More "Politics as Philosphy " (less math)

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Mrsilence raised an interesting question in the comments on the Gun Control Post last week and I feel that in light of recent discussions about "Getting People To Eat Right" and "The Government Controlling Your Life" it deserves a post of it's own.

The Libertarians, Tea-Partiers, and Threepers, often say that the constitution does not "grant" rights it "secures" them. The idea being, that such our rights are inherent and thus exist independantly of the government.

So the question is... Do you believe in the existence of inherent human rights that exist independently of any political or legal construction?

Why, or why not?

I think that this is one of those issues that tends to get lost in the traditional Left/Right political divide, but is important to adress because it directly influences someone's understaning of, or assumptions regarding more specific political issues.

Personally I agree with policraticus' assesment. I believe in the existence of "inherent human rights" but lack any objective base for this belief, thus making it a matter of faith. Something that tend to get one in trouble on political forums.

Personally I find the alternative's implications frightning. If what rights we do have can be freely taken away it almost becomes preferable to have a system that subjugates individual desires to the will of society as a whole. As someone who believes in free will, such a position seems practically alien to me but I'm interested to hear where the rest of you stand.




PS: I wish a Happy Easter to all those observing it.

Comments

[christinablue.livejournal.com]

Do you believe in the existence of inherent human rights that exist independently of any political or legal construction?

I do. It may be a bit hard to explain why, but I will try as best I can. Humans should have the right to equal consideration of their interests. For example, we should have the right to vote because it is in our interest and whoever ends up running said government will directly impact us and our life. We should have the right of free speech because again, if we our not allowed to voice our expressions, concerns, disagreements, agreements, it directly effects our quality of life. For the same reason, all humans should have equal rights. This brings up the topic of another human infringing on the rights of others - and in this case I believe that once you are infringing on the rights of others, you are subject to have your own forfeited, in certain cases. Such as, if someone murders another, because you have taken a life, you have also forfeited your own.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

"Do you believe in the existence of inherent human rights that exist independently of any political or legal construction?"

Yes. e.g. it is wrong and always wrong to kill a person because and only because they are left (or right) handed thus it is an inherent human right not to be killed because and only because of your handedness

Why?

Because handedness is not a moral category and diversity of handedness is acceptable.

Can I give you a full list of such inherent human rights? No. But on the topic I recommend:

this book (http://www.amazon.com/Idea-Human-Rights-Four-Inquiries/dp/0195138287) which I read in a philo class on human rights.

I think the author is incorrect in stating that to have a foundation of human rights one must invoke religion; albiet I admit that I have a problem establishing a foundation that is not religious--I have an even greater problem invoking religion as I find religion [by and large] to be untenable.

Where does the right to not be killed for being left handed come from?
I'll be writing a book when I get a good answer for that one.

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

I hold it to be self-evident that all people are equal, and endowed with certain inalienable rights (among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) ... that to secure these rights governments are instituted among people, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ... that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that people are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

[penguin42.livejournal.com]

We're just bags of chemicals and electrical impulses unlucky enough to be aware of ourselves. So, we make the most of it.

Should we defer to the will of society as a whole? No -- society isn't conscious. We are. The purpose of society should be to help maximize every individual's potential.

Can you derive "inherent rights" from this point of view? Maybe, but I haven't figured out how yet.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

this works too

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Rights are not inherent or automatic. They are established, granted, legislated, fought for, etc. But they are not automatic.

In the absence of all law, the order is established through natural means. Survival of the fittest. We are not all equal as some are clearly better (stronger, faster, fitter, etc) at least for brief periods until the next heavyweight comes along.

In international politics we witness disrespect and inequality amongst sovereign nations. If all mankind were equal, this wouldn't happen. It is only through agreement that some effort is made towards such respect, just as it occurs within domestic boundaries.

[blorky.livejournal.com]

No. Rights do not have an ontological existence separate from humans willingness to define or grant them.

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

See, now, I've always disagreed with Mr. Jefferson, et. al., about the pursuit of happiness being an "inalienable right", mostly because happiness is such an intangible, diversely defined concept. What if in my pursuit of happiness I violate someone else's inalienable right to life or liberty?

For some, happiness is home, hearth, and family, for others it might be organizing a Nazi militia or launching a Cruise missile at the Pentagon. If we stretch a little we could say that someone like Jihad Jane or even the 9-11 terrorists are exercising their right to the pursuit of happiness by their activities. I think the definition of "happiness" is just too nebulous to be able to say the pursuit of it is a human right.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

I have heard a non-religious basis for rights as "those qualities whose possession is a necessary prerequisite to peaceful coexistence between individuals in society." Now that limits it *a lot*, but it's a possible basis that does not invoke religion. It also means that rights exist only in the context of interaction with others, which could have some interest implications depending on how far you take "interaction," temporally.

[ryder-p-moses.livejournal.com]

Anything commonly recognized as "rights" can and will be taken away by any power that does not recognize them. Given that I find it hard to see how they can be claimed to exist independent of those powers. Laws of physics, people, rocks, math, these things have an existence independent of social forces, the fact of their existence remains unchanged whether or not someone believes in them.

It might be scary, but that doesn't change the reality what rights you possess are contingent upon what society you grow up in, and it is not even agreed upon across societies which things are rights. Feudal societies would have laughed at the concept that peasants had an inherent right to arm themselves; modern collectivist societies have mostly rejected individual rights like freedom of speech or freedom of religious choice in favor of stuff like a right to work or to a minimum standard of living that we basically don't give a fuck about in the States. Are those rights not real, do they have less of an objective physical existence than the rights prized by American culture?

Rights are simply an ideal a given society strives for, they can't possibly exist outside of a social/political context any more than laws can. That doesn't mean they're not worth preserving, or they don't exist within our society, mostly it just means we have a responsibility to protect and uphold them, 'cause there ain't gonna be nobody to do it for us.

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

I think of the open-endedness of “pursuit of happines” as Jefferson's greatest rhetorical innovation in the Declaration. You don't have a right to happiness—the world doesn't work that way, no institution could promise it—but you have a right to try. It makes a space for both the universal conception of rights and the particularity of different people's needs and goals. Combine pursuit of happiness with liberty and many of the great Bill of Rights protections pop right out: speech, religion, association ....

Yeah, there are opportunities for rights in conflict, but that's inherent in the rights-based conception of political claims whether or not you include “the pursuit of happiness.&rdqou; My liberty to, say, do target practice with my revolver in my apartment is in conflict with my neighbor's life, so we constrain my liberty.

no less true of life and liberty

Freedom of speech, of religion,

It admits that different people care about different things.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Well, all rights have limits in the boundaries of others' rights. Your right to pursue happiness ends where it interferes on my pursuit of happiness.

Of course, I'm fairly sure that could be argued to abolish things like private property, but it's at least there and intelligible, if not realistic.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

That is pretty much how I feel about the matter. Useful, but not absolute by any means.

[blorky.livejournal.com]

Really well put.

[ryder-p-moses.livejournal.com]

yeah good post

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

Of course, I'm fairly sure that could be argued to abolish things like private property, but it's at least there and intelligible, if not realistic.

And that's the thing. If taken literally, the whole argument could result in gridlock because one person's pursuit of happiness might infringe on another's, and so on, and so on, spiraling down into minutiae so that in the end all we are able to do is stand stock-still and look at each other. Yes, it's an exaggerated example, but theoretically, it could happen. The whole idea could backfire on itself so that nobody is able to pursue anything.

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

You don't have a right to happiness—the world doesn't work that way, no institution could promise it—but you have a right to try.

And I guess the trying must be within legal means, which makes sense. My argument is still that even in the pursuit of happiness one person could theoretically throw a monkeywrench into another's pursuit, and get into millions of stalemates, both philosophical and literal/legal.

[ryder-p-moses.livejournal.com]

"Pursuit" doesn't imply a lack of competition. You can pursue something all you like without ever having a chance to get it, through any number of obstacles. You're still treating it as a right to ever achieve fundamental happiness, which it's not, and which in a philosophical sense the framers would probably have regarded as impossible. True happiness is what happens when you die and go to Heaven, at best, and lots of them didn't even believe that.

Really the whole concept of a 'pursuit of happiness' as something to be protected on a broad social level is so vague as to be nearly meaningless, which is I think where these wierd interpretations come from. While it's sort of a stance against pure oppression for the sake of oppression, and kinda-sorta-maybe a protection of religion, the primary significance of the term is in what it omits - in the normal expression 'property' was the third article. The context is everything. There's a reason this airy-fairy language stayed in the Declaration didn't get into the Constitution, where it'd be a right the government was actually compelled to uphold. It's mostly a 'screw you' to the ownership claims the crown held over the colonies.

[ryder-p-moses.livejournal.com]

Someone preventing your achievement of happiness doesn't stop the pursuit.

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

Whoa, sorry that comment was full of cut-and-paste garbage.

Again, I don't think the problem you're pointing to is rooted in “pursuit of happiness,” it's deeper, in rights as the basis of political claims. If your political order is framed in terms of rights, you're going to inevitably be negotiating numerous tricky conflicts between rights.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

Quick response: Observation.

I can observe an individual who holds a life of his own, not unlike my own, exerting a discernable will of his/her own, much like through self-examination I can examine a clear will of my own. These are things for example which I can observe throughout humanity, regardless of system of government or other observable differences in particular cultures or backgrounds. Human beings have the observable capacity to make decisions affecting themselves directly without intermediaries substituting their will upon them. There is no more irreducable relationship when it comes to the notion of what a right is, and every other notion or approximiation becomes a distant abstraction by comparison even if one still may not be able to physically observe a right the way we observe a rock or tree. It is indirectly observed.

Laws which respect these natural rights are aimed at intervening only when one individual's decisions conflict directly with the same rights of others (equal in dignity as they are equal in that all are human).

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

You looking at me makes me uncomfortable. It's infringing.

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

Well, I could close my eyes, but the guy next to me hates it when that happens.

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

Really the whole concept of a 'pursuit of happiness' as something to be protected on a broad social level is so vague as to be nearly meaningless

This. Which, I agree, is why it's in the Declaration and not in the constitution.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

I'd suggest that he lighten up, but, well, y'know...