of human beings, hence "human rights."

 

I should have said “the immorality of slavery is obvious”. I took it for granted that you’d read that. My logic can indeed defend my analysis: Slavery is an immoral practice the economic power of which took precedence in the US from 1619 to 1865; many in the south did not believe in slavery either. The power of the states to allow or disallow slavery was the 10th Amendment issue hat led to war as I said above.

The Bill of Rights underscores those that are self evident and rights as such cannot be superseded by the power of any state in the union except in matters that caused our civil war. And, you are correct, the states did shift the rules on it and the federal government had the final word on it with respect to the rights of citizenship following the war in the way of the 14th, 15, and 16th Amendments; having said that, I’m having trouble here following your argument.

With respect to monarchies; they and the church literally told everybody what the laws were; natural ones notwithstanding. I cannot tell you enough that ethics were created by the sovereigns as well in the way of edicts. There is nothing wrong with an ethical framework, but you must understand, that sovereign power: up until 1965 decided was ethical and what was not.

Self ownership as you describe it, is always beholden to the sovereign, take for example Roe v Wade. And my dog is a fine example of ownership of a sentient being, whose natural instincts control his personal behavior; training not withstanding.

 

Lets forget slavery in America for a bit. Let's consider slavery since the beginning of time. You say that the immorality is "obvious", but you don't explain what makes it obvious.

I agree that it's obvious, but I can explain my reasons for that claim. Can you?

If rights come from government, then it's not obvious at all.

The Bill of Rights has no authority nor does the Constitution. Great pieces of paper, wonderful when they are followed for the most part, but considering that the government calls all of the shots, who is to stop it from dispensing with the Constitution? The fact that it already has pretty much made it a mockery should be a clue.

What I want to know is, what makes slavery immoral regardless of time or place that it occurs?

Yes, some ethical systems were created that way. Some are patched together systems such as common law which struck a balance between sovereign and subject. The King's word was not always law, and after the 1300's, was frequently only law if Parliament or common law allowed it (which was still a great deal of power.)

It's not beholden to anyone. You may be prevented from exercising the rights that arise from self-ownership, but your self-ownership cannot, in any way, be taken from you. This is the meaning of the word "unalienable." It cannot be contracted or stripped from you.

Dogs are fanastic. Love my dog. She doesn't have self-ownership because she doesn't have the capacity to know that she owns herself or the capacity to respect the rights of others. If animals have rights, then they have the right not to be assaulted and the responsibility not to assault others. Should your dog be prosecuted as a criminal for chasing a cat?

 

Yup, all you have to do is open yours eyes to see this is true. A baby does not have the right to life because his mother could choose to abort him/her. A government law banning abortion would establish the "right to life."

The English language seems to be getting in the way of this discussion. A "right" in the context of the OP is a privilege attained by force (though, in most societies, no force is needed as it has become part of tradition). "Right" in your sentence is a synonym for "correct." If someone more powerful than me does something I disagree with, it might not be morally correct, but his ability to do so allows him to do it. Thus, he may not have the moral right, but unless a higher power stops him, he has the "philosophical right," I suppose we could call it.

 

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
when in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.