(February 9, 2012 at 11:41 am)Rhythm Wrote: yes, concepts, as far as we can tell, are all human, but some of them refer to a thing that exists outside of our minds, " innate rights" are no such concept, that's my only gripe.
That is my point. Rights should refer to something outside a person's mind. It should refer to the identification of an individual as an independent moral agent, something that is a part of his innate humanity.
For example, while looking at any arrangement, we identify a concept such as its pattern. While the concept exists only within our minds, it is indicative of a specific property of that arrangement and changing the concept within our mind would not change the pattern itself. And you cannot rationally choose to simply identify the pattern and then ignore it when you work with that arrangement. You cannot negate the nature of the arrangement simply by negating its identification. They why is it that people think that it can be done with humans? People are objects too.
That is how we should consider human rights. We identify human beings as a rational animal capable of living independently by his judgment. In identification of this innate property, we should act according to it when dealing with human beings. That is how we should consider rights - identification and acknowledgment of inherent human nature. Not something divinely granted and not something accepted due to plain convenience which may be revoked as convenient.
