Where do human rights come from?

[Narz]

Saudi Arabia still reserves the right to take your head off.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Saudi_Arabia

 

[Old Hippy]

Saudi Arabia still reserves the right to take your head off.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Saudi_Arabia

okay we are narrowing it down, can you give an example where someone thinks they should be beheaded...

 

[Narz]

I dunno, try an emo forum maybe or perhaps a particularly hardcore poster on a self-mutiliation board?

 

[Old Hippy]

I dunno, try an emo forum maybe or perhaps a particularly hardcore poster on a self-mutiliation board?

thats kinda my point, you don't find people like this. People talk about 'rights' to do bad stuff to other people, rights are something all people have and think it should apply to them and others too...

take the US, it wants to kill people (murders), but the murders fight tooth and nail to stay alive, leading to 20 year long legal battles. the right to execute people will not be found on any 'human rights list'

to me you were confusing what people can get away with in law to do to other people, with what other people call rights, people do bad things, some people want to and do execute them, still falls short of a right, just makes it possible and legal

 

[Souron]

Think back to 20,000 years ago.

The only rights back then humans had back then were any rights afforded to them by their tribe. It would be easy enough to imagine humans alive at the time with no rights at all.

Human rights were exactly the same 20,000 years ago as they are today by definition. They are natural, inalienable rights. The fact that we've only recently started enumerating them is of no consequence.

If 20,000 years ago isn't long enough, go back to 100,000 years ago.

At some point 0 rights exist. Then at some point they are brought into existence here and there, by humans.

Only in so far as you need 2 humans to start applying morality. But even before that you could say there was morality, it just didn't apply to anyone who's not a hypothetical.

 

[Narz]

We're not discovering morality, we're creating it.

I don't see why people think morality has to be this mystical thing.

 

[timtofly]

I would say that some are inalienable. However some are man made. You cannot just go granting rights, then they are just laws to be observed and not actual rights.

 

[Narz]

So rights are made by God, laws by man?

 

[Souron]

We're not discovering morality, we're creating it.

I don't see why people think morality has to be this mystical thing.

Morality is different from other fields of knowledge because of the process by which we judge it. We don't aproach it scientifically most of the time, so it's unlike the study of nature. We argue about first principles, so it's not very like mathmatics or logic, which must agree on axioms to begin. It is widely agreed to be much more important than any question of aesthetics. Also unlike aesthetics, it can be argued about. Everyone has a moral compass, automatically granting the ability to judge the moral merit of any situation.

While I wouldn't call morality "mystical" it does seem to me to be special kind of information.

 

[Souron]

So rights are made by God, laws by man?

Are morals right because God says so, or does God say them because they are right? God doesn't really create a good origin of morality for this reason. You can relabel morality as God, but that doesn't answer any questions of how to judge right and wrong. And if you start ascribing other traits to God you get contradictions and tensions.

 

[Berzerker]

Both, we make up rights just as I said.

How do you define the word right?

We're not discovering morality, we're creating it.

I guess animals, especially complex ones have some semblance of morality (chimps have informal rules of behavior that if violated will be punished, not sure if you can call that morality exactly).

Many critters exhibit a knowledge of right and wrong even though we're designed to eat each other. Life is strange.

Your "right" to live is as valid as people's inclinations to respect it.

then no one has a right to live, or any other right

Think back to 20,000 years ago.

The only rights back then humans had back then were any rights afforded to them by their tribe. It would be easy enough to imagine humans alive at the time with no rights at all.

"Morality" preceded humans, its written into nature. Rights are just a word we use to describe the valid claims of moral authority people may have when associating with each other.

It all depends on whether you think rights are abstractions that have been discovered by human beings, or whether they are fabricated ex nihilo by human beings.

In the first case, human rights are universal truths. In the second case, it would seem that rights are human fictions.

(I guess I could have expressed that better somehow.)

That was well said. Rights derive from "universal" truths. There are murderers in the world but no one wants to be murdered. The latter is "universal"...

they were not brought into existence but found to exist, so were recognized here and there by humans as rights...

This...too

Morality is different from other fields of knowledge because of the process by which we judge it. We don't aproach it scientifically most of the time, so it's unlike the study of nature. We argue about first principles, so it's not very like mathmatics or logic, which must agree on axioms to begin. It is widely agreed to be much more important than any question of aesthetics. Also unlike aesthetics, it can be argued about. Everyone has a moral compass, automatically granting the ability to judge the moral merit of any situation.

While I wouldn't call morality "mystical" it does seem to me to be special kind of information.

 

[timtofly]

So rights are made by God, laws by man?

There are inalienable laws and there are laws made by men. Inalienable does not mean "of God". It means they just exist within the human condition. Morals only exist in the human condition because they deal with human behavior.

What behavior does a rock have? God is not a human, and may or may not have behavior. Behavior only exist within the human experience and how non-humans and other humans interact in that experience. Not withstanding all living things exhibit their own unique behavior, and we expect non-living things to continue behaving in a like manner as they always have.

Humans do not come with a comprehensive set of knowledge, nor do they come as blank malleable brains. IMO humans know right from wrong from birth. That is the knowledge humans use to figure out what they do and who they are the rest of their lives. If children never learn that this knowledge is theirs and cannot be given or taken away, then they never thrive on their own, but are continually dependent on the whims of others. On the other hand if such knowledge is not tempered with restraints, the end results of that human's life may end in tragedy and detrimental to the welfare of other humans.

Spoiler :

If you want to go the God route, then they came from the forbidden fruit. If you are a naturalist, they must have evolved in the DNA.

 

[Narz]

Morality is different from other fields of knowledge because of the process by which we judge it. We don't aproach it scientifically most of the time, so it's unlike the study of nature. We argue about first principles, so it's not very like mathmatics or logic, which must agree on axioms to begin. It is widely agreed to be much more important than any question of aesthetics. Also unlike aesthetics, it can be argued about. Everyone has a moral compass, automatically granting the ability to judge the moral merit of any situation.

People with certain brain abnormalities (like sociopaths) don't have much of a moral compass at all.

And the moral compass certainly doesn't work "automatically". It requires training. Certainly most people (and even monkeys who have been studied to react empathicly to other monkeys in pain, etc.) have innate moral instincts.

Anyway, we've come a ways from the original rights question. It seems clear to me that rights come from society. We had to have the civil rights movement to get civil rights. They didn't exist before that. Rights don't float around in the ether, there must be fought for. If people let down their guard, rights erode (as they are in the US right now).

While I wouldn't call morality "mystical" it does seem to me to be special kind of information.[/QUOTE]

 

[Old Hippy]

Anyway, we've come a ways from the original rights question. It seems clear to me that rights come from society. We had to have the civil rights movement to get civil rights. They didn't exist before that. Rights don't float around in the ether, there must be fought for. If people let down their guard, rights erode (as they are in the US right now).

of course they did... read the declaration of independence

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,

self evident, not something they decided upon
then you fought a civil war freeing the slaves... just because people deliberately trample rights does not mean they are not there, yes they have to be fought for but they were in the ether from 1776 for two hundred years, longer if you look at English or French law, the were well spoken of by Spartacus much to the Roman's worry

the reason I harp on, is because if you accept that they are just laws made up by politicians, well they can be changed by politicians just as easily, a regulation here and another regulation there...

 

[Narz]

of course they did... read the declaration of independence

But of course they're not really self-evident, otherwise a declaration wouldn't be necessary.

just because people deliberately trample rights does not mean they are not there

But they aren't there until people realize they have the power to get rights. A child who is abused doesn't know he has the right not to be. Likewise women in places & eras where they were subjugated may not have known that having certain rights was even possible.

the reason I harp on, is because if you accept that they are just laws made up by politicians, well they can be changed by politicians just as easily, a regulation here and another regulation there...

But that's the way the real world works. People have faith in the constitution & their "inalienable rights" all the while it's being ignored.

 

[trader/warrior]

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,

"We hold" being the essential part to me, something to be asserted and maintained by the people. I understand that the principles apply to all people independently of time and place, but before the principle is asserted and maintained it holds the same status as any hypothetical principles such as a right of all blue whales to extra wide seats on airplanes or something. Effectively non-existent.

 

[Old Hippy]

But they aren't there until people realize they have the power to get rights. A child who is abused doesn't know he has the right not to be. Likewise women in places & eras where they were subjugated may not have known that having certain rights was even possible.

now your saying, a child has no right not to be abused, because even in your neck of the woods, most children who get abused don't know their rights, likewise with women your saying they do not know, well a lot of them do know even in the most backward countries, places like Afghanistan in the 90's, many women knew what "human rights' were, and that they were being abused, so what exactly is your point ...

But that's the way the real world works. People have faith in the constitution & their "inalienable rights" all the while it's being ignored.

not when people get active, even in the last couple of months many US politicians have come out in support of gay rights, they have reconsider the arguments that have been going on for 50 years, its a slow process

in the real world Governments ,the UN, journalists, NGO's, and people in general are active making things happen, stuff being ignored, the Constitution is only good for making governments aware of their responsibilities, after all the declaration of Independence sets out 'all men are equal' (based on time honoured principles), before their was a Constitution or Government or laws or even a United States of America, the Constitution does not give you your rights, they are the same rights I have yet not one of them is in the Australian Constitution, because bits of paper don't give you rights, they only list the rights you already have...

 

[AdamCrock]

Subconscious man ..... whether in British accent or not ...

 

[warpus]

I acknowledge your point, but I just do not agree with it, the way I see it, they were not brought into existence but found to exist, so were recognized here and there by humans as rights...

Where did these rights come from though?

Say we're looking at the Earth 2 billion years ago. Are those rights there yet? If so, where did they come from?

If not, when do they arise, and how?

like when I was young, some say gay rights did not exist, they were not brought into existence, we changed how we thought of rights and accepted that they had rights all along

Sure, but they still need to come from somewhere. There needs to be an origin, and since the concept of rights is a human construct, invented by humans, it makes sense for these rights to originate through the mind of a human or a group of humans.

If not, an alternate origin story must be considered, but I can't think of one that makes sense.

 

[AdamCrock]

Lincoln says he figured it out !! ^^

PS. Personally I think the (values) came from within ourselves . We did not need Lincoln to "see" but we are blind still nonetheless - sadly. See the world around You and what do You see ? Justice .... ?!!!! DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH !