Do Natural Rights Exist Without Government ?

[RKMBrown]

That is it in a nutshell. The God story made up centuries ago is losing its stranglehold. As much as I would like to think I have certain entitlements, rights etc one glimpse at the real world swiftly convinces you that you are really insignificant in the scheme of things.

Is that the burr under your saddle? That some folks way back then chose to believe that natural rights are God given? That some believe that now? And THAT is why you are straining at every gnat on the planet (metaphorically speaking) to deny that such natural rights exist?

What if the term "God given" had never been coined? That nobody had linked God to such unalienable or natural rights? Actually most of those great philosophers who first noted the concept did not refer to such rights as "God given". They concluded that such exists, however, based purely on empircal evidence, observation, rational thought, and common sense. The concept that certain things exist regardless of how we perceive or use or define them.

We think. We breathe. We live. We believe. We speak. We hope. We fear. We enjoy. We appreciate. We do what gives us pleasure. All this is the natural state of humankind; what humans do in their natural state. Natural rights are the acknowledgement that this is what humans are designed to do.

No thats not the burr as you call it. i dont have a problem with the concept of a god. I have a problem with the use of god to pass laws buttressed by a story about God striking you down for not obeying. However this is a tiny part of the burr. I have a large problem with rights being real without any evidence but not the Yeti.

If most of the great philosophers had empirical evidence where is it at? Please, please show me just one piece of evidence.

We do all those things as a function of biology. We are social animals so we make up rules to control the behaviors of the masses.

And a group of gorillas, and a pack of wolves are also social animals who make up rules and establish rights for certain behaviors within their social circles. Humans are so vain to believe they alone have learned to establish laws for behavior, and to recognize natural rights of the members.

 

[RKMBrown]

Why do you insist on calling it a "right" ? We could contemplate even if we didn't have the so called "right".

I call it a natural right, because it is. That we could contemplate even if we did not have a legal right to do so, is why that natural right is inalienable.

You can't contemplate if you are dead---someone could kill you and you would lose this ability therefore it is not inalienable.

Nonsense. By your non sequitur there are no rights, there is no life, and nothing exists at all because all living things have a beginning and an end. Thus by your argument a thing can't exist between the beginning and end if it can't exist outside the timeline between the beginning and end.

 

[dblack]

I call it a natural right, because it is. That we could contemplate even if we did not have a legal right to do so, is why that natural right is inalienable.

You can't contemplate if you are dead---someone could kill you and you would lose this ability therefore it is not inalienable.

Nonsense. By your non sequitur there are no rights, there is no life, and nothing exists at all because all living things have a beginning and an end. Thus by your argument a thing can't exist between the beginning and end if it can't exist outside the timeline between the beginning and end.

I mentioned this before, but inalienable doesn't mean indestructible, or inviolable. It means it can't be separated. Indeed, the fact that you have to kill someone to get rid of their inalienable rights is proof of their inalienability.

 

[dilloduck]

I call it a natural right, because it is. That we could contemplate even if we did not have a legal right to do so, is why that natural right is inalienable.

You can't contemplate if you are dead---someone could kill you and you would lose this ability therefore it is not inalienable.

Nonsense. By your non sequitur there are no rights, there is no life, and nothing exists at all because all living things have a beginning and an end. Thus by your argument a thing can't exist between the beginning and end if it can't exist outside the timeline between the beginning and end.

Then let's just go ahead and call everything man does a natural right and call it a day. I mean what good are they anyway ?

 

[dilloduck]

You can't contemplate if you are dead---someone could kill you and you would lose this ability therefore it is not inalienable.

Nonsense. By your non sequitur there are no rights, there is no life, and nothing exists at all because all living things have a beginning and an end. Thus by your argument a thing can't exist between the beginning and end if it can't exist outside the timeline between the beginning and end.

I mentioned this before, but inalienable doesn't mean indestructible, or inviolable. It means it can't be separated. Indeed, the fact that you have to kill someone to get rid of their inalienable rights is proof of their inalienability.

It also means that it can't be taken away

 

[Asclepias]

Is that the burr under your saddle? That some folks way back then chose to believe that natural rights are God given? That some believe that now? And THAT is why you are straining at every gnat on the planet (metaphorically speaking) to deny that such natural rights exist?

What if the term "God given" had never been coined? That nobody had linked God to such unalienable or natural rights? Actually most of those great philosophers who first noted the concept did not refer to such rights as "God given". They concluded that such exists, however, based purely on empircal evidence, observation, rational thought, and common sense. The concept that certain things exist regardless of how we perceive or use or define them.

We think. We breathe. We live. We believe. We speak. We hope. We fear. We enjoy. We appreciate. We do what gives us pleasure. All this is the natural state of humankind; what humans do in their natural state. Natural rights are the acknowledgement that this is what humans are designed to do.

No thats not the burr as you call it. i dont have a problem with the concept of a god. I have a problem with the use of god to pass laws buttressed by a story about God striking you down for not obeying. However this is a tiny part of the burr. I have a large problem with rights being real without any evidence but not the Yeti.

If most of the great philosophers had empirical evidence where is it at? Please, please show me just one piece of evidence.

We do all those things as a function of biology. We are social animals so we make up rules to control the behaviors of the masses.

And a group of gorillas, and a pack of wolves are also social animals who make up rules and establish rights for certain behaviors within their social circles. Humans are so vain to believe they alone have learned to establish laws for behavior, and to recognize natural rights of the members.

The bolded is my whole point. Rights are granted. In the case of gorillas and wolves for example the dominant animal grants or bestows those rights. In the case of wolves for example the alpha wolf eats first. The other wolves have the ability to eat first but they dont have the right. Except I never heard a wolf call it a right. The naturalist calls it a right.

 

[dblack]

You can't contemplate if you are dead---someone could kill you and you would lose this ability therefore it is not inalienable.

Nonsense. By your non sequitur there are no rights, there is no life, and nothing exists at all because all living things have a beginning and an end. Thus by your argument a thing can't exist between the beginning and end if it can't exist outside the timeline between the beginning and end.

Then let's just go ahead and call everything man does a natural right and call it a day. I mean what good are they anyway ?

Well, as I said above, they're good for establishing a rationale for our rights that doesn't depend on our rulers. What threat are they? Why are you arguing so adamantly against the proposition?

 

[dblack]

Nonsense. By your non sequitur there are no rights, there is no life, and nothing exists at all because all living things have a beginning and an end. Thus by your argument a thing can't exist between the beginning and end if it can't exist outside the timeline between the beginning and end.

I mentioned this before, but inalienable doesn't mean indestructible, or inviolable. It means it can't be separated. Indeed, the fact that you have to kill someone to get rid of their inalienable rights is proof of their inalienability.

It also means that it can't be taken away

Right. Destroying something isn't taking away part of it.

 

[dilloduck]

Here's a really good group of essays on the Myth of Natural Rights-----besides being enlightening it's also pretty funny. I highly recommend it.

Natural Law, or Don?t Put a Rubber on Your Willy (Robert Anton Wilson) | The Anarchist Library

 

[Asclepias]

There are a couple of problems with it. Lets see...

They all come down to one thing, you refuse to open your mind.



If we accept that definition of definitive the key word is or, as in making a choice between two or more things. Since I have already shown that morals exist in nature outside the minds of man, there is a clear argument to be made that natural rights have the same source as morals.



No it doesn't.



Yet you cannot actually demonstrate that man is the source of rights. On the other hand, there are actually morals in nature, despite your insistence that people are the only source of morals.



How is that a problem?



Prove it.



Even if the theory is incorrect that does not necessarily invalidate the concept of natural rights.

7. natural is defined as

not manmade.

Since rights are not made by man, I don't see that as a problem.

Asclepias, you've been refuted in detail by me on every point; you've been refuted by Quantum with the quip on every point. If you would think about the essence of your objections relative to the answers you get from Quantum, you could see the realities of the matter for yourself. If you would just read my posts on the same, you would get a helping hand along the way.

It's okay to be wrong, but why do you close your mind and stay that way?

While I believe that God is behind nature and, therefore, is the One who, ultimately, endows our natural rights; one need not argue that some consciousness beyond nature would have to exist in order for us to have them. Why. Can't. You. Grasp. That?

Ironically, that God's point in terms of free will. Notwithstanding, morality is in nature. Violate it's terms and watch what happens. God demonstrates His existence in that fashion . . . not by overpowering your will and making you get real with yourself and others.

When your argument is that god gave you those rights you have effectively removed yourself as a credible participant in this debate. You cant prove the existence of God and you know this....I hope.

 

[dilloduck]

Nonsense. By your non sequitur there are no rights, there is no life, and nothing exists at all because all living things have a beginning and an end. Thus by your argument a thing can't exist between the beginning and end if it can't exist outside the timeline between the beginning and end.

Then let's just go ahead and call everything man does a natural right and call it a day. I mean what good are they anyway ?

Well, as I said above, they're good for establishing a rationale for our rights that doesn't depend on our rulers. What threat are they? Why are you arguing so adamantly against the proposition?

Surely you jest. Rulers will be the ones punishing people for breaking the natural laws and interfering with "natural rights ".

 

[dblack]

Then let's just go ahead and call everything man does a natural right and call it a day. I mean what good are they anyway ?

Well, as I said above, they're good for establishing a rationale for our rights that doesn't depend on our rulers. What threat are they? Why are you arguing so adamantly against the proposition?

Surely you jest. Rulers will be the ones punishing people for breaking the natural laws and interfering with "natural rights ".

But they won't be the ones deciding what those rights are. Which is the point.

 

[Asclepias]

Like I said----there is an agenda to identifying these so called "natural rights". I suspect one is so that we don't have to call them God given. The other is that once they are indeed verified by some special group of people and codified, no one dare challenge them.

There was definitely an agenda, just as there's an agenda now in the campaign to consider rights as "made up". I actually think that's the more interesting angle in this discussion. The whole point of claiming natural rights was to establish a rationale for basic freedom that didn't depend on the whim of nation-states, whether they be 'democratic' or ruled by the divine right of kings. The agenda to reverse that, to make our rights once again dependent on our rulers, should properly be seen as a threat to human rights, and ultimately authoritarian.

That may be true but it doesnt change the fact that rights are something thought up by man as a protection mechanism to maintain order in society. it is our instinct to establish a pecking order and rights are bestowed by the ruling class. We get in where we fit in and restrain our abilities to stay at the level of our rights. That is how the ruling class keeps us in control. I have the ability to go pick out a room in the White House and sleep there but I don't have the right.

 

[dilloduck]

Well, as I said above, they're good for establishing a rationale for our rights that doesn't depend on our rulers. What threat are they? Why are you arguing so adamantly against the proposition?

Surely you jest. Rulers will be the ones punishing people for breaking the natural laws and interfering with "natural rights ".

But they won't be the ones deciding what those rights are. Which is the point.

Really ? Exactly who is going to decide what natural rights are then and who will enforce them ?

 

[dilloduck]

Like I said----there is an agenda to identifying these so called "natural rights". I suspect one is so that we don't have to call them God given. The other is that once they are indeed verified by some special group of people and codified, no one dare challenge them.

There was definitely an agenda, just as there's an agenda now in the campaign to consider rights as "made up". I actually think that's the more interesting angle in this discussion. The whole point of claiming natural rights was to establish a rationale for basic freedom that didn't depend on the whim of nation-states, whether they be 'democratic' or ruled by the divine right of kings. The agenda to reverse that, to make our rights once again dependent on our rulers, should properly be seen as a threat to human rights, and ultimately authoritarian.

That may be true but it doesnt change the fact that rights are something thought up by man as a protection mechanism to maintain order in society. it is our instinct to establish a pecking order and rights are bestowed by the ruling class. We get in where we fit in and restrain our abilities to stay at the level of our rights. That is how the ruling class keeps us in control. I have the ability to go pick out a room in the White House and sleep there but I don't have the right.

Kings and popes have come up with natural rights too. They just only naturally occurred in kings and popes. What a coincidence.

 

[dblack]

Like I said----there is an agenda to identifying these so called "natural rights". I suspect one is so that we don't have to call them God given. The other is that once they are indeed verified by some special group of people and codified, no one dare challenge them.

There was definitely an agenda, just as there's an agenda now in the campaign to consider rights as "made up". I actually think that's the more interesting angle in this discussion. The whole point of claiming natural rights was to establish a rationale for basic freedom that didn't depend on the whim of nation-states, whether they be 'democratic' or ruled by the divine right of kings. The agenda to reverse that, to make our rights once again dependent on our rulers, should properly be seen as a threat to human rights, and ultimately authoritarian.

That may be true but it doesnt change the fact that rights are something thought up by man as a protection mechanism to maintain order in society. it is our instinct to establish a pecking order and rights are bestowed by the ruling class. We get in where we fit in and restrain our abilities to stay at the level of our rights. That is how the ruling class keeps us in control. I have the ability to go pick out a room in the White House and sleep there but I don't have the right.

I'm not really sure what you're talking about here. The question is whether rights are based on something objective, like rational observation of the human condition, or subjective, like the decree of rulers. Of course they are "made up", in the sense that they are products of human thought. But so are other observational natural laws. But that doesn't make the underlying reality and less 'real'.

Again, I have to ask what you see as the practical implications of your view that natural rights are 'just made up' - specifically in regard to how we decide what basic human rights should be. Are you saying we should make no attempt to find a rational basis for rights? What should be the criteria, if not objective observation of human nature?

 

[dblack]

Surely you jest. Rulers will be the ones punishing people for breaking the natural laws and interfering with "natural rights ".

But they won't be the ones deciding what those rights are. Which is the point.

Really ? Exactly who is going to decide what natural rights are then and who will enforce them ?

"We the people" decide, and we enlist government to enforce them.

 

[dilloduck]

But they won't be the ones deciding what those rights are. Which is the point.

Really ? Exactly who is going to decide what natural rights are then and who will enforce them ?

"We the people" decide, and we enlist government to enforce them.

Right-----conservatives and liberals will join together and make up a list.

 

[dblack]

Really ? Exactly who is going to decide what natural rights are then and who will enforce them ?

"We the people" decide, and we enlist government to enforce them.

Right-----conservatives and liberals will join together and make up a list.

No, the list would be infinite. They characterize them generally (that's where 'inalienable' comes in) and protect them via Constitutional government.

 

[dilloduck]

Is that the burr under your saddle? That some folks way back then chose to believe that natural rights are God given? That some believe that now? And THAT is why you are straining at every gnat on the planet (metaphorically speaking) to deny that such natural rights exist?

What if the term "God given" had never been coined? That nobody had linked God to such unalienable or natural rights? Actually most of those great philosophers who first noted the concept did not refer to such rights as "God given". They concluded that such exists, however, based purely on empircal evidence, observation, rational thought, and common sense. The concept that certain things exist regardless of how we perceive or use or define them.

We think. We breathe. We live. We believe. We speak. We hope. We fear. We enjoy. We appreciate. We do what gives us pleasure. All this is the natural state of humankind; what humans do in their natural state. Natural rights are the acknowledgement that this is what humans are designed to do.

No thats not the burr as you call it. i dont have a problem with the concept of a god. I have a problem with the use of god to pass laws buttressed by a story about God striking you down for not obeying. However this is a tiny part of the burr. I have a large problem with rights being real without any evidence but not the Yeti.

If most of the great philosophers had empirical evidence where is it at? Please, please show me just one piece of evidence.

We do all those things as a function of biology. We are social animals so we make up rules to control the behaviors of the masses.

And a group of gorillas, and a pack of wolves are also social animals who make up rules and establish rights for certain behaviors within their social circles. Humans are so vain to believe they alone have learned to establish laws for behavior, and to recognize natural rights of the members.

Survival of the fittest-----works for me--let's see how it works with humans.