What Human Rights?

[Angrboda]

Well, shoot. After reading 20 pages, I skip to the end to find the discussion has moved on.

I'm going to contribute my thoughts on the matter anyway.

After consideration of the matter, I would suggest that a human right is a practice, habit, or action that you are entitled to engage in simply by virtue of your being human. As an entitlement, you are morally deserving of the right simply by virtue of being human.

Inalienable simply means that you always possess this right, whether or not you are being prevented from exercising it, or simply choose not to do so.

Human rights by my definition must be universal, which means that there must be no circumstances in which the entitlement does not apply, with the proviso that as an entitlement, you are deserving of the entitled right, or compensation if it is violated. This is justice. Since no social contract can ensure the universality of a human right, the social contract cannot form the foundation of human rights.

In order for human rights to be universal, justice for the violation of those rights must be transcendent. The enforcement of justice must exist for all time.

A god could perform this role, but the Christian god does not. The basis of reward or punishment of the Christian god is one of mercy, not justice. God forgives; he does not mete out irrepressible justice.

There is a religious framework that does provide an adequate foundation for eternal justice, and that system is karmic law. It is inflexibly just, universal, and the rights it confers are inalienable.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the matter.