Do we have "natural" rights?

No. You don't have the right to anything. As in, if a dictator wants to torture you and your family for a good laugh, he can do that whenever he wants. Now, whether or not he "should" do that, is a totally separate issue. If you had the "right" to make him not do that, then he'd be incapable of it, but if he has the power he's obviously capable of it.

Everything is a privilege granted by nature.

 

no, a "right" in the context of natural rights simple means freedoms without the need for another person to grant them to you.

natural inherent human rights cannot be given...they can only be taken away by people or governments

And natural inherent human rights cannot be attained through the forced labor of someone else. thus health care and the internet aren't human rights. you don't have have the human right to the slave labor of a doctor or an ISP.

 

Right. That's a construct of philosophy because there are no "rights" that you have simply for being human. Either someone gives them to you or you take them.[/QUOTE]

 

A right is something that is due you. You can be due something, and still not get it. That someone abridges your rights or denies your rights does not mean your rights do not exist. Example: you may have a right to vote, but if you live in Florida...

 

The only way something is objectively "due" to anything is if it must, by nature, be "repaid". For example, if you exercise strenuously and your muscles are in oxygen debt, your muscles are due for oxygen, assuming you continue to breathe; your body will (if it's functioning normally) automatically "repay" this oxygen which is "due" to your muscles.

What you mean to say is that there are certain things which you want to be "due" to people in certain situations; these things you call "rights". That's your personal preference, and nothing objective.

 

Yes, clearly we have natural rights according to our Founding Fathers and the phrasing of our Constitution.

 

That might be emotionally satisfying, but it's not rational. There's nothing objective or natural about what "should" happen to people under any circumstances.

 

Rights aren't about what should happen to people, it's more the optimal way that people interact with each other fairly and--more importantly--what the govern can't do to people. Everyone has a code to live by and classical Liberalism is a political philosophy, as a basis for a moral civil code. It states (basically) that I can do anything (that is possible) that doesn't directly hurt you or your property. That's the basis of US root-law. It's why it's illegal to assault people, but not illegal to be rude, obnoxious or willfully ignorant. None of those things are acceptable to society, but only assault (among them) is a direct violation of someone's rights other than your own.

If you don't think that's true, study civics and prove me wrong.

 

This seems very subjective..although, if one person wants others to treat them the way they want, they usually have to at least put up the pretense of treating these others the way they want. That is what is underlying all this, it seems.

But what if I wanna hurt you and your property? My free will is being violated. See where this goes?

It's the "is/aught" thing.

 

Simplify it...

We human animals have the ability to do whatever we want.

Because we are animals, not harming others of our species is instinctual to us all...for the most part...that's why we don't eat each other.

We have freedoms to do anything, so long as it doesn't harm the species...these are our human rights.

I can speak freely, worship freely, etc...I need nobody to provide these things to me.

Governments are then setup and they establish Legal Rights. Governments also can AND do restrict and limit human rights.

 

Animals are like numans. The more the weaker species dies off the better for the superior ones to mate and have kids.


However, cultural and societal laws have changed this. As a result, inferior species have been breeding and making babies. Hence, the larger population of simple less intellignet people than we had 30 years ago.

As laws and rules continue to help the inferrior-design breed, the greter the chance for offspring with simple minds and inferior immune systems.

 

You talked yourself into it not being subjective at the end. Thanks for being honest with yourself. Human beings are social creatures and, as such, we have to form rules or a social contract for how to interact. The concept of human rights is such an agreement without boarders or cultural limits recognized by all moral people.

That's the most simplistic and feeble argument I've ever heard on this forum.

Allow me to explain rights using the most famous quote concerning "rights" from US justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr, who described civil rights as follows:

"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."

You have the right to swing your fists recklessly, even it you hurt yourself in the process--but you don't have the right to terrorize other people. That's the basis of our social contract with each other and the basis of any civilized society. You don't have the 'right' to always get what you want.

No it's a political philosophy that our entire system of government and politics in the US is based on.

Try again.

 

We naturally come to life, more rich in the freedom to express ourselves than oxygen (and it's normal for someone to have to prompt the child to breath in that oxygen you take for granted).

Try and take a mans life or remove his freedom to speak. I think you'll find the world over, with remarkable consistency, people believe they are due their life and their liberty. This can be found in feral children in Europe, nomads in Africa, or the indigenous natives of Australia. This consistency in the nature of humanity is an objective fact, quite independent of my personal preferences.

 

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I figured you'd make such an argument. Unfortunately it is horribly flawed.

Yes, I agree entirely that there are certain characteristics that are found to be beautiful by the vast majority of humans but this does not however point to an 'objective' beauty. It merely states that we all share the same subjective belief (grounded in our biology and psychology). So, when looking for an objective standard for beauty we have to use reasoning that is not contingent on human biology and psychology.We can do this for the sun but we can't for beauty. We could however do inumerable studies about what canines find attractive but a dog's best in show gets us no nearer to an objective beauty.

 

"Scientists say that the preference for symmetry is a highly evolved trait seen in many different animals. Female swallows, for example, prefer males with longer and more symmetric tails, while female zebra finches mate with males with symmetrically colored leg bands." (more)​

 

Capitalism is meant to do exactly that; it's a "dog eat dog" system. It's all about hurting others in order to help others.

I'm in support of (regulated) capitalism, just pointing that out (because you seem to be capitalist).

 

I pointed out a motivation for why someone would have a preference. Preferences aren't "objective" in the sense of "you should have this preference in this situation" any more than a "good time" is objective in the sense of "when this happens to you, you've had a good time". It's personal preference and therefore subjective.

Notice how I said "give the impression of" being benevolent; the smartest thing to do to help yourself is to manipulate others, not actually help them.

It's what our economy is based on; the more you can manipulate others into giving you money without actually expending anything to help them, the more profit you make.

That's his opinion, yes.

 

You're missing the point entirely. It is highly conceivable that human evolution may have proceeded along different lines and for us to find other features attractive. There is no 'objective' beauty, it is merely the case that objective processes cause us all to subjectively value the same traits. Consider the flowers that smell of rotting meat, unattractive to humans, attractive to flies. There is no objective beauty, despite your attempts to miscontrue a real result of evolution.

 

What constitutes 'superior', I presume you mean best-adapted to survive, are cockroaches superior to humans in your reckoning?

 

It is highly conceivable that the river may have run down the eastern side of the mountain instead of the southern. That the river is here and not there, that animals are attracted to symmetry, is an objective fact. Consistency is how we distinguish objective and subjective observations.

 

It still remains a fact however that while we can make objective statements about what people perceive to be beautiful such a statement does not admit to an objective beauty. If I prefer the colour blue I can make the objective statement that I prefer the colour blue, this however amounts to an objective statement about a subjective preference, a preference that may be rooted in objective factors but subjective nonetheless.

To derive a normative statement from an is statement is an impossibility and your attempt to argue via consistency of moral positions amounts to nothing but a wasted effort. You are playing this word game to then say 'oh well people generally are in favour of X, and so this can be a basis of morality', to counter this I point to the fact that people are biologically wired to be racist, shall you make this a part of your morality?

It is merely the case that our preference for beauty and morality are merely those preferences with the best survival value, to put these values on a pedastal is to say that what has the best survival value is good, however one would only take that statement to be true if one valued survival, thus completing the circle.

 

No, it wouldn't, it would simply prohibit the act of abortion and make the woman a slave to the state.

The "right" in the context of the OP is that of natural rights, or those that inhere in the individual by virtue of his existence and having the faculties (or should have the faculties) to exercise them. That's why the OP asks about natural rights, not state-granted privileges or others.

As for the context of correct or morally right, do you hold that might determines rights? For instance, did the slaves in the US have natural rights, or were they truly just property because the state created laws that called them that? Why do you seek to protect the child in the womb if it doesn't have any rights?

"Philosophical right" is meaningless. There are many different philosophies of rights. I have discussed a few of them.

 

How does nature grant things? I was not aware that nature had volition or could act.

 

If you want your ethics to stand up to rigorous logic and if you want all people to have equal rights, then the natural rights philosophy is the only one which meets that criteria.

You can choose a different ethic. You might follow religious dogma, or the sociopathic dog eats dog of the authoritarian, but I contend that a civilized person adopts a rational philosophy from which rights can be derived in a systematic fashion.

So, it's really an "is/aught/if" thing.