Natural Rights

[Shild]

From viewing the Christianity in America debate, I decided to start this thread.

Question to Debate: How, from an atheistic perspective, can all humans be entitled to certain inalienable, natural rights?

[Shild]

Er, no, because as far as I know, Hitler and Stalin's ideas weren't the one your country was founded on.

So just because I happen to be living in this particular country at this particular time means that I have rights?

This means that someone who happened to live in Nazi Germany had no rights.

And it means that those rights are not inalienable.

The religious point of view is that all are "endowed by their Creator" with certain rights, so it does not matter whose philosophy your government is based upon, citizens are still entitled those rights.

Your point seems to be that everyone should have equal rights because one theory of government says that government is a contract between the people and the leaders. However, I see no reason for anyone to believe this theory is better than the others.

if the rights of other people aren't protected, then your own rights can just as easily be ground underfoot.

Not if you are the "strong." If you are smart, why should you consider the stupid equal to yourself? They obviously are not. If you are powerful, why should you give the weak equal rights?

In reality, however, we recognise that, firstly, for the stability of a community - and thus, expanding upon that, the stability of society - depends on protecting the lives of the people that constitutes it.

Protecting the lives of the productive citizens who make contributions to society, I can understand. But allowing inferior genes and revolutionary ideas to pollute the society hurts stability.

I see no reason for the productive citizens to do anything but be thankful to the government for shipping away the unwanted ones to Madagascar, or sterilizing them, or just killing them.

Edited to add:

Your entire argument is absolutely baffling. It basically assumes mankind can't realise something for itself unless it's told.

No it does not. I am not saying humans cannot determine anything for themselves; I am pointing out the fact that humans are not equal to each other, so there is no reason- short of divine edict- to believe they should have the same rights.

[Corvus]

So just because I happen to be living in this particular country at this particular time means that I have rights?

You should be entitled to them, but not all countries recognise natural rights.

This means that someone who happened to live in Nazi Germany had no rights.

They had rights enumerated by their fuhrer, obviously. But they were entitled to more.

And it means that those rights are not inalienable.

Your rights are alienable now, through due process of the law. So, I suppose, yes, if you could pass a law that bans stupid people, you could take away their rights legally, seeing as that's what you really seem to want.

The religious point of view is that all are "endowed by their Creator" with certain rights, so it does not matter whose philosophy your government is based upon, citizens are still entitled those rights.

And the secular point of view is that, being born free and living, submitting to the will of a government should not alienate the rights that you were born with, which would be a breach of trust. This was one of the ideas behind that evil age of Enlightenment. This was not something that the clergy recognised until they had it thrust upon them, usually through revolution. The idea of human rights can be traced back to Plato, and natural rights can be traced to, yes, the religious writer Thomas Aquinas (not surprising, since they were usually the most educated at the time), though they were expanded upon by the largely atheistic and deistic Enlightenment. Although there were many different ideas behind the Enlightenment, there was a consensus that the combination of reason and personal experience could discover the rules underlying the workings of nature. Although Jefferson decided to go with the "Creator granted" version, the Enlightenment philosophers developed theories of natural law based on reason rather than divine revelation.

if the rights of other people aren't protected, then your own rights can just as easily be ground underfoot.

Not if you are the "strong." If you are smart, why should you consider the stupid equal to yourself? They obviously are not. If you are powerful, why should you give the weak equal rights?

Good question. Considering that the constitution was drafted in 1787, and women, who were perceived to be stupid and weak, weren't allowed to vote in America until 1920, can you tell me why they weren't given what is considered a basic right under the very august Christian constitution in such a wonderful Christian nation?

EDIT: Oh, and not to mention the fact that it wasn't until the 1860s that slavery was abolished and black people allowed to vote. Humanism didn't recognise this either, back when the constitution and bill of rights were drafted, so it is just as culpable. Naturally, recognition of equality (not of strength and intelligence, but as a fellow creature) in the eyes of the law relies on a compassionate, understanding and empathic populace - Christian or atheist. Moral conduct is actually founded on empathy.

To answer your question, natural rights recognises that the act of submitting to the rules of government in exchange for certain benefits is not the same as submitting to a ruler. The governing are only governing through the consent of the governed, thus each have a level of trust extending towards each other. One trusts the other to commit no wrongs against them/society, and vice versa.

Protecting the lives of the productive citizens who make contributions to society, I can understand. But allowing inferior genes and revolutionary ideas to pollute the society hurts stability.

But the very act of giving authority to the government through consent (being apathetic to the rise of government is consent) is a contribution! The government doesn't have that sort of authority since it's operating under the consent of its citizens - yes, even stupid people - until the citizens breach their contract. If the government were able to breach the contract/trust in the relationship between governor and governed, so too could the citizens. It just doesn't make sense. Such an act would be tearing down the pillars of what a government is supposed to represent and invalidating the rule. Who decides what's a revolutionary idea, and who is stupid? If the government had that sort of absolute authority, no one would want to be governed. The choice of being governed would be worse than the choice of dying free. The costs of being governed would be larger than living in hermitage in a remote area, which is why natural rights are inalienable (unless you do something stupid).

[Corvus]

Quoting Rousseau.

THE most ancient of all societies, and the only one that is natural, is the family: and even so the children remain attached to the father only so long as they need him for their preservation. As soon as this need ceases, the natural bond is dissolved. The children, released from the obedience they owed to the father, and the father, released from the care he owed his children, return equally to independence. If they remain united, they continue so no longer naturally, but voluntarily; and the family itself is then maintained only by convention.

This common liberty results from the nature of man. His first law is to provide for his own preservation, his first cares are those which he owes to himself; and, as soon as he reaches years of discretion, he is the sole judge of the proper means of preserving himself, and consequently becomes his own master.

The family then may be called the first model of political societies: the ruler corresponds to the father, and the people to the children; and all, being born free and equal, alienate their liberty only for their own advantage. The whole difference is that, in the family, the love of the father for his children repays him for the care he takes of them, while, in the State, the pleasure of commanding takes the place of the love which the chief cannot have for the peoples under him.

THE strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty. Hence the right of the strongest, which, though to all seeming meant ironically, is really laid down as a fundamental principle. But are we never to have an explanation of this phrase? Force is a physical power, and I fail to see what moral effect it can have. To yield to force is an act of necessity, not of will — at the most, an act of prudence. In what sense can it be a duty?

Suppose for a moment that this so-called "right" exists. I maintain that the sole result is a mass of inexplicable nonsense. For, if force creates right, the effect changes with the cause: every force that is greater than the first succeeds to its right. As soon as it is possible to disobey with impunity, disobedience is legitimate; and, the strongest being always in the right, the only thing that matters is to act so as to become the strongest. But what kind of right is that which perishes when force fails? If we must obey perforce, there is no need to obey because we ought; and if we are not forced to obey, we are under no obligation to do so. Clearly, the word "right" adds nothing to force: in this connection, it means absolutely nothing.

[Wertz]

Corvus is quite right to be quoting Rousseau here. It is with his Discourse on Inequality and other writings that the notion of "natural rights" and "natural law" has its origins.

Rousseau felt that humankind, in its savage state - without laws or ethics - was mean and brutish, prone to competition for the basics of survival. Because people had better success facing threats by banding together, they had the motivation to form societies with collective goals. Civilization and government occurred when a society became so large that not every member of that society knew every other member. Government was "invented" as a contract between the governed and the authorities which governed them. Man was originally willing to give up individual freedom and be ruled by others only because they saw that their rights, happiness, and property would be better-protected under a formal government rather than an anarchic, every-man-for-himself type of society.

Rousseau observed that such governments were seriously flawed. The most powerful members of society tended to govern, institutionalizing their power and instilling a permanent state of inequality. This would be true of all theocracies and divinely sanctioned monarchies, traditionally collaborations between the church and the state. Those not adhering to the true faith were tolerated at best, though more likely persecuted and exterminated. Those failing to recognize the divine right of kings and the spiritual superiority of the ruling class seldom had the option of even being tolerated. This was government directed by the theistic perspective - with virtually no recognition of universal or individual rights.

Rousseau, on the other hand, felt that rather than have a government which protects the wealth and the rights of the powerful few, government should be based on the rights and equality of everyone. If a government does not properly see to the rights, liberty, and equality of all, he argued, that government has broken the social contract that provides its political authority in the first place.

With the input of Voltaire, such rights came to be thought of as "natural". In nature, Voltaire argued, man had personal integrity and individual freedom, as opposed to the restrictions artificially placed by "civilized" governments. Natural law (in the socio-political, rather than the legal or scientific sense) is essentially "do what you will - so long as what you are doing does not impinge on anyone else doing what they will". Natural law is internal, individually realised, and motivated by preserving a social contract under which all people can thrive. Divine law, on the other hand, is external, collectively imposed, and motivated by preserving the artificial imposition of what the ruling class feels is "right" or "wrong": including religious observances and adhering to various "commandments".

Lysander Spooner, the nineteenth century legal theorist, codified the notion of "natural law" as censuring only acts of coercion against other individuals rather than so-called "criminal acts" that violated only man-made laws - whether "divinely inspired" or not. The notion of inalienable, natural rights could not be further from the strictures of "moral law". Natural law and natural justice all depend on immanence rather than design. Natural rights can be enumerated but they cannot be granted or limited - only violated or secured. They can be defined, not by "what God wants", but by what benefits society as a whole without restricting the rights of any of its individuals. It has nothing whatsoever to do with theology, which is often diametrically opposed to freedom.

Let me ask you, Shild, how anyone who subscribes to Judeo-Christian theology can believe in certain inalienable, natural rights - especially when some of those rights, like that of worshipping whatever god or gods one desires (or no god at all) or exercising free speech by blaspheming, directly contravenes those beliefs?

[Shild]

Let me ask you, Shild, how anyone who subscribes to Judeo-Christian theology can believe in certain inalienable, natural rights - especially when some of those rights, like that of worshipping whatever god or gods one desires (or no god at all) or exercising free speech by blaspheming, directly contravenes those beliefs?

Neither this question nor its answer belongs on this thread.

Good question. Considering that the constitution was drafted in 1787, and women, who were perceived to be stupid and weak, weren't allowed to vote in America until 1920, can you tell me why they weren't given what is considered a basic right under the very august Christian constitution in such a wonderful Christian nation?

EDIT: Oh, and not to mention the fact that it wasn't until the 1860s that slavery was abolished and black people allowed to vote. Humanism didn't recognise this either, back when the constitution and bill of rights were drafted, so it is just as culpable.

This does not belong either.

If you want to discuss where Christian belief in natural rights come from, or the rightness/wrongness of theocracies, by all means do it. But not here.

I would appreciate it if focus could be kept on the question at hand.

Now then, back to topic:

The argument from Rousseau and Company (RAC) seems to be that humans started out as individuals struggling alone against their environment. Therefore, they grouped together, for safety in numbers. These groups needed leadership, so governments formed.

The purpose of these groups was to keep the species alive, and larger groups had a much greater chance of survival, so this "social contract" arose -the government protects individual safety and rights so the individuals stay and continue to contribute to society. This contract, RAC argue, translates through time to all governments, so that if a modern government infringes on the rights of individuals, it is failing to uphold its end of the covenant.

My problem:
First of all, RAC were only hypothesizing. They existed before modern systematic studies of genetics, psychology, sociology, and anthropology which can yield more definite insights into the early development of human society. In this way, they are like Ptolemy theorizing about the structure of solar systems before the modern study of astronomy.

RAC's assumption is that humans formed societies through cognition ("Because people had better success facing threats by banding together, they had the motivation to form societies with collective goals."). However, scientists now know that, like wolves and gorillas, humans are social creatures because they were born that way. They did not decide to group together; they did because it was what their instincts told them to do.

Now, assuming that humans' continued growth from small tribes into large through cognition, and therefore did form this covenant with government, the idea is so ancient that "antiquated" is an understatement. The purpose of this contract mentality of early humans, assuming it existed, was that government would ensure the welfare of society by making sure as many people as possible were alive and able members of society, and this meant protecting the individual members were safe.

Now, however, humans have little need for safety in numbers. Even if this social contract were a real phenomenon, and did translate to modern governments, the governments duty remains not to keep as high a population as possible, but to serve human society. Nowadays, human society is plagued by revolutionaries whose ideas pose an active threat to society, criminals who prey on honest contributors to the economy, fools whose idiocy causes terrible accidents, louts who are useless to society, and infirms whose genetic or otherwise incurable diseases can only harm more and more people. If government made a covenant with the people to work in the best interest of society, it is not doing a very good job. If government made a covenant to hold on to every member, even at the expense of the general welfare, then I see no problem.

Besides which, what good are feelings like empathy compared with empiricism? "Altruistic" feelings, from a naturalistic perspective, arose because they helped our sub-human ancestors survive. Now humans have the power to assist evolution by weeding out inferiors, thus greatly improving society.

As for the claim that government rule is based on the consent of the governed, there is no reason this has to be so. To say "this government is right because the people support it" is invalid because a huge number of people in any given modern country are either too unintelligent/ignorant/apathetic to have any idea whether a government's actions are in society's best interest or not actually supportive of the government at all.

People can technically rebel when the government does not endorse this "natural rights" philosophy, but monarchies/oligarchies/aristocracies have been the rule in history, and egalitarian ones the exception. Commoners can rebel against any government, but they almost never do.

Disclaimer: I do not endorse any of these "helping evolution along" policies. I am bringing them up in order to ask how they can be wrong from a naturalistic perspective.

[Wertz]

Let me ask you, Shild, how anyone who subscribes to Judeo-Christian theology can believe in certain inalienable, natural rights - especially when some of those rights, like that of worshipping whatever god or gods one desires (or no god at all) or exercising free speech by blaspheming, directly contravenes those beliefs?

Neither this question nor its answer belongs on this thread.

Nice evasion. While posing the virtual opposite by way of demonstrating that your question is tenuous at best was a perfectly valid rhetorical response, you seem determined to dictate the rules of engagement here. Very well, then, let me rephrase my question as a statement, answering your rather tautological question: How, from an atheistic perspective, can all humans be entitled to certain inalienable, natural rights?

It is self-evident that only an atheist or someone subscribing to a religion without a strict behavioral code based on theological morality could hold the opinion that all humans are entitled to certain inalienable, natural rights. Clearly many of those rights - at least as delineated in, say, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - directly contradict, for example, Biblical scripture.

If you are unwilling (or unable) to defend what is obviously your position, perhaps you should create a thread next time with a title which is a bit more narrow than "Natural Rights".

The theorizing of "Rousseau and company" (which would include not only Voltaire, but equally antiquated figures like Hume, Locke, Franklin, and Jefferson) was not a matter of hypothesis, but of forming a political and philosophy. To dismiss their insights on the basis of the historical period in which they lived is absurd. The natural rights in which they believed and on which they based their ideas of just government had nothing to do with genetics, psychology, sociology, or anthropology, but with a system of ethics based on their own inspiration and thought. It's like dismissing the teachings of the carpenter Christ on the grounds that we now have power tools. Indeed you might just as well dismiss the philosophy of Plato, Seneca, St. Augustine, Ockham, Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, Kierkegaard, Hegel, Nietzsche, Russell, Heidegger, Sartre, Wittgenstein, Merleau-Ponty, Feyerabend - and anyone else, I suppose, who hasn't read this month's issue of The New Scientist.

The idea of individual liberty as opposed to yielding to the will of cardinal or king was revolutionary whether the anthropological notions of the philosophes took chaos theory and dynamic systems into account or not. Subsequent developments in any of the fileds you rather randomly nominated have nothing whatsoever to do with discrediting the political philosophy of the Enlightenment - which was, after all, the very philosophy which inspired the founders of the United States.

The rest of your posting, ironically prefaced with "back to topic" - encompassing a fear of revolutionaries, criminals, fools, louts, and the infirm, a subsequent homage to eugenics, an apparent critique of government by consent, and the pointless observation that egalitarian governance is the exception compared to, say, a few thousand years of theocracy - does not in any way address the question of inalienable rights from an atheistic perspective.

In short, it does not belong on this thread.

You are quite right, by the way, to exclude Aquinas and his notions of "natural" law (as opposed to "supernatural" or "divine" law) from this debate. Apart from the Catholic hierarchy, it has nothing at all to do with inalienable rights as defined in the foundation documents of the modern world and modern governance.

[Corvus]

Disclaimer: I do not endorse any of these "helping evolution along" policies. I am bringing them up in order to ask how they can be wrong from a naturalistic perspective.

But it's not a "helping evolution along" policy. There is no creature alive today that is not currently suited to its environment. Is intelligence even an hereditary trait?

However, scientists now know that, like wolves and gorillas, humans are social creatures because they were born that way. They did not decide to group together; they did because it was what their instincts told them to do.

That may be true, but a hunter or gatherer can still leave their community or be ostracised. Their instinct isn't going to stop them if they feel they could lead a better life elsewhere.

Now, however, humans have little need for safety in numbers. Even if this social contract were a real phenomenon, and did translate to modern governments, the governments duty remains not to keep as high a population as possible, but to serve human society.

What's the difference? Utilitarianism suggests that doing good is giving the geatest happiness to the greatest number of people. Human rights, according to the Greek philosophers, were self-evident. So they assumed they were universal. They became universalised when the concept was brought to Rome and the jurist Ulpian believed these rights belonged to every person, Roman citizen or not. But they aren't universal, per se.

Now, I'll answer a question I proposed to you earlier that you had the presence of mind to evade.

Let me ask you, Shild, how anyone who subscribes to Judeo-Christian theology can believe in certain inalienable, natural rights - especially when some of those rights, like that of worshipping whatever god or gods one desires (or no god at all) or exercising free speech by blaspheming, directly contravenes those beliefs?

Neither this question nor its answer belongs on this thread.

Good question. Considering that the constitution was drafted in 1787, and women, who were perceived to be stupid and weak, weren't allowed to vote in America until 1920, can you tell me why they weren't given what is considered a basic right under the very august Christian constitution in such a wonderful Christian nation?

EDIT: Oh, and not to mention the fact that it wasn't until the 1860s that slavery was abolished and black people allowed to vote. Humanism didn't recognise this either, back when the constitution and bill of rights were drafted, so it is just as culpable.

This does not belong either.

The reasons, of course, are, because human/natural rights are self evident, their exact definition changes as our understanding of the world changes. In Ancient Grece and Rome, although they may have recognised the right of foreigners to own property and to not be murdered - unless in war -, they thought it was perfectly natural to own slaves.

If government made a covenant to hold on to every member, even at the expense of the general welfare, then I see no problem.

The essence of the argument is that they made a covenant to protect its present citizens. Just how much it should protect is open to question. It can protect people from harm, from themselves, from foreign invaders, from immoral influences, from financial crisis, from unemployment. What it should protect people from isn't entirely clear, but it's assumed that the basics are "harm, loss of property, and loss of liberty".

As for the claim that government rule is based on the consent of the governed, there is no reason this has to be so. To say "this government is right because the people support it" is invalid because a huge number of people in any given modern country are either too unintelligent/ignorant/apathetic to have any idea whether a government's actions are in society's best interest or not actually supportive of the government at all.

The very act of being a citizen of a country is the act of having a tacit agreement with the government. You may not believe it, but it's a concept understood by the people that drafted the constitution.

People can technically rebel when the government does not endorse this "natural rights" philosophy, but monarchies/oligarchies/aristocracies have been the rule in history, and egalitarian ones the exception. Commoners can rebel against any government, but they almost never do.

Refer to Rousseau's words on the subject. Might doesn't necessarily make right. The exception of rebellion does not in any way imply the desire for continued servitude. Most monarchs still understood that by appeasing the populace, their position becomes more tenable. It's also shown that where the unequal distribution of wealth and power occurs, the country goes down the toilet, as in the example of England in the 19th century. Crime and prostitution seem appealing to those who don't have much more to live for. The situation became so bad, convicts had to be shipped to Australia and America. I wouldn't call it a success when being able to walk the streets of your own country becomes a far too costly luxury, with the expense being life, limb or purse.

Besides which, what good are feelings like empathy compared with empiricism? "Altruistic" feelings, from a naturalistic perspective, arose because they helped our sub-human ancestors survive. Now humans have the power to assist evolution by weeding out inferiors, thus greatly improving society.

If that was true, communism would seem like a viable alternative. But it isn't. Humans are flawed beings that possess emotions they find difficult to suppress. For that reason, emotion should be factored into the equation. You simply can't kill off a large part of the population without heavy social ramifications. Also remember that stupidity and disease isn't always hereditary.

[Corvus]

RAC's assumption is that humans formed societies through cognition ("Because people had better success facing threats by banding together, they had the motivation to form societies with collective goals."). However, scientists now know that, like wolves and gorillas, humans are social creatures because they were born that way. They did not decide to group together; they did because it was what their instincts told them to do.

Er, why do you think that they were born that way? Obviously, for protection and for increasing the chances of self-preservation.

[littlesoul]

Life without God, i.e. atheism, is simply 'polished animalism', and rights are given accordingly.

Huh? The distinguishing feature of humanity is the proprensity for religion, the cultivation of love of God. Animals eat, we eat; animals mate, we marry or just do it..; animals sleep, we sleep; animals defend themselves, we do too. Religion is a higher order activity that defines and nourishes humanity.

Without aknowledgement of the important of the Origin of Everything in our lives, even the most fantastic moral and ethical system is sure to crumble and fial due to being foundationless. It is simply an attempt at ethics & morality, like a pre-schooler attempts making a house (out of plastic blocks).

In an animalistic (atheistic) society, the 'Law of the Jungle' prevails, - "Might makes right." Quarrel, hypocracy, exploitation and degradation follow naturally. Without an Absloute, unchanging reference point, some 'mighty' anmimal is sure to come along and assert him or her self over the existing construct. People even try to do that over God-given systems!

If society's leaders are genuinely Godly, then the whole society can be uplifted. In such a civilization, the ungodly naturally would have fewer rights, but because the majority are Godly, they're not treated too badly.

Godliness and God-lessness are seen in practical action.....

[Dilettante]

Interesting thread...
But no-one has been able to explain where those "natural rights" come from. Bentham said that natural law was nonsense on stilts. Perhaps he was right?

Maybe there is no such thing as natural rights. The notion of a "right" is a cultural one, not natural. Where would these "natural" rights be written? In the hearts of humans? In the starry sky? On some golden tablets?

Instead of natural rights or human rights (which, in the absence of a world government, cannot be enforced), we should call them "ethical principles" because that's what they really are. Maybe if we think about them that way we'll find it easier to decide what their origin is.
littlesoul wrote:

Huh? The distinguishing feature of humanity is the proprensity for religion

...don't forget language...don't forget reason...don't forget morality/ethics.

If society's leaders are genuinely Godly, then the whole society can be uplifted

littlesoul, don't forget that all theocracies have failed. A "government of the Godly" is the most horrible form of tyranny I could imagine. No other government could do evil with a cleaner conscience!