RE: What Human Rights?
July 16, 2015 at 11:02 am
(This post was last modified: July 16, 2015 at 11:03 am by Neo-Scholastic.)
Preface: Before someone derails the thread with the idea that atheism makes no positive claims, then please by all means either 1) quote a prominent atheist defending the inalienability of human rights or 2) take it upon yourself to defend the inalienability of human rights from an atheistic perspective.
The qualifier modern means post-Descartes thought that discards the notions of formal and final causes. The idea of human rights must be derived with a larger acceptance of realism or moderate realism, both of which are denied by atheists. As such atheism has become entangled to either nominalism or conceptualism, neither of which can support the concept of human rights.
Thus, within an atheistic context the ideas of ‘human’ and ‘right’ become arbitrary conventions. No one can have a human right unless there first is something essential about being human. Nominalism and conceptualism make the idea of being human (or anything else) merely a matter of convention. Rights, by definition, cannot be grounded by in general consensus.
The phrase ‘inalienable right’ is actually redundant. In order for a right to be a right, it must be independent of any social contract. Otherwise, you are talking about permission. You do not need any institutional authority’s permission to exercise a right. People have rights because they are human regardless of the social structure (i.e. family, tribe or state) in which they live. . Rights are not created by the state. The purpose of government is to protect those rights to the greatest extent possible. Any other conception of rights is not only un-American, but a rationalization of tyranny (for those of you living outside the USA).
The qualifier modern means post-Descartes thought that discards the notions of formal and final causes. The idea of human rights must be derived with a larger acceptance of realism or moderate realism, both of which are denied by atheists. As such atheism has become entangled to either nominalism or conceptualism, neither of which can support the concept of human rights.
Thus, within an atheistic context the ideas of ‘human’ and ‘right’ become arbitrary conventions. No one can have a human right unless there first is something essential about being human. Nominalism and conceptualism make the idea of being human (or anything else) merely a matter of convention. Rights, by definition, cannot be grounded by in general consensus.
The phrase ‘inalienable right’ is actually redundant. In order for a right to be a right, it must be independent of any social contract. Otherwise, you are talking about permission. You do not need any institutional authority’s permission to exercise a right. People have rights because they are human regardless of the social structure (i.e. family, tribe or state) in which they live. . Rights are not created by the state. The purpose of government is to protect those rights to the greatest extent possible. Any other conception of rights is not only un-American, but a rationalization of tyranny (for those of you living outside the USA).
