What Human Rights?

[Pyrrho]

In the U.S., there is capital punishment.  I would say that pretty much eliminates all of one's "rights."

In some States yes - But the US isn't seen as a role model by outside westerns - I'm sorry if you didn't know this As much as I hate the EU, they have a very strong anti-death penalty stance precisely because the highest right of all (to live, and breathe) shouldn't be taken away unless someone acts in self-defense.

I am sorry if my post was unclear.  I was not suggesting that the U.S. was a role model.  I was merely disputing your claim that there are rights that are inalienable or irrevocable, in the normal sense of these terms.  If you mean to be using terms in some special legal sense, please give me links to the definitions you have in mind, as I understand English better than legalese.

It seems a meaningless fiction.  What do the rights do for you?  How does one distinguish between a universe in which such rights exist, and a universe in which they do not?  It seems to be nothing at all, but empty words.

It would be meaningless if rights served no purpose - Because they do, it's a useful fiction. I'm used to working with legal systems influenced by Roman law, so I support writing down laws instead of appealing to legal precedents. I'm influenced by legal positivism, so I'm of the opinion that the law should represent the general and will and be written/codified to be valid and acceptable - Whatever the constitution says justifies the laws made according to the constitution. Most European constitutions are rights-friendly, so that justifies rights-friendly laws - And I'm all for that. I don't think there's literally natural rights that you are born with, you are born merely with the instinct of survival (and even so much less skillful than other animals, humans are born incomplete compared to other wild species) - Rights are social constructs that, like language, make our living together much easier - That's it. Inalienability if it means that all citizens must possess X or Y right and not be able to lose it (only justified restrictions can be put in place) is very useful as a fiction - Don't you agree? Or do you prefer if constitutions just say that all rights can be taken away at anytime?

You are going off topic with this.  The thread is supposed to NOT be about legal rights.  That there are legal fictions that are useful I do not deny.  (The concept of "property" is one of them.)  But it is not keeping to the topic of this thread.  Nestor specifically stated that he is interested in human rights in a nonlegal sense.  That there are laws about such things is obvious enough, but Nestor isn't interested in that.  That is a topic for another thread.

[Dystopia]

And I've stated my position that I see no evidence for the availability of human inalienable natural rights that have always been with us and will always be - I pointed out that those rights and what's considered a right changes with historical, geographical and cultural context - And that's why there are no universal natural rights, unless you want to argue that your personal opinion on what constitutes those rights is objectively correct and all others are wrong. I'm sorry for the off topic - But I think using the legal document of the UDHR (universal declaration for human rights) approved by the UN is useful because it insists these rights are given to us without need for an intermediate authority.

I am sorry if my post was unclear. I was not suggesting that the U.S. was a role model. I was merely disputing your claim that there are rights that are inalienable or irrevocable, in the normal sense of these terms. If you mean to be using terms in some special legal sense, please give me links to the definitions you have in mind, as I understand English better than legalese.

Too many legal theories to just point out a predominant one - B sides, my legalese "English" sucks - I was just saying that it's rational to distinguish between losing rights completely and restricting them for the common good without completely losing them - I don' think you need a law degree to understand that.

[downbeatplumb]

Do you believe in human rights? What do you include in these? What is it that gives anyone a right? 

Remember, I DON'T mean legal rights. I mean something more, in nature, whatever that is, that entitles (is that the word I want?) a person to enjoy certain benefits, and that as a right it is others' duty not to impose or negate that right.

If you do not believe a person has anything like a natural, universal right, then how does that affect your beliefs/actions IRL circumstances when the issue of so-called violations (of life, liberty, property, etc.) comes up?

The short answer is no.

BUT we can be better than nature, we can ensure that treating others well is enshrined in law.
By this we show ourselves to be superior to medieval societies who only treated others as their horrid dogma dictated.

[Neo-Scholastic]

In the sense of the OP's philosophical question, inalienability refers to a state that naturally follows from one's essential being i.e. it cannot be considered something apart from what it means to be human.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think you're reading too much into what it means to be a universal right, Dys.  That we might have universal rights does not imply that the list of those rights would not change over time (or that anyone would know everything that belongs on that list at any given time, or indeed that everything on the list at any given time actually belongs there).  If we base those rights on our knowledge, and on justifications of knowledge -which we claim to-, then we would need to be able to claim -full knowledge- to require that they never change.  Or, IOW, without appealing to a massively illogical claim you can't demand that our lists of universal rights be unchanging or force us to concede that human rights don't exist on those grounds. We should -expect- to see those lists of rights expand and contract as our knowledge increases (or is impeached).

Do you have full knowledge?

I would suggest that what you are discussing is actually infallibility, not universality. I don't claim that any list of human rights is infallible, I doubt that many would, nor do I require them to be in order for human rights to be existent or "true". Nor do I require my opinion (or anyone's) of what belongs on those lists (or anything at all, for that matter) to be objective. If you demand that a list of human rights be infallible and objective then I've got some bad news to break....we have no rights. None, not universal ones, not legal ones, none. That doesn't fit though, because you've already conceded that I have the right to remain silent......

[Kingpin]

Parkers thank you for clarifying. You are justified in saying you don't believe or do not know. I was simply pointing out your definitive statement means that you DO know he does not exist. But you clarified so thank you

[The Grand Nudger]

If you believe in the god of the garden, who made a man and a rib woman, cursed them both, and set them to wandering, if you believe in the god that flooded the earth except for a barge made of miracle-wood, if you believe in the god who took the jews out of egypt, or the god who helped them build a mighty kingdom....if you believe in a god that is capable of lifting itself off the pages of a book you read and flitting around in the air, or of washing away my moral obligations to a third party by scapegoating blood magic...........then I can say with a considerable amount of certainty that I -know- that your god doesn't exist.  This has all long since passed the point of not believing, or not knowing.

There's a tendency to lend more credence to dimwitted beliefs than is due.  Yours get none from me.

[The Grand Nudger]

@Dys, here's another, perhaps simpler way to phrase my objections.  To use a different context, you seem to be claiming that because Newton got gravity wrong (or, conversely, not completely right), or that since our concept of gravity has changed since Newtons time...gravity doesn't exist.  See where I'm coming from?

[The Barefoot Bum]

In the sense of the OP's philosophical question, inalienability refers to a state that naturally follows from one's essential being i.e. it cannot be considered something apart from what it means to be human.

This is not, I think, quite on the right track. We can still socially construct a legal right that "naturally follows from one's essential being." Such rights may be "inalienable" in this sense, but they still would not "exist" in the sense of the OP. Most of the UN Declaration of Human Rights (which are, as written, legal rights) seem to have this character.

[Mudhammam]

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I find your view on morality changing or evolving very intriguing. If that is true then on what basis can we condemn any acts both existentially and historically.  Do you believe morals are relative?

This is a great question. I'll answer at the risk of hijacking the initial intent of direction the OP wanted to take. I do think it is indirectly germane though because in the big picture it seems that morality along with ethics have evolved in pace with human rights. (This is my view anyways.) I believe morality is the product of the evolutionary development of man and society. Within the framework of our society, we chose our own, personal code of moral conduct. 

I also know that the question of judging or condemning acts based on a fluid morality might seem to push one with this belief into a corner of not being able to judge. It creates enigmas and conundrums that one must be willing to accept. 

Most people consider slavery one of the great evils of humanity. Were Thomas Jefferson and George Washington evil? They both sold and maintained hundreds of slaves on their estates throughout their lifetimes, while simultaneously proclaiming the equality of all men. Were they evil hypocrites? If we oppose the evil of slavery, why do we build marble monuments to men who enslaved other men for their personal gain? 

Many think Epicurus was one of the great, enlightened philosophers of Ancient Greece. However, Epicurus owned and operated several slaves. Is it surprising that Epicurus admonishes us to eliminate pain and achieve tranquility? It was easy for him to suggest such conduct because he forced slaves to tend to his tranquil garden. Was Epicurus an evil hypocrite, like Jefferson and Washington? 

In a war, is it an evil act to kill civilians intentionally? The Greeks slaughtered or enslaved women and children of nations they conquered and yet, we admire them for the works of art they produced at the same time. Are there degrees of evil?

Who is more evil, George Bush or Saddam Hussein? Who of the two killed more women and children? It is questionable if Bush or Hussein killed more civilians. Are they both evil? Are the Americans who supported the Gulf War, evil? They made it possible for Bush to kill civilians. An analysis of the morality of historical events can be very enlightening with regard to the hidden motivations of the perpetrators, the participants and the alleged victims.

Stalin killed 30 million of his fellow Russian civilians in the 1930’s. Hitler killed five or six million Jews. Churchill, Roosevelt and Truman intentionally burned alive about 2 million German and Japanese women and children as part of their terror-bombing campaigns. What is the definition of a mass-murderer? Is it always the victor, who writes the history of a war and who defines war crimes? Are some of these mass-murderers more evil than others are or, are all mass-murderers evil?

The flight-crews of the American bombers dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and incinerated about half a million Japanese women and children. These soldiers did their prescribed duty. They were even proud to do so. Were they heroes, or were they war criminals?

Were the Nazis heroes or were they evil because they incinerated millions of Jews? If they were evil, why do we acclaim as heroes the American bomber crews who obliterated 161 German cities, incinerated several million women and children in Europe, and vaporized 300,000 civilians in Japan by nuking their cities? Were the Germans less evil than the Americans were? Were the German SS-Men more moral because they gassed the Jews before incinerating them, whereas American and British aircrews burned their victims alive? Who was more evil, the American aircrews or the SS-Men? Were any of them evil?

A terrorist for one country is a heroic freedom fighter for another country. The American Government referred to Osama Bin Laden as an evil terrorist. Simultaneously, thousands, if not millions of Muslims around the world acclaimed him as a hero. Women even named their children after Osama Bin Laden. Is Bin Laden a sainted hero, or is he an evil terrorist? 

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I think we are in the best light if we avoid the use of morally judgmental words like good or evil. Precision in language suggests the use of descriptive words without moral connotations, such as unproductive, counterproductive, inefficient, efficient, lawless, dangerous and murderous. The list of words depends on our vocabulary.

Studying of the relative nature of morality poses interesting questions and these questions make many people uncomfortable or angry because they often interfere with their personal view of morality or history. It is often painful to come to terms with the relative nature of the human concept we call morality. It is painful because, in part, we cannot judge as you alluded to in your first question. 

However, from a 10,000 foot view, our views about morality, what is right and wrong, have changed. Why? because we have gotten better at understanding these things. We are building on the thoughts of those before us and the historic understanding of right and wrong. We are learning more about the nuanced details in the consequences of our actions and seeing further than what we ever have before by constantly re-evaluating our positions.

I don't think the fact that human experience is subjective by nature and at variance in many instances is an argument that morality is truly relative. After all, ninety-nine people out of one hundred can be wrong, whether it regards the Good, the Beautiful, or the True. If we say that it's only a matter of opinion, we're essentially saying that claims about morality have no truth value. That doesn't mean that morality can't be relative to situations, and perhaps if that's what you mean, there still might be an objectively best way to act in that particular scenario.

And wouldn't you say murderous IS almost the very definition of a morally judgmental word?