# Are people being silly when they talk about "basic, universal human rights? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 20, 2006, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-silly-when-they-talk-about-basic-universal-human-rights/377217 "2006-10-20T13:34:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-silly-when-they-talk-about-basic-universal-human-rights/377217/1 "2006-10-20T13:34:20Z")
Specifically rights to food, er this UN article. > [@](#): > > United Nations , 29 October, (IPS): Since hunger and famine are still widespread in parts of Africa and Asia, the international community is in violation of the right to food as a basic universal human right, according to a new study released by the United Nations. > > “Despite promises to eradicate hunger, there has been little progress in reducing the global number of victims of hunger,” said Jean Ziegler, the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food and author of the report. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-silly-when-they-talk-about-basic-universal-human-rights/377217/2 "2006-10-20T13:38:36Z")
Well that got posted a bit too soon. Link to story - [Millions of Starving Shame the World, U.N. Says](http://www.asiantribune.com/index.php?q=node/2670) If a “right” is fundamentally a societal construct, don’t all rights flow from laws and compacts not inherent states of existence? ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-silly-when-they-talk-about-basic-universal-human-rights/377217/3 "2006-10-20T13:43:34Z")
[QUOTE=astro] If a “right” is fundamentally a societal construct, don’t all rights flow from laws and compacts not inherent states of existence? [/QUOTE] I believe that a “right” is merely a societal construct, and that we are not imbued with any rights merely because we exist - so yes, I agree. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-silly-when-they-talk-about-basic-universal-human-rights/377217/4 "2006-10-20T14:14:10Z")
No, I don’t think people have an inherent right to food. However, I do believe goverments have an obligation to make sure their citizens don’t starve to death. I also think that other governments should aid them in this - not because they have to, but because it’s the right thing to do. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-silly-when-they-talk-about-basic-universal-human-rights/377217/5 "2006-10-20T14:37:51Z")
Apparently, we had no reason to fight World War II, then. We were, famously fighting for the [Four Freedoms](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_freedoms). /sarcasm off ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-silly-when-they-talk-about-basic-universal-human-rights/377217/6 "2006-10-20T14:42:38Z")
Roosevelt talked a good game, but in reality #3 is jsut not practical without a world government, and highly improbable **with** one. So yes, IMO, people are being silly if they think there universal rights that derive from anything but a given society. ---
**Author:** ![Bobotheoptimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/919ad9/32.png) [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-silly-when-they-talk-about-basic-universal-human-rights/377217/7 "2006-10-20T14:42:41Z")
[Here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=376960) is an earlier thread on food being a right. Enjoy, I’m not getting dragged into that debate again. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-silly-when-they-talk-about-basic-universal-human-rights/377217/8 "2006-10-20T15:17:14Z")
[QUOTE=Bobotheoptimist] [Here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=376960) is an earlier thread on food being a right. Enjoy, I’m not getting dragged into that debate again. [/QUOTE] Well, you have a right not to debate something that you don’t want to debate. 🙂 I don’t see how that just because some kid is born in some country somewhere that I have an obligation to feed him. It makes no sense. It may be a tragedy, but that’s a different debate. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-silly-when-they-talk-about-basic-universal-human-rights/377217/9 "2006-10-20T16:04:40Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] …I don’t see how that just because some kid is born in some country somewhere that I have an obligation to feed him. It makes no sense. It may be a tragedy, but that’s a different debate. [/QUOTE] Could you look him in the eye and say “No”? ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-silly-when-they-talk-about-basic-universal-human-rights/377217/10 "2006-10-20T16:08:57Z")
[QUOTE=astro] If a “right” is fundamentally a societal construct, don’t all rights flow from laws and compacts not inherent states of existence? [/QUOTE] Given the hypothetical, yes; however I do not believe rights are social constructs. The idea of a “right to food” is a very misguided idea, however, akin to a “right to happiness.” Far better to posit a “right to eat” or a “right to pursue food.” You do not, as a human, inherently deserve a sandwich; you do (IMO) inherently deserve the opportunity to earn one, and once earned to not have it taken away. As with all other rights, of course, people may not get what they’re entitled to unless they have guns. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-silly-when-they-talk-about-basic-universal-human-rights/377217/11 "2006-10-20T16:15:09Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] Could you look him in the eye and say “No”? [/QUOTE] What’s that got to do with a right? I’m happy to help whomever I can, but as soon as they say they have a **right** to my help, I’m outta there. If he has a right to my help, then you could force me to help him, or throw me jail for not helping him since I violated his rights. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-silly-when-they-talk-about-basic-universal-human-rights/377217/12 "2006-10-20T16:30:19Z")
I think there’s a difference between a “right” and “an ethical obligation”. A “right” is what we, as people, say we, as people, have. Generally, this takes the form of a government (being a group of people representing even more people) saying what they feel bound to provide or protect. Sometimes, it’s what a small group, say Message Board Moderators, feel bound to provide. Obviously, this can only be things that are within the group’s power: the SDMB mods may decide we have the right to call each other asshat in the Pit, but they may not decide we have the right to live to 100 - that’s way outside their power. Rights are things we agree we want, and we’re willing to see others have, as part of our social agreement to live in groups without killing each other more frequently than we already do. As part of a social agreement, it’s a legal onus. An “ethical obligation” is a little different. It may not be that the government has decided that each person has a right to food, but, IMHO if there is a surplus of food, then it has the ethical obligation to distribute it to those in need. If there’s no surplus, then there’s no ethical obligation. Ethical obligations come because we, unlike most other animals, can empathize and recognize another’s suffering AND imagine that there’s some other way it could be and that we can change it. But there are, IMHO, zero “natural” rights. You don’t have the right to food, or loving parents, or even air to breathe. Naturally, any of these may be taken away by a passing lion who eats you or a simple miscarriage. Therefore, nature has no power to grant anything to you at all, not even existence. **John Mace** has no legal onus to help feed the hungry, but I believe he has an ethical obligation to do so if he’s got extra food, money or time to spare. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-silly-when-they-talk-about-basic-universal-human-rights/377217/13 "2006-10-20T16:35:08Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] **John Mace** has no legal onus to help feed the hungry, but I believe he has an ethical obligation to do so if he’s got extra food, money or time to spare. [/QUOTE] That’s pretty much it, except I would differentiate between people in the country where I live and people in other countries. As it stands now, I do have a legal obligation to feed the hungry in the US if I am a tax paying individual. There is no legal obligation, currently, for me to feed any arbitrary hungry person in the world, although I do end up doing so thru my taxes to some extent (foreign aid). ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-silly-when-they-talk-about-basic-universal-human-rights/377217/14 "2006-10-20T16:37:50Z")
It is a good thing that we have hard-headed and realistic men who can stay the hand of wooly-thinking bleeding heart do-gooders, keep them from doing something foolish. Yes, we can be grateful to a just and loving Providence that has always kept us abundantly supplied with such men, men who understand that the correct answer to Cain’s question is “No”. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-silly-when-they-talk-about-basic-universal-human-rights/377217/15 "2006-10-20T16:45:48Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] It is a good thing that we have hard-headed and realistic men who can stay the hand of wooly-thinking bleeding heart do-gooders, keep them from doing something foolish. Yes, we can be grateful to a just and loving Providence that has always kept us abundantly supplied with such men, men who understand that the correct answer to Cain’s question is “No”. [/QUOTE] I’m not sure what that means, but I assume you are saying that you disagree with me, although I can’t figure out what your reasoning is. I’d only say that it’s a good thing we don’t have a world government to enforce such laws. With only one government on the planet to choose from, I don’t like the odds of it being a good one. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-silly-when-they-talk-about-basic-universal-human-rights/377217/16 "2006-10-20T16:49:07Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] It is a good thing that we have hard-headed and realistic men who can stay the hand of wooly-thinking bleeding heart do-gooders, keep them from doing something foolish. Yes, we can be grateful to a just and loving Providence that has always kept us abundantly supplied with such men, men who understand that the correct answer to Cain’s question is “No”. [/QUOTE] Just because people don’t have an inherent right to food doesn’t mean we can let them starve and feel perfectly ethically correct. Rights mean we must do something; we do not have to help, _but we can choose to_, and choosing to is the right thing to do (barring extreme exceptions). ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-silly-when-they-talk-about-basic-universal-human-rights/377217/17 "2006-10-20T17:01:01Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] It is a good thing that we have hard-headed and realistic men who can stay the hand of wooly-thinking bleeding heart do-gooders, keep them from doing something foolish. Yes, we can be grateful to a just and loving Providence that has always kept us abundantly supplied with such men, men who understand that the correct answer to Cain’s question is “No”. [/QUOTE] I’m also not sure what this means. I looked up “Cain’s question” and found “Am I my brother’s keeper?” I have no idea what this has to do with rights as a legal construct, and keeping legal terms distinct from ethical terms and legal rights distinct from ethical behavior. Could you perhaps elucidate? 😛 Personally, I find it more heartening when people reach out to help their fellow man out of an inner belief that it’s the right thing to do, rather than unwililng people being forced to do something that 51% of the people think is right, but the individual thinks is wrong. Of course, I’m not going hungry, and rice is rice, whether it’s given willingly or no. But I was reading the OP as asking a larger question, using food as one example, and that’s how I tried to answer it. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-silly-when-they-talk-about-basic-universal-human-rights/377217/18 "2006-10-20T17:02:46Z")
Cain may have been obnoxious, but he wasn’t wrong - he \*wasn’t[/]i his brother’s keeper. There’s a difference between not helping someone and actually going out and killing them. It’s the same difference we’re discussing in this thread: the difference between positive and negative rights. Besides, Cain & Abel is all about the eternal conflict between agricultural and pastoral-nomadic societies, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-silly-when-they-talk-about-basic-universal-human-rights/377217/19 "2006-10-20T17:15:01Z")
OK, **'luci** …where is the line? Give me a figure. How far must I impoverish myself to be “ethical?” I could give every cent I make to ease world hunger and all I would do is add me to the list of the hungry. Hunger **must** be solved on a local level to do any good whatsoever. [QUOTE=elucidator] Could you look him in the eye and say “No”? [/QUOTE] I don’t see why not. It’s not like he’s likely to understand English. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-silly-when-they-talk-about-basic-universal-human-rights/377217/20 "2006-10-20T18:12:48Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] I’m not sure what that means, but I assume you are saying that you disagree with me, although I can’t figure out what your reasoning is. I’d only say that it’s a good thing we don’t have a world government to enforce such laws. With only one government on the planet to choose from, I don’t like the odds of it being a good one. [/QUOTE] The question is “am I my brother’s keeper” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-silly-when-they-talk-about-basic-universal-human-rights/377217.md?page=2)