What is a human right?

[Diuretic]

How far to base do you want to go? There are no rights endowed upon the human species except one. You have the right to survive so long as you posess the means to.

And that isn't a right, it's an instinct to flee from potential harm. Again, rights are what we agree they are.

 

[Gunny]

And that isn't a right, it's an instinct to flee from potential harm. Again, rights are what we agree they are.

Survival does not require fleeing from potential harm. Neutralizing the potential harm works just as well.

If I say I have a right to survive then I do not have to agree with anyone but myself that it is my right so long as I am able to back the word with my continuing existence.

Because if you disagree, all you have to do prove me wrong. In which case, I STILL won't care what you call it.

 

[Diuretic]

Survival does not require fleeing from potential harm. Neutralizing the potential harm works just as well.

If I say I have a right to survive then I do not have to agree with anyone but myself that it is my right so long as I am able to back the word with my continuing existence.

Because if you disagree, all you have to do prove me wrong. In which case, I STILL won't care what you call it.

I'll be sure to let you agree with yourself Gunny

 

[jodylee]

What in this world do you mean?

The banking elite own you, the federal resurve is a private company, so is the bank of england, and most supposed nationaly run banks around the world they lead money to government and taxes payes the debt. these people run everything, look into it, the rothschids family history

 

[Gunny]

I'll be sure to let you agree with yourself Gunny

Why thank you.

 

[Diuretic]

Got any cards? We could play twenty-one to pass the time..I'm hopeless at poker so I won't even try. I always thought Texas Hold 'Em was about standing up in Texas with both hands full of something to quaff. Been there done that

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Once again the only "rights" that exists are the ones you can enforce.

A bear does not care about your "rights". A murderer also does not care about your "rights"

Societies decide what rights exist and then try to enforce those rights. And to add a stinker to the deck, if a Society says you have a right but someone else does not because of say their skin color..... guess what? You do not have that right either. Unless a society is absolutely uniform in defending rights, they really do not exist even in that society. Human rights..... must apply across the board or they are not " Human" rights at all.

 

[Diuretic]

Once again the only "rights" that exists are the ones you can enforce.

A bear does not care about your "rights". A murderer also does not care about your "rights"

Societies decide what rights exist and then try to enforce those rights. And to add a stinker to the deck, if a Society says you have a right but someone else does not because of say their skin color..... guess what? You do not have that right either. Unless a society is absolutely uniform in defending rights, they really do not exist even in that society. Human rights..... must apply across the board or they are not " Human" rights at all.

Bears may dance because we hit a crack'd drum to make them dance. Bears, much like dogs, are subject to unconditioned (instinctual) and conditioned (learned) responses. Humans are the same.

If someone fires a gun near a human subject I can guarantee that that human won't stand and recite the Gettysburg Address in immediate response (you can make them do that of course, it just takes a lot of conditioning).

There are no "natural" human rights. We, as animals, have no "rights". We obey our instincts. We have no natural "rights", we agree on what they will be in a given cultural context.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Bears may dance because we hit a crack'd drum to make them dance. Bears, much like dogs, are subject to unconditioned (instinctual) and conditioned (learned) responses. Humans are the same.

If someone fires a gun near a human subject I can guarantee that that human won't stand and recite the Gettysburg Address in immediate response (you can make them do that of course, it just takes a lot of conditioning).

There are no "natural" human rights. We, as animals, have no "rights". We obey our instincts. We have no natural "rights", we agree on what they will be in a given cultural context.

Which is what I just said.

 

[Foxfyre]

Which is what I just said.

You are correct that we possess no rights other than those that we can defend. Whatever 'rights' are afforded to us by law can as easily be taken away via the law. Whatever 'rights' are afforded to us by those with power over us can be denied us by that same power.

What we are left with is that sense of unalienable rights which include anything at all that we choose to do that requires nothing of anybody else other than their noninterference. In my opinion all legislated rights should be in recognition of and with the intent of preservation of unalienable rights.

 

[GWBushIsMyGod]

What do you think?

Human rights are what white American males had before President Bush started taking them away.

 

[mattskramer]

What we are left with is that sense of unalienable rights which include anything at all that we choose to do that requires nothing of anybody else other than their noninterference. In my opinion all legislated rights should be in recognition of and with the intent of preservation of unalienable rights.

Prove that we even have unalienable rights. Where did they come from? Isn’t the notion of “inalienable rights” just something dreamt up and written on a piece of paper nearly 232 years ago by representatives of some 13 colonies?

 

[midcan5]

But consciousness and self-awareness are entirely subjective. Get more than one fully functioning (cognitive) human in one place and they'll start to work out shared understandings.

With their senses they will recognise various things around them but unless they have a shared language and culture then they'll not be able to communicate what their senses perceive....

Human rights are an agreement as well. They don't come from a deity, they come from humans agreeing on things like not killing each other, thus producing the understanding of the right to live

If I understand you, you are stating that the diversity of society / culture (interpretations / sensations/ judgments) means there is no single agreed upon right but what I am stating is that even this diversity would not exist without life. Or to extend that, the right of life. I'm trying to move backward establishing an intrinsic value and that value is life itself. Call life consciousness if you like. Life presupposes all that follows and without life there is nothing. It isn't the tree in the forest it is the forest. Without the right to life then all these other things remain unknown. So if no right of life exists, nothing exists, or to really write gobbledygook, if cultures are defined by themselves how do they do that if they don't exist. (I would argue they start with life / consciousness / awareness of being as the basis for everything after) If we say everything is arbitrary then life itself becomes arbitrary but that can't be because here we are and we communicate. As creatures of biology (God if you believe) we don't toss coins and make culture based on arbitrary decisions. We build our lives with some purpose and sometimes that purpose is screwed up but it is certainly not a grab bag.

Can this argument be extended to other aspects of life, for instance without family and language we would cease to have any ideas of values and rights. So could we add family and language to intrinsic values because we couldn't define human without them. Last thought, are there areas in which we cease to understand each other? Is it language that confuses the debate, do we mean the same thing.

 

[Gunny]

Human rights are what white American males had before President Bush started taking them away.

Anything intelligent to add, or you just going to troll?

 

[Larkinn]

Once again the only "rights" that exists are the ones you can enforce.

A bear does not care about your "rights". A murderer also does not care about your "rights"

Which is why we have the concept that rights can, and often are, infringed upon. That doesn't mean they suddenly disappear.

 

[midcan5]

I was reading Jeremy Waldron last evening and the label philosophers use for conservatives, socialists or others who believe tradition or culture define us is Communitarian. Communitarians assume culture defines what is possible and what is right. Liberals, to use a Waldron quote I use often, "...demand that the social order should in principle be capable of explaining itself at the tribunal of each person's understanding." In other words, if culture doesn't like me because I am gay or Black then society is wrong and I as an individual have the right to counter that position. I was trying to clarify a little what I wrote above as it is unclear.


"A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push." Ludwig Wittgenstein

 

[RetiredGySgt]

I was reading Jeremy Waldron last evening and the label philosophers use for conservatives, socialists or others who believe tradition or culture define us is Communitarian. Communitarians assume culture defines what is possible and what is right. Liberals, to use a Waldron quote I use often, "...demand that the social order should in principle be capable of explaining itself at the tribunal of each person's understanding." In other words, if culture doesn't like me because I am gay or Black then society is wrong and I as an individual have the right to counter that position. I was trying to clarify a little what I wrote above as it is unclear.


"A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push." Ludwig Wittgenstein

Once again JUST for you, I am a conservative and I believe EVERYONE has the same rights or no one has any. Further it is a belief my branch of Conservatives believe. It is what mainstream Conservatives believe in my opinion ( in this Country).

Reality is that the only rights we have are those we can enforce, thus like it or not, a society establishes what rights we have. Those rights though are not rights if they do not apply across the board. If a Society picks and choses who the rights apply to they are in fact just privelages that only exist until someone decides your group doesn't have them anymore.

Go ahead explain to that charging bear that you have a "right" to live. Explain to a mass murderer you have a "right" not to be murdered. Explain to a despot you have the "right" to vote.

 

[Foxfyre]

Prove that we even have unalienable rights. Where did they come from? Isn’t the notion of “inalienable rights” just something dreamt up and written on a piece of paper nearly 232 years ago by representatives of some 13 colonies?

Dreamt up? No, much more than that. Those 'representatives' didn't dream up the concept--it predated them by at least much more than a millenia--but it arose out of a deep conviction that the right to think, believe, hope, express an opinion, aspire, try, worship as one pleases, choose one's associates, make love to one's spouse, read and write what one pleases, enjoy the fruits of ones labor, and take advantage of earned leisure should not be dicated by any human authority. John Locke et al took this concept further by including one's person in those things that should be untouchable by any human authority and also the concept that one's lawfully obtained property must be inviolate.

So we have the most familiar phrase from the Declaration of Independence:

. . . We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, 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, . . .

and this was the principle undergirding the Preamble to the US Constitution and all its content anchored by the Bill of Rights.

 

[Taomon]

Once again JUST for you, I am a conservative and I believe EVERYONE has the same rights or no one has any. Further it is a belief my branch of Conservatives believe. It is what mainstream Conservatives believe in my opinion ( in this Country).

Reality is that the only rights we have are those we can enforce, thus like it or not, a society establishes what rights we have. Those rights though are not rights if they do not apply across the board. If a Society picks and choses who the rights apply to they are in fact just privelages that only exist until someone decides your group doesn't have them anymore.

Go ahead explain to that charging bear that you have a "right" to live. Explain to a mass murderer you have a "right" not to be murdered. Explain to a despot you have the "right" to vote.

The right to live when a charging bear or murder is approaching you means that you can defend yourself or flee and the law cannot charge you with a crime.

The right to vote when a despot rules means that if you create a system inwhich you can vote and overthrow tat despot, you cannot be charged with a crime...but this may require international intervention.

 

[Taomon]

Once again JUST for you, I am a conservative and I believe EVERYONE has the same rights or no one has any. Further it is a belief my branch of Conservatives believe. It is what mainstream Conservatives believe in my opinion ( in this Country).

Reality is that the only rights we have are those we can enforce, thus like it or not, a society establishes what rights we have. Those rights though are not rights if they do not apply across the board. If a Society picks and choses who the rights apply to they are in fact just privelages that only exist until someone decides your group doesn't have them anymore.

Go ahead explain to that charging bear that you have a "right" to live. Explain to a mass murderer you have a "right" not to be murdered. Explain to a despot you have the "right" to vote.

I would not call marriage, voting, and so on priveleges. If a law marginalizes a right, the law is flawed and you have the right to contest that law and change it.