Blog Archive

Friday, March 2, 2012

What is the basis for rights?

This is a continuation of some of the other previous posts.  But the content stands on its own.

What is the basis for rights?  (framing the question)

Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that we are "endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights"  Can we state this without the appeal to authority? Isn't inalienable rights would be that more so if they are not granted by some force but are instead intrinsic?

It then becomes a question of if we can find a more rational basis for deeming them rights other than considering them intrinsic. For psychological reasons I think that it is important to consider them intrinsic even if they are instead something we developed as a culture. This is because I suspect that they are necessary for flourishing and the danger in considering them mutable is in revoking them at convenience. This is he role that the state takes on to greater or lesser degree with criminals and dissidents. The degree is equivalent to the amount of freedom inherent in that society.

So what else might we ground this idea in? Does it need to be grounded or is it enough to call them immutable and inalienable? Can we assume a natural aspiration to freedom in societies or is it a chance occurrence?
I have suggested before that our ethical intuitions may be evolutionary holdovers in combination with cultural reinforcement. I see no reason here to not continue that idea. In fact, w may have developmental ideas that can point out pitfalls we may encounter in creating true freedom and equality.

Let me be clear that when I refer to things as developmental from the evolutionary point of view that I am attempting to reconcile what we think about our own ethical live with what we know about our past. Additionally I am NOT suggesting that evolutionary heritage should be the basis for morality any more than waiting to see if people die from whatever happened to them should be the basis for medicine. Evolution brought us to culture and its tools, a powerful one called rational thought has developed. We can now discover what we evolved doing and decide if it's worth carrying over. With the admission that some things may be difficult to rid ourselves of without rewriting our biology.

2 comments:

  1. Individuals will vary on what the basis for rights are and often reach that conclusion based on self interest.
    So forms desire, in some, for rights to protect and offer remedy from harmful acts perpetrated upon them and the ones they care for.

    What constitutes something worth fighting for is determined largely by exposure to and acknowledgement of the acts in question and alternatives. What is authority of one man over another if not the ability to have their will prevail. The founding fathers appealed to the will of England but got no where.

    It is an opinion that unalienable rights from a creator are not intrinsic, but Jefferson also identified them as intrinsic, by first stating they are "self-evident".

    "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."
    http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/

    To protect your right to this opinion the Constitution called for strict separations of religions from government. Also, strict separations of powers in the different branches of government, so that their independence would be maintained.

    Jefferson stated: “Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.”

    This notion was explained well in Federalist 51:
    "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions." http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa51.htm

    You wrote: "It then becomes a question of if we can find a more rational basis for deeming them rights other than considering them intrinsic."

    I do not tie the emotions of empathy and compassion strictly to belief in a God. However, when ones actions are devoid of them there is often a rationalization of doing so, that does not necessarily involve religious belief for justification.

    - Josh

    ReplyDelete
  2. I suppose it's important to note that I do not mean to ask what the basis for our individual perception of rights and freedoms. Rather I am attempting to ascertain the origin and source of those rights (if they have one). The critique based on history can at most be said to demonstrate how we achieved our rights. If we suggest the achievement of them is one and the same as their basis, than that should settle matters. It strikes me as somewhat intellectually unsatisfying to rely on that as an answer (this doesn't mean it isn't true).

    My hope is more to defend my own belief that rights arise from our form (possibly any form) of consciousness via a form of participatory self examination. We may have models via game theory, and liberal democracy and the Enlightenment point in a direction of what our rights are or should be.

    My attempts are to stress that at no point is the appeal to authority (whether or gods or governments) needed to found our freedoms. If we wish to base them on a fallacy, my preference is for one that may at least approach a type of tautological self constancy. The rights exist because they do. Rather than rely on an external force that is at best tenuously supported, or possibly doesn't exist.

    ReplyDelete