Man's Rights

what does it mean to have rights? what are rights, and why do we believe we have them at all? where do they come from, and how can we try to justify their goodness or truthfulness?

many seek to ground rights in society: this is the view that our governments or political organizations are the cause of our rights. others ground rights in religion, claiming that God or higher powers grant us our rights. in both of these cases, we are making the mistake of taking a concrete thing, a right, and trying to derive it from an abstraction (society or God). society is such an abstraction, because fundamentally there exist only individuals. society itself, government included, is the cooperation and contractual agreement between individuals. if it is society that grants man his individual rights, then society holds metaphysical and ethical primacy over the individual; yet this cannot be, since society is formed BY and OF individuals. likewise, trying to ground man’s rights in other-worldly faith-based beliefs is even more irrational, for obvious reasons.

rights may be viewed as grounded with regard to man himself, his natural conditions of existence and the requirements for his survival. as a living being, there are certain actions which man must take in order to assure his survival. the state of being-alive is not the default; it requires constant goal-directed and successful action to maintain. death, or inanimate matter, are the default. these states tend on their own to increase, and we can see this by imagining that an individual simply stops doing anything that is to his benefit, such as eating or drinking. if he ceases all goal-directed action, his state of being-alive will not last long.

therefore, we see that man is a living being which requires successful actions to survive. it is thus that man’s rights may be derived from this fact, the fact of mans concrete existence and of the specific and knowable actions he must make to avoid death. fundamentally, i argue that we can reduce the basic rights to three, and that each of these three themselves is grounded in this prior need for man to sustain his existence via rational thought. as man possesses no instincts for making fire, houses, antibiotics, etc, he must LEARN the actions and behaviors which assure his survival as an individual. (it is important to remember here that individual survival is the fundamental concern; species survival itself is derivative of and dependent on individual survival.)

man must think to survive; he must learn reason, be objective and identify things in his environment sufficiently to effect positive changes within that environment. because of this fundamental fact of his existence, as i stated, we may derive three basic rights directly from this fact:

  1. pursuit of goals/happiness/self interest. man has direct causal control over only one person: himself. because we are only able to control our own actions, we can therefore only be RESPONSIBLE for our actions. moral responsibility ends where control and volition end. further, man survives by a process of rational volition, and no one can think for man other than man himself. the moral imperative for securing individual survival, as well as the requirement of this survival to think, rest only on the individual himself. therefore he has the right to pursue his own goals, self interest and happiness. the right which recognizes man’s control over himself, his right to his life and pursuit of his goals and happiness, is a direct result of the necessary facts of man’s survival.

  2. freedom. freedom is derived from the facts of man’s existence because, as stated, man cannot survive without his mind. he needs to think. and in order to think, man must have the freedom to think without limitation or imposition. the freedom to think is necessary for man to understand his circumstances, contemplate truth and learn new ways of manipulating his environment for his own survival. as a corollary of the freedom of thought, man must be free to translate this thought into action. the freedom of action is necessary to the freedom of thought; if man is incapable of translating his thoughts into action, then his thoughts are robbed of their power, and they become impotent to secure his survival.

  3. property. man’s right to property is derivative of the first two basic rights. man has a right to work towards, and only towards, his own life and his own survival; because of this, man needs to develop shelter, tools, technology. if man discovers or creates something, only to have it taken by theft, he is robbed of his ability to survive; his pursuit of his goals/happiness is undermined, and therefore his basic survival ability itself. futhermore, property rights are also derived from freedom of action, for the same reason: if a man’s tools/wealth/shelter/etc are to be taken at the whims of others, his free action is robbed of its power in the same manner as his ability to pursue his own self interest. while it is true that property rights are necessary for the formation of a just and moral society, this is not why property rights are a basic right. they are a basic right because man creates, he discovers: and he does this for himself, to benefit his survival. all men have the right to retain what they own or produce, and dispose of it as they see fit without theft or coercion. anything less is the violation not only of man’s freedom and pursuit of goals/happiness, but therefore more fundamentally it restricts and robs him of his ability to survive.

from these three basic rights, we can derive all the rest of man’s rights, such as the right to freedom of speech/religion, the right to justice, the right to self defense, the right to equal treatment under the law, etc. but it is the basic rights to pursue his own goals/happiness, think and act freely, and possess inviolable right to his own property that guarantee all other rights; these three themselves are derived from the facts of man’s nature, of his existence, and of the requirements for his survival, namely that he must engage in a process of volitional reason to learn truths about his environment, and translate this knowledge into practical results, in order to fend off predators, resist famines, fight diseases, etc etc etc.

man’s rights are not granted by our government, our society or God. they exist as fundamental facts of our existence, requirements which we must be granted if we are to survive as individuals. in this sense, the proper role of our societies (governments) is to secure and protect these rights. to this extent there does exist a relational component to rights: the power for the practical enforcement of rights, and the power to prevent or punish violations of these rights, is granted to government by its people; by a mandate of the masses, the will of the people. an authority is required to make sure one man’s rights are not violated by another; however, this should not be confused as the SOURCE of man’s rights. government is not the source of rights, it is just the most efficient way we have developed so far to secure our rights from violation by others.

as for man’s rights themselves, they are reducible to, dependent on and derivative from the specific requirements for our survival as thinking, rational beings.

The concept of “rights” only exists in the mind. Rights should properly be called demands. Rights are simply demands to respect rules or barriers upon behavior.

There is no magical force of the universe that prevents a person from violating an other man’s rights.

No.
They “exist” as manifestations of demands for those rights.

Why should the proper role of government be that?
Governments are not the only way to secure and protect rights. They may not even be the best way.


My own “rights” can be protected myself, if I was strong enough or if I could hire enough guards. If I was rich enough to protect my own rights, would it be “proper” for me to get the government to subsidize my wealth by having the tax-payer protect my rights instead???

We invented the concept of “rights” to protect ourselves from harm. Simple as that. This concept is generally quite useful.

why are rights “demands”? a demand is a request that another entity GIVE you something. you cannot rightly demand anything which 1) cannot actually be given, and 2) is already yours, or you may aquire on your own. so you are saying that nature somehow already possesses our means of survival (such as our food?), and that we should ask nature to give these means to us? how do we form this request? viewing rights as demands, as things which we need to ask be given to us, makes no sense whatsoever.

of course it is possible for us to violate each other rights… this proves nothing except that man is fallible, and does not always act morally. no one contests this.

so somehow man makes “demands” of nature, such as food, water, warmth…? but nature is objective and impartial; it makes no sense to demand anything of it. rights are expressions of FACTS of our specific requirements for survival. for example, and as i stated: we must retain a degree of freedom of thought and action, because if this were not possible, we could not think properly to achieve survival in a harsh environment. where in this fact of man’s nature and of his natural tool of survival, his mind, is there anything resembling a “demand”?

of course governments are not the only way to secure and protect rights; i never asserted that they are. once again, no one contests this.


in a free society, anyone should be free to choose whether or not to participate in society. since social membership is contractual and should be beneficial to the individual, if you did not feel that your life was best served by being a member in society, feel free to cancel your citizenship. no one is stopping you.

what do you mean “subsidize your wealth”? individual wealth is not subsidized by government, it is taxed, which is the opposite process. and if you choose voluntarily to cancel your citizenship, then you would no longer submit your property to taxation, just as you would no longer be able to participate in social beneficial activities, such as courts/laws/government programs/public education etc.

rights do not just exist to protect us from harm, although this is one aspect of a right. the other aspect is that rights reflect those things which we must do/have in order to survive.

of course rights are human creations; there can be no such thing as a “right” to anything outside of the human mind/understanding. so in this sense, rights are conceptual constructs. but this does not mean that they are relative or subjective with regard to human nature, and it certainly does not mean that their only function is to protect us from harm. if this were so, there would be no different between a right and a sword.

I think you are significantly underplaying the complexity of the social relationships that exist between individuals and how rights function as a manifestation of those relationships. I think Samuel is correct in a sense to view rights as demands, but only in the sense that they are demands which are recognised by the social groups within which we exist as individuals. For example, none of us have any inviolable right to exist and to believe that is anthropomorphic (the physical world is no great respecter of morality).

i agree that social dynamics are tremendously complex; how does this impact the understanding of basic or fundamental rights? are you making the argument (which could easily be made) that modern new forms of individual survival from within society necessitate new definitions of our basic rights? i could accept this claim, and then it would be left to determine just how survival via modern society alters basic rights of man, or his natural means of survival.

if rights are demands which are recognised by social groups, then who are we making these demands of? and what are we demanding of them?

A recognition of the shifts and changes in (the historicity of) social relationships is important, yes, but it is not the whole story - humanity has never been made up of purely discrete individuals, there have always been relationships between those individuals in some sense. This explains where the notion of rights as demands has its “origin”, if you like, for demands have always been made within the context of social relationships, to make a demand is to request from another; the only difference in the case of rights is that the demands have been abstracted, have been recognised within a broader relational structure.

two questions about this view:

  1. what then is the difference between, say, making the demand of government for lower taxes or better roads, and having a right to low taxes or better roads? if rights are just relational demands, then what distinguishes a right from any old demand, of which there are countless in society. surely you are not claiming that every single demand is a right, in the typical understanding of the term “rights”.

  2. i agree that rights have their practical origin in contextual social relationships; as i stated, it makes no sense to speak of rights if you are isolated from all other people (your rights are still in existence, but they are in a sense meaningless as you already possess those basic rights by default, with no possibility of infringement)… however, why do we have standards by which we judge rights? typically rights are defined as fundamental, powerful, irrevocable, essential. if we say “the right of the individual citizen to live is greater than the right of his dictator to enjoy the pleasure of torturing the citizen to death”, this claim makes no sense without prior standards by which rights are measured and judged. and since these standards exist PRIOR to rights themselves (rights are evaluated with respect to them), is it not these facts, these standards of “goodness”, “rightness” (moral rightness) or “truthness” which are fundamental, and not the rights themselves? are not these prior moral or epistemic evaluations the grounds for rights, as they are that which rights themselves are evaluated by?

Rights are what we wish them to be. They are conceived of as permanent and basic demands.

We do not think of rights as relative - we don;t say we have a right to lower taxes, but to the minimal required. Rights are baseline values. I don;t actually claim this particular right, but it could be a right only if it’s put in absolute terms. So “minimal” and not “lower than”.

The relation I spoke of is not between demands, but between parties. A right is a rule, which a sword is not.

This is a fair question, and one I didn’t consider too carefully in my initial formulation. I suppose, to my mind, it is simply a question of the value that is placed upon particular demands within the society in question - so, for example, the right to life is more fundamental than the right to clean water, which is more important than the right to have your rubbish collected every week. Thus, it’s easy to see how those values could be altered within a different context. It’s a continuum, if you will, but one which recognises, perhaps, a certain hierarchy of needs and values.

I don’t accept that the “standards” or moral injuntions are prior to social relationships, because I believe it is largely in response to social relationships that morality develops. However, I do accept that in a philosophical discussion the relationship between expectations and interactions is difficult to distinguish in its “fundamental” or “originary” form and thus competing interpretations are possible.

yes, there certainly must be a hierarchy of value inherent in any system of moral differentiation, with respect to rights or anything else. however, i contend that rights are not just quantitatively different from demands; they do not just represent “more demanding” demands, on a vague sliding scale. rights are qualitatively different from demands, because rights are guaranteed, they are absolute; others cannot ethically violate our rights. but certainly there is no ethical violation if the garbage man doesnt pick up my garbage (of course there may be a legal one, if you pay him to do so)… rights are non-situational, in the sense that context doesnt matter-- once a right has been defined, it cannot be reduced or infringed for considerations such as “convenience”, “public good”, “pragmatics”, etc.

then we have the classical question: if rights are derived from society, society is paramountly the source of morality; this then seems to entail a cultural relativity with regards to all morality, and traditionally, cultural relativity has problems with an apparent circularity. if rights are grounded in social whim or necessity of the moment, then the concept of individual rights as absolute or objective seems to fail altogether. this seems to mean that anything which society (or the majority of citizens) deems right or good, becomes a basic right for all people in that society. considering the horrible atrocities done in the name of “public good”, or the concept of “rights” as its defined by communist/totalitarian societies, are you really sure that you want to dispense with an objective, prior concept of morality, by which rights are evaluated?

if rights are just for social benefit or social convenience, then it follows that society (defined as the majority of individuals within society – because we have already dispensed with the notion of fundamental, objective moral truths or standards) may determine any standard it sees fit. how can we object to this notion if we believe that “I don’t accept that the “standards” or moral injuntions are prior to social relationships” ?

“Rights” are usually disguised desires. And impress one’s desire upon others as if it’s something more than desire, as if it’s “right”, “good”, “inevitable”, “just”, and so on.

Just like “obligation”, “wealth”, “moral”, “market”, “God”, etc, it’s often used in the illusion based social control.

When people insist on their right, I take it as the indication that they aren’t so happy/satisfied.

I think humans love to decorate their emotion/desire as if they are more than simple feeling.
Religious people glorify and connect things to God and Jesus and “hell”.
Legal people decorate desires with rights and “objection”.
Street people decorate anything with “fuck”.

Yup, we learned to put cloths, and loved so much that we are putting cloths on too many things, and now mistaking and confusing ourselves with the layers of strange clothing.

Whether or not the scale is vague or not depends on the degree of structural complexity in the establishment of rights within the society/community/group and the extent of adherence that they are able to inspire, but just because rights are “guaranteed” by a monopoly of force (a government, usually) does not make them “absolute”: it is always possible for rights to be violated, as any human rights lawyer will tell you. To assume that rights are absolute is just as likely to lead to totalitarianism as a relativistic approach.

Again, you are underplaying the complexity of society, which is not merely a question of “whims” and “necessity” but the structured, non-full, non-simple abstraction of manifest social relationships: the society is the metaphorical space in which the interactions between individuals that make notions of rights intelligible take place. However, that society is not given, it could always be different, and without change then the possibility of resistance or transgression would be foreclosed. In extremely simple terms, rights are relational agreements, yes, but that need not lead to the reductive assumption that “anything goes”. A given society, because it is abstract, can establish its own “absolute” values, but they are never eternal because they remain specific to the society within which they are created. I accept that this is not straightforward, but then neither is life.

Why are they needed for survival? Other species don’t have them and they seem to get along just fine.

No, a demand is a request for anything.
For example: I demand that the burglar refrains from robbing me.

You are changing the argument here. What do you mean by “rightly” here?
For instance: I can “rightly” demand that my security company protects my property from being burglarized because that was stipulated in my contract with them. The “rightly” part means that it was part of an agreement. However, my protection from burglary is only a “right” BECAUSE I made a contract with a security company for the supply of that service.

Nobody else owes me any protection.

No. You have it backwards.
I am saying that there is nothing in nature that prevents the violation of rights. Therefore, it is pure sophistry to present rights as anything other than a demand.

Then, what in the world do you mean when you say: “man’s rights are not granted by our government, our society or God. they exist as fundamental facts of our existence, requirements which we must be granted if we are to survive as individuals. in this sense, the proper role of our societies (governments) is to secure and protect these rights.
?

I am objecting to this because I think you are wrong in both your premise and the defense of your premise.
Incidentally, there is no universally objective reason why your premise is “wrong” per se because it is an opinion. The best that I can do is to poke holes in the logic of your argument. Hopefully, you will also reject your premise but that is a long shot.

Well, that sounds wonderful but most governments – which you deem to be The Almighty Protector – do not let me do that.

My wealth hinges on the protection of my property. If my property is not protected, my wealth goes out the window. As you admit, I have two ways of protecting my wealth:

  1. doing it myself / paying for it privately
  2. depending on the government to be The Almighty Protector
    The latter constitutes a subsidy if I value the protection more than what I pay.

I believe that the richest people in the world would be poverty-stricken if they did not benefit from government subsidies of wealth protection.

yes, this is because other species survive by instinct, not conscious thought. other species do not need to think in the sense that humans do. because of our dependence on the mind, on the willful act of rational thought, there are certain requirements and factors that must exist for humanity to remain able to survive. our tool of survival is not instincts, like other species, it is our mind-- it is volitional, conceptual consciousness; no amount of instinct will teach us the behaviors or knowledge we need to survive.

this is why the right of freedom is necessary for our survival; the degree of our mind’s ability to think and solve problems of survival is the degree of our freedom of thought/action. this is also why property rights are essential, because without guarantee to ownership of ourselves and our property, the mind is robbed of its ability to affect positive changes in the lives of the individual. and ultimately, this is why the right to pursue our own goals for the sake of our own life and no one elses (i.e. rational self-interest/pursuit of happiness) is a basic right: it underlies the other rights themselves. all animals survive by fighting for their personal survival above all else, and in that sense humanity is still no exception.

we must think and act in ways that secure our survival. we are not like other animals, so we cannot survive by the same means as other animals. in order to remain survivable, humanity needs to enact RIGHTS, i.e. mental constructs or concepts that embody and establish the conditions we need to use our mind. because without the mind, we are without a tool of survival; without the mind, we cannot survive.

In a peaceful an more or less intelligent community, you don’t have to scream about “right”. You can simply talk and negotiate and agree.

The existence and development (or complexity) of the concept like “right” means people in the given community are still fighting/bullying over things rather than agreeing in a civilized manner.

Right is needed by people with greed/lust (but without enough tact/intelligence/civility/etc), IMO.

try explaining your concept of rights to a holocaust survivor, or a citizen in a communist regime… see what they say.

Thank you. Without government, you’re either a warlord or you’re poor.