Subject:
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Re: Nature of rights? (was: Did animals have rights before we invented rights?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 2 Jul 2001 22:27:04 GMT
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Viewed:
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722 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Frank Filz writes:
> Larry Pieniazek wrote:
> > I freely admit that when I've dug into this before (this does come up
> > periodically) I was unable to provide a firm axiom to justify the notion of
> > natural rights (as I define them) and did get rather wrapped around the axle
> > on how to tell which rights were natural and which were cultural...
Being the relative moralist that I am, I'll push that one step further and
say I don't believe there *are* "natural" or "fundamental" rights. It's a
moral definition humans create based on an emotional response.
Perhaps, however, there are "natural/fundamental" rights as seen through the
eyes of humans, which are universal among them? Not sure it's true, and
certainly isn't true in the theoretical world (per my definitions/beliefs).
> I was exploring the idea that perhaps the only fundamental right is the
> right to an impartial "rights based" mediation of disputes. This does
> suggest why animals then don't specifically have rights since they don't
> have the capability to participate in a mediated dispute. Of course
> someone can participate on their behalf, but then you have to convince
> everyone involved that you do really represent the animal.
>
> I guess the question to explore is can you build all other "rights" from
> this right of mediation. On the flip side, is there any situation where
> you don't have a right to mediation?
The presupposing question is, what *is* a right? I believe Mill defined a
right as (loosely quoted) 'that which others would defend for me in my being
consciously deprived of'. I'll buy that. A right is that which others feel
morally wrong about knowingly depriving others of. Now, that's EASILY set up
for me to walk right into saying "there *are* no
universal/fundamental/natural rights" (as I assume relative morality), but
before I make that step, does anyone have a different definition to propose?
Anyway, I'll go ahead and make the next step, and come back to the
definition when I get a response... For things like "the right to punch
children in the face" *SOME* people may feel is a right (do I konw any?).
But certainly it wouldn't be considered to be a right by most people. A
"more fundamental" would be a "right to live" or perhaps the "right to
property" (life being a subset of property as Larry might say?). However,
because it's merely an emotional issue (assuming my definition), I'll
propose that it is at least *theoretically* possible to have a moral code
without such fundamental rights definitions common to what we see as
"typical" fundamental rights, seeing as moral judgement is 100% relative.
The only possible way around that is to say that morality, by definition,
derives from living beings and that as such, reflects the basic desire of
life: to survive, and any *necessarily* common things to life-- and perhaps
the right to action, implying a right to choice, if not directly included.
Hmm... Maybe I think that. Hmm... actually, I'm going to propose the above
as theory insofar as I *think* it is *true*, but I won't hold myself to it
seeing as it's unprovable, and I can envision theoretical instances where it
would *not* be true-- I just don't know whether those theoretical instances
are actually conceivable.
Thoughts?
DaveE
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