I’ve always been a natural rights supporter. Otherwise there is no objective “good” or “bad” government.
I’m sure that everyone believes that the government of North Korea is bad, and that for the most part, governments of the United States and Europe are good. (Please don’t try to fight the hypo on this one).
Where do we get these notions if we only look at the government itself? Aren’t we implicitly looking towards something greater as a standard, whether that be God, nature, or something otherwise inherent in what human beings should have at a minimum?
We (some of us, at least) are looking at our own notions. We are imagining how we can be better, as individuals and societies. Why is some other power necessary?
I really hate to come back to my abortion example, and I’m not setting it up as a “gotcha,” at least not directly.
I just want to know how someone who believes in intrinsic rights makes the decision of whether abortion is a right or not.
If it comes down to prior beliefs regarding the nature of life, then the right is not “intrinsic” but dependent on external values and beliefs.
Can such a dependent right be “intrinsic?”
This echoes a little of the thread, recently, about “objective” moral systems, where it was pretty widely agreed there aren’t any such things.
So: what do we do when rights exist in conflict with one another? Where do we draw the line?
The process most of us favor is representative democracy. Say you have a forty-piece brass band, and you guys want to practice during the day, and perform at night. I’m a nearby neighbor, and I can’t stand the sound of that doggone Oom-Pah band.
Do you have an absolute right to make whatever loud noise you want on your own property? Do I have an absolute right to be free of irritation from your noise, so that not a single note of your music can be heard on my property?
The working solution is to legislate limits. You can’t exceed a certainly level of noise, and that level decreases in the evening and at nights. Both parties surrender a part of their “intrinsic” (?) rights. You have to stop at 11:00, but I have to put up with some level of irritation.
How are you going to construct such compromises if you are stuck with a model of intrinsic rights?
Not exactly: such things are left to the people or to the states.
There isn’t a Federal law against ordinary murder (although there is against murdering a Congressman, FBI agent, etc.) If I want to murder my brother-in-law, the Constitution doesn’t forbid it. But the state certainly does!
(There isn’t a jury in the country that would convict me… )
More or less, but since the Constitution is subject to amendments, rights can be added. Or taken away, lets not forget. Or taken away and later put back if it turns out taking away the right was broadly agreed in retrospect to be a bad idea.
Not all rights are natural rights. Abortion is certainly not (IMHO, unless we make such a declaration an absurdity). Nobody has ever had a right to disturb his neighbors, nor are people in a close community entitled to absolute silence.
Is having control (to the extent possible) over what takes place within your own body an intrinsic right? If such a thing exists, and I don’t think it does, then it’s at least as good a candidate as any others I’ve heard.
There is an intrinsic right to life. There is an intrinsic life to self-ownership.
So - if that someone (for example, I) believes that abortion is killing of a human being, thus infringing the intrinsic right to life - permanently, the preservation of that right trumps the temporary violation of the right to self-ownership.
If that someone believes that abortion is removal of a clump of cells and not a killing of a human being, thus removing the intrinsic right to life from consideration, then definitely interfering with the ability to abort is a violation of the right to self-ownership.
How is one set of rights “natural” but another set, which some of us might believe to be every bit as fundamental, not “natural?”
What tool do you use to determine which is which?
You say, with great confidence, no one has ever had a right to disturb is neighbors. Okay: why do they have a right to use force to prevent someone from having an abortion? I don’t want to debate abortion per se; I just see it as a really strong example of something half of us think is a “natural right” if anything were…and the other half thing is a “natural wrong” if anything were.
This is much of what leads me to reject the concept of “natural right” at all: because I can’t see how it helps us decide what rights to protect, and what rights to prevent.
Meanwhile, I’m celebrating the use of semi-consensual government to come up with compromises that allow neighbors to live together. Your right to play Oom-Pah music is limited, as is my right to be at least somewhat undisturbed.
I’m not finding the philosophical tools I need for the concept of “natural rights” to make any sense.
Well, okay, I actually agree with this. But in practice, doesn’t that mean that it comes down to a decision made by a society in some form of collective process? The State Legislature, or the King, or the Council of Wise Old Men, or a High Court of Justice – someone, someone makes the decision.
The democratic ideal is that it “by us, of us, and for us.” We have to make up a rule, because there isn’t any clear way to know which of the two rights is “natural” or “intrinsic” – or, if they both are, which one our society will follow.
One way or another, a big group of people is going to have what they think is a “right” infringed on, big time.
If not by a government…then how?
ETA: kind of a red letter day, as I very rarely agree with you!
I said no such thing. I said that some people in earlier periods of history were less sophisticated. There actually has been some progress in education, research, thought, philosophy, and wisdom in the last 250 years.
Sure. Then one of the two individuals I described considers this, correctly, and consistently with his viewpoint, a violation of a natural, basic right. What’s your point?
In the example I gave, both rights are stipulated to be natural and intrinsic, so there is no decision required in that respect.
I don’t see the modern age being any more sophisticated, with the obvious and huge exceptions of science and technology.
Western thought on politics, philosophy, etc. was every bit as sophisticated 250 years ago as it is today. I’d wager the same was true of much else of the world, but I’m not as familiar with Eastern philosophy.
Plus, seems a safe bet that folks 250 years hence will think a lot of today’s popular opinion is unsophisticated.
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