Bigthink - Idea Comments Feed

Comment on: Where do human rights come from?

Bigthink — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:41:09 +0100

They were wise to state it thusly: "were endowed by our creator..." Hence we can say that our rights came straight from God or, as I believe, they come from the evolution which created us. If there is such a thing as 'human nature' it would be an entity which flourishes under certain circumstances. Just as my India Rubber Tree plant flourishes under moderate moisture and lots of sunlight, so too we can say that humans flourish when provided with what we call rights. In discussing the topic I would first distinguish between "rights from" and "rights to". Freedom of speech is a right from government interference and the right to healthcare is of a different sort because it is a right which demands the action of others to fulfill.
The modern argument goes like this: man once lived in solitude and perfect freedom and came together while giving up some of his freedoms in a social contract. I think this is flawed because we have always been social and social obligations have always been there.
I would favor strong individual liberty with a small, but significant, dose of social responsibility. That's my recipe. Rights are a construct but they ARE based in reality. Rights are the conditions under which humans and civilizations flourish.
BTW you might want to give the ecosystem rights too so that it may also flourish.

Comment on: Where do human rights come from?

Bigthink — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 11:16:02 +0100

Human Rights is another construct, invented to help define Civilization. Whenever we take interest in Hierarchy, we undermine Human Rights.

Comment on: Where do human rights come from?

Bigthink — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:54:53 +0100

This question is poisoned by the presupposition that human rights exist in the first place. In fact, human rights do not exist. In an existentialist world, nothing exists prior to our creation of it. Therefore the idea that a benchmark for human rights exists outside the world of human experience, to me, is absurd. Instead, we must talk of human priviledges. I am proud to live in a country ( Canada ) where my government acknowledges that each individual deserves a basic level of priviledge. I can speak my mind without fear of repriasl, I can assemble with my friends and I can expect to live without fear of persecution or arrest. However, as the Americans are in the process of finding out, these are not rights, they are merely the conditions under which the powerful in society rule the less powerful. I am proud to live in a nation that values individual freedoms above all other things yet I know they are not rights.

Comment on: Where do human rights come from?

Bigthink — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:00:24 +0100

Are human rights a universal property of being human endowed by some higher order, or are they defined by the state/society/culture? This I think that this question is the crux of the current debate, and is fundamentally unanswerable without making basic assumptions about reality. If on the one hand, you believe that the universe was created by the Judeo-Christian G*d, and was ordered by that creator in such a way that should guarantee that every human is acknowledged to posses fundamental dignity, then of the state/society/culture should have no say in the matter, human rights stem from G*d whether we choose to acknowledge them or not. If on the other hand, you were to believe that humans are merely the product of billions of years of natural processes, and that our existence is not predicated on any supernatural force(s), then the question of human rights becomes more difficult. If in fact the state/society/culture define what rights the individual possesses, then there are no fundamental human rights, or at least none that could be called such. I find this position difficult to defend, because if this is so, then how can we denounce the Holocaust? Nazi Germany merely saw fit to define the rights of Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, communists, the mentally retarded, the disabled, differently than the rights of other groups. Who's to say that they were wrong in doing so? It was merely an expression of how that state/society/culture defined human rights, by defining who fit the criteria for being fully human, and therefore deserving of rights. I personally think that there is a way around appealing to religion to answer this fundamental question, but it is difficult to condemn abuses of human rights without an absolute framework for doing so. In other words moral-relativism is difficult to defend in the face of history, but religious absolutism is not necessarily the only infallible framework for human rights.

Also, Ad Hominem attacks have no place in an elevated discourse. As Aristotle once said "It is the mark of an educated mind to entertain an idea without accepting it"

Comment on: Where do human rights come from?

Bigthink — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 08:08:08 +0100

Everything said here is often cited in the modern world. The Declaration of Independence, often seen as the starting point for what modern society calls human rights, states that those rights are men are "endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights". This view is held by many, including one of the people involved in this discussion. Rights can also be elucidated through the process of reasoning. What the Bible calls the Golden Rule (though I am not sure if it ever literally calls it that) Kant called the Categorical Imperative. Simply put one must act as one would hope the rest of mankind would act in the same situation. Hold yourself to the standard you set for all others. Human rights are seen as coming from the erection of government. Our rights are explicitly stated in the Bill of Rights and the XIV Amendment to the Constitution. In many countries no such document exists, and it must be accepted then that human rights are just that, human. The expected rights are different in each culture. Religion is just as ambiguous if the spectrum is opened up beyond a single religion. The rights of men and women are different in different sects of nearly every religion, and as such no more definite answer can be given there than through human deduction. Human rights, therefor, come from the agreement that a group of people, no matter the size, make regarding the treatment of individuals within their society. They can, and will, change with time and experience and can never be given with any certainty. Again, they are "Human" rights.

Comment on: Where do human rights come from?

Bigthink — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:08:35 +0100

Where do human rights come from? Human rights devolved from civilization and civilization devolved from population density and the human pursuit of agriculture and animal husbandry. Civilization requires order and complexity. Complexity requires specialization which requires knowledge. The accretion of human rights developed over the last 10,000 years is a more a function of the needs of an advanced civilization. It was lawful in the USA only 150 years ago to own and breed slaves! The voting rights act was only passed in 1964! What we think of as human rights are a luxury of an advanced civilization. Should this high level of civilization deteriorate so will human rights.

Comment on: Where do human rights come from?

Bigthink — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 04:12:13 +0100

The issue of human rights is perhaps enshrined in a question raised in one of the oldest human stories. Cain asked his God "Am I my brothers keeper?" Me thinks the rest of the book addresses that issue.

Comment on: Where do human rights come from?

Bigthink — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 12:19:52 +0100

No individual or govt can create human right from thin air. Human rights come from God and only from God, nowhere else. The Word of God, the Holy Bible is the one true reference for and of human rights. If you want to know about human rights, read the Holy Bible