Do you believe in natural rights?

[Joe McCarthy]

Here is Jeremy Bentham's classic statement on the question from Anarchical Fallacies:


All men are born free? All men remain free? No, not a single man: not a single man that ever was, or is, or will be. All men, on the contrary, are born in subjection, and the most absolute subjection--the subjection of a helpless child to the parents on whom he depends every moment for his existence. In this subjection every man is born--in this subjection he continues for years--for a great number of years--and the existence of the individual and of the species depends upon his so doing.

Bentham further contended that the right to rebel cut to the core of legitimacy, as to question a state's authority was to welcome anarchy, as no state could be seen to to have a safe basis to rule. I'm particularly interested though in what others here think of the rights question as it relates to property. This was most famously articulated by John Locke with the labor theory of property. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_property)

[Blood Trinity]

Just one: Might.

[Equinox]

“Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense — nonsense upon stilts.” - Jeremy Bentham

Though it is this belief in rights that has kept the American fascination with forms of Libertarianism going all this while.

[Óttar]

hWiBt-pqp0E

[anonymaus]

re: Locke--and Rousseau's criticism of his proposal, per Rand:

"the right to property is a right to action, like all the others: it is not the right to an object, but to the action and the consequences of producing or earning that object. It is not a guarantee that a man will earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it. It is the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values."

Anyone not wallowing in the roiling emotional pit of torture known as subjectivism would accept the concept of property rights as "natural", insomuch as they are required as the foundation for the exercise of all other rights and stem from their indispensability in man's ability to survive unmolested.

[Equinox]

re: Locke--and Rousseau's criticism of his proposal, per Rand:

"the right to property is a right to action, like all the others: it is not the right to an object, but to the action and the consequences of producing or earning that object. It is not a guarantee that a man will earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it. It is the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values."

Anyone not wallowing in the roiling emotional pit of torture known as subjectivism would accept the concept of property rights as "natural", insomuch as they are required as the foundation for the exercise of all other rights and stem from their indispensability in man's ability to survive unmolested.

The action of producing or earning object X = possession of object X.

I contest that property rights are distinct from the concept of natural rights. A person can believe in property rights, but should he not have a place of his own to stand, then it matters not whether he holds this belief or not. That which is not his own is simply someone else's. And no man with half a brain would leisurely tread through another man's property without any fear of being molested for doing so. To think otherwise is idiotic. Property is, and always will be, seen as a extended concept of the self.

[SwordoftheVistula]

True rights are natural, as they would exist in a state of nature absent any artificial structures and constraints. With no artificial constraints to restrain freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of contract, freedom to use one's property as one wishes, etc, these rights would exist, so they are natural.

Modern day bogus 'rights' don't count, such as the 'right to [free] housing' (provided by others), 'right to [free] health care' (provided by others), 'right to [free] education' (provided by others), 'right to [free] food' (provided by others), 'right not to be offended'

[Equinox]

True rights are natural, as they would exist in a state of nature absent any artificial structures and constraints. With no artificial constraints to restrain freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of contract, freedom to use one's property as one wishes, etc, these rights would exist, so they are natural.

Modern day bogus 'rights' don't count, such as the 'right to [free] housing' (provided by others), 'right to [free] health care' (provided by others), 'right to [free] education' (provided by others), 'right to [free] food' (provided by others), 'right not to be offended'

SotV,

If I owned a plot of land next to your plot of land and whilst stood upon my plot of land kept yelling at the top of my lungs what an absolute tit you are, what do you think would happen? What say I made a contract with all other owners of land next to your own and together we kept baiting you?

People will constantly press the boundaries until someone snaps. Who then is moral? What place do rights have here, if any?

[Blood Trinity]

Anyone not wallowing in the roiling emotional pit of torture known as subjectivism would accept the concept of property rights as "natural", insomuch as they are required as the foundation for the exercise of all other rights and stem from their indispensability in man's ability to survive unmolested.

This paints human nature with an overly optimistic brush. Such a mentality is proving to create a scenario in which ethno-culture, a healthy biosphere and just about everything else is for sale, namely those things I and others on here for obvious reasons consider worth preserving. There are higher values for us to grasp. Furthermore I feel this view of objectifying everything is not only a spiritual dead end street, but is ironically proving to gradually molest man as a whole and threaten our survival. When everything is reduced to the concept of physical property, as in a commodity that can be bought and sold, you have those who do not care about things organic, natural, and cultural. They simply do not care about the impact of ecological destruction for example on anything more than a short-term basis (how it will effect their pocketbook before their own miserable demise).

[Joe McCarthy]

Originally Posted by Equinox
The action of producing or earning object X = possession of object X.


Yes. It's correct to say that owning property is a function of the will to live, and it has utilitarian value. That's a long way from establishing that it's a natural right though.

[Joe McCarthy]

Originally Posted by SwordoftheVistula
True rights are natural, as they would exist in a state of nature absent any artificial structures and constraints.

Is there a right to life in the state of nature? A right, it seems to me, implies some means of applying legal sanction to enforce its protection. It would help if you clarified just what you mean by state of nature as well. If it's in the sense Rousseau meant it, that is in terms of primitive tribal groupings, then things such as free speech are by no means automatically assured.


freedom of contract, freedom to use one's property as one wishes,

This rather highlights what I'm getting at. Both contract and property necessitate enforcement to have any meaning. Being able to enforce contracts through arbitration or litigation is by no means 'natural' in the sense you seem to be using it. At a minimum it requires a nightwatchman state to insure contract enforcement.

[Psychonaut]

I think Equinox is on the right track here. The idea of a right as such requires that said right, X, is defined in terms of a relation to those external forces and subjects with whom the bearer of the right interacts. So, taking the example of property, the right to own property cannot be equated to mere possession, it must take into account the natural and social web within which the alleged owner exists. What this does is make all such "rights" wholly contingent. Whether or not you consider a contingent right to be natural hinges on your definition of that term. But, I don't think that the contingency of relational rights really jibes with the Founders' notion of natural rights as inalienable.

[Óttar]

Just one: Might.
That's just it. Natural rights? Just what 'rights' has nature prescribed to us? The right to be eaten by rivals? The right to get big and clobber others on the head? 'Rights' are imaginary, and only real insofar as they function within a community. They cease to be real when another tribe clobbers you over the head, rapes your woman, eats your children, or otherwise governs or extracts tribute from you.

'Nuff said.

[anonymaus]

What this does is make all such "rights" wholly contingent. Whether or not you consider a contingent right to be natural hinges on your definition of that term.

To hustle the conversation along: natural in the sense that they are required for the survival of man as an individual amongst other men; in other words, required for man to live as a human being.

I have never heard a serious person, in our age, suggest any right is "given" us by forces natural or supernatural. That would be very silly.

[Joe McCarthy]

Originally Posted by Anonymaus
To hustle the conversation along: natural in the sense that they are required for the survival of man as an individual amongst other men; in other words, required for man to live as a human being.


Such things vary by culture, and thus are contingent. I'm unfamiliar with any natural rights theorist though who infuses such relativism into the equation.


I have never heard a serious person, in our age, suggest any right is "given" us by forces natural or supernatural. That would be very silly.

Well, we have Nozick, an atheist, who conceptualized natural rights in purely secular terms assuming that man's moral sense is sufficient to establish the reality of natural rights, but then the moral sense is in large measure culturally determined as well.

[Psychonaut]

To hustle the conversation along: natural in the sense that they are required for the survival of man as an individual amongst other men; in other words, required for man to live as a human being.

But, there are a great many things which are required for survival that are, even in our right-happy society, not considered natural rights. You must have food to survive, but do you have a right to food? You can say that you have a right to attempt to procure food and that whatever the fruits of your labor are you have a right to them, but in what sense is such a state of affairs really a right? For, it seems that the very idea of a right necessitates a universal standard from which the particular situation is judged. Like, when we talk about my right to the potato that I dig out of the ground, I can only be said to have a right to it insofar as the structure within which I am operating permits me to behave as such—which comes down to a might makes right kind of foundation. And, if that's the case, why parade such rights, which are ultimately contingent upon their defensibility by the bearer and/or his social network, as natural?


I have never heard a serious person, in our age, suggest any right is "given" us by forces natural or supernatural. That would be very silly.

Indeed, which is why the ethics of the American Right, both Neo and Paleocon, often come across as completely absurd, being rooted in what is essentially a positive variant of divine command (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_command).

[anonymaus]

But,

I don't want to get sucked into a centrifugal philosophy-student circlejerk.


Indeed, which is why the ethics of the American Right, both Neo and Paleocon, often come across as completely absurd, being rooted in what is essentially a positive variant of divine command (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_command).

I totally agree. My position is that their ideas are equally unfounded and unsustainable as that of the rest of the popular Western spectrum as a whole; although it is worth differentiating that I think their ideas are--very generally speaking--less functionally dangerous to society than that of the current left.

[Psychonaut]

I don't want to get sucked into a centrifugal philosophy-student circlejerk.

Don't lie, Anon. You know you want some of this:

http://htmlgiant.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Clio-CircleJerk-751056.jpg.jpeg

[SwordoftheVistula]

SotV,

If I owned a plot of land next to your plot of land and whilst stood upon my plot of land kept yelling at the top of my lungs what an absolute tit you are, what do you think would happen?

Naturally, you have the right to prevent others from projecting sound, light, etc onto property you own, just as you would have the right to repel any physical intrusion.

[Debaser11]

Naturally, you have the right to prevent others from projecting sound, light, etc onto property you own, just as you would have the right to repel any physical intrusion.

Right. There have actually been all sorts of court procedings about this type of thing. I think one U.S. Supreme Court case (it might have only been apellate) involved a man who went up to his fenceline and began making certain calls into the air to get ducks that were habitating on his neighbor's property to fly up into the air so he could then shoot them and claim them.

What the man did feels wrong. And that's not insignificant. We all know it even if we try to hyper-rationalize the matter. There's something about the "gotcha" scenario that doesn't feel just and this gut feeling we have can be analyzed, sorted out, and addressed in a sensible manner. Obviously intent comes into play. You can't use your property with the intent to cause detriment to someone else's property. It's the same reason I can't buy property all around you and box you in. There are easements and such things are not just arbitrary manifestions to a prop up property (though you may have deeper philosophical reasons for disagreeing with property rights or natural rights). But these matters have been fleshed out by wise men and just because sorting the ordeal out is tedious, doesn't mean that the concept of property is unfounded because of an example like that.

[Equinox]

Naturally, you have the right to prevent others from projecting sound, light, etc onto property you own, just as you would have the right to repel any physical intrusion.

What?

Two scenarios:

1) A car drives down the road next to your house during the night. It has lights on and they shine through your window. To you this would be a violation of your rights?

2) A person is mowing their lawns on a sunny day further down the street. Sound traveling how it does, it bounces off other inanimate objects, but inevitably reaches your property. This would be a violation of your rights too?

You will probably scoff at the two scenarios above as being absurd. You might even think to yourself that it would be common sense that these events would be exceptions.

On the one hand these scenarios are absurd due to a conception of rights understood by our own conceptions of common sense; on the other, if common sense has guaranteed such rights, why do we need to discuss them? It shows that common sense is evidently not common or is of very little value. Moreover it underlines rights and rights-based politics as being very subjective and, in my opinion, quite ridiculous.

[Debaser11]

What?

Two scenarios:

1) A car drives down the road next to your house during the night. It has lights on and they shine through your window. To you this would be a violation of your rights?

What is the intent of the person with the lights? Is it to deprive you of enjoying your property or is it so he can see where he's going?


2) A person is mowing their lawns on a sunny day further down the street. Sound traveling how it does, it bounces off other inanimate objects, but inevitably reaches your property. This would be a violation of your rights too?

It could be depending on the intent. If the person's intent is simply to maintain his property, then doing so according to the reasonable man standard would seem to justify the action of cutting one's lawn.

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


You will probably scoff at the two scenarios above as being absurd. You might even think to yourself that it would be common sense that these events would be exceptions.

On the one hand these scenarios are absurd due to a conception of rights understood by our own conceptions of common sense;

Rights are based on some level of common sense. That is, the justification for certain rights is based on some level of common sense. That doesn't mean every real world scenario surrounding rights presents itself accompanied by an immediately intuitive answer.


on the other, if common sense has guaranteed such rights, why do we need to discuss them?

Well, clearly because making sense of the underlying common sense principles for certain rights can be a huge headache in the real world. If you drop a box of knotted, tangled ribbons in front of me, common sense would tell me that if I wanted them straight, I have to unknot them and sort them out. But actually doing that with my hands is a whole different matter.


It shows that common sense is evidently not common or is of very little value. Moreover it underlines rights and rights-based politics as being very subjective and, in my opinion, quite ridiculous.

Well, most rights-based politicking is BS. But again, the justification behind the right to something like property is common sense even if sorting it out in every real world scenario can be quite a headache.