Why do we have and should we have rights?

[Aznsilvrboy]

I'm talking about natural human rights. A set of inviolable rights that are inherent in every individual and apply to all people. Really, how did people come up with the idea that humans are special and deserve "rights"? Do you agree with this thinking? Conversely, if you do not believe in the sanctity of human life (meaning you think humans are no different than animals), do you necessarily denounce human rights?

EDIT: Please distinguish between legal rights and natural/human rights. Legal rights are an extension of natural rights, but they are not the same.

[Powder + park raider]

dont women have no rights in the middle east?

[zoober]

Wow, are you this naive or just trolling?

If there were no human rights I would come to your house, kick in your door, shoot your computer with a shotgun and pluck the KFC righ out of your chubby little fingers just like that homeless guy did.

[Nettles]

Go work for the illuminati.

[Psubs]

I'm talking about natural human rights. A set of inviolable rights that are inherent in every individual and apply to all people. Really, how did people come up with the idea that humans are special and deserve "rights"? Do you agree with this thinking? Conversely, if you do not believe in the sanctity of human life (meaning you think humans are no different than animals), do you necessarily denounce human rights?

People did so because they were able to write them down and convey them to everyone else of their species. :facepalm:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi

[Aznsilvrboy]

Wow, are you this naive or just trolling?

If there were no human rights I would come to your house, kick in your door, shoot your computer with a shotgun and pluck the KFC righ out of your chubby little fingers just like that homeless guy did.

I'm not arguing against rights. This is about the origins and justification of natural rights. Human rights is a recent invention in the past few hundred years and there are many people who believe humans are no better than animals. I want to hear what they think about it. Don't be stupid.

[BananaHunter]

I strongly support basic rights like the right to basic necessities. What I don't support are "excessive" rights that breed laziness and stifle society's resources. Education is a good example. I think education should simply be "offered" and not be a right. Especially post secondary education. I still recall many students protesting that university education should be a right. This is ridiculous. Success is based on relative merit. If everyone has a degree, it's a waste of society's resources. Health care is also a financially unsustainable "right". Healthcare should not be free. Actually it's already not free. I don't know why people keep saying it is. Going to a hospital may be free but the drugs often aren't. Free healthcare in principal is a health hazard as people are less likely to take better care of themselves. Good health care should be about affordability and accessibility. It should not be a right given at birth.

Certain rights are also dramatically portrayed. I think deep down most people don't give a damn about politics and would be equally happy if they didn't have the right to vote. But I think voting is something that people "should" care more about.

The problem with rights is that once people have it, they will soon take it for granted and expect more rights. An ever increasing amount of rights is not feasible for society.

[007craft]

basic human rights are required in any society. Animals have them too in the more intelligent ones. Without them, like others said, the world would be chaos. Everyone would just go around killing everybody and taking what they want. In fact, society would never have advanced this far. Its no coincidence that technology and society are becoming more advanced as human rights increase. Just think about 800 years ago, when if you tried any sort of science, you were burned at a stake and called a witch. How could we advance with mentality like that?

[DiceMan]

Rwanda, Burma, and Nanking are examples of places where human rights were in short supply and they weren't very pleasant places to be in, I imagine.

I would think it's just the natural state for people (or any intellegent population) to adopt to rights for the wellbeing of all.

[Aznsilvrboy]

basic human rights are required in any society. Animals have them too in the more intelligent ones. Without them, like others said, the world would be chaos. Everyone would just go around killing everybody and taking what they want. In fact, society would never have advanced this far. Its no coincidence that technology and society are becoming more advanced as human rights increase. Just think about 800 years ago, when if you tried any sort of science, you were burned at a stake and called a witch. How could we advance with mentality like that?

I'm talking about natural rights, such as the right to liberty that are thought to be universal and should apply to all people. These are rights that are supposedly not contingent on laws and are universal and inalienable. Modern thinking about natural rights was only within the past few hundred years, yet we already had law and ordered societies long before that. It would seem that it is not necessary to have some of these natural rights in order to have a functional society.

[uber_shnitz]

Well it'd have helped if you'd defined which "natural rights" you were talking about. Right to "freedom" is a vague and ill-defined term to begin with. Freedom to do what exactly? In the US, it's pretty much anything that doesn't infringe on someone else's right to "do whatever they want" I think :lol:

[sylpherware]

I don't really understand your definition of "natural rights". Nothing is naturally given as everything can be naturally taken away at any time.

[Aznsilvrboy]

Well it'd have helped if you'd defined which "natural rights" you were talking about. Right to "freedom" is a vague and ill-defined term to begin with. Freedom to do what exactly? In the US, it's pretty much anything that doesn't infringe on someone else's right to "do whatever they want" I think :lol:

I defined what natural rights are in my first post, I just didn't name any specific ones until now. For the purposes of this discussion we can use the Universal Declaration of Human rights which is adopted by the UN General Assembly:

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

Take this one for example:


(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. (2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Now we know this is not true in many countries and it certainly isn't necessary to have an orderly and functional society. It is simply nice to have, and I do not see how this is a natural right for simply being a human being.

[Tiberius]

I'm talking about natural rights, such as the right to liberty that are thought to be universal and should apply to all people. These are rights that are supposedly not contingent on laws and are universal and inalienable. Modern thinking about natural rights was only within the past few hundred years, yet we already had law and ordered societies long before that. It would seem that it is not necessary to have some of these natural rights in order to have a functional society.

Your attempt to clarify is only highlighting the holes in your basic premise IMHO. You refer to prior history and say certain rights weren't "documented" (and whatnot) and somehow think that means something or matters. Let's just cut to the heart of it.... the point of "humans" defining and declaring each individuals "basic human rights" is to state the obvious... we are all human and no human is necessarily better than any other on that basic point. In the "olden days", in almost every circumstance, a small group of humans attained power, and lorded it over the other humans - thus impinging on their rights. (think Kings and nobles ruling the peasants, etc) Many would argue things aren't really different today....

If you want to extend the point beyond humans and argue do we really have more rights than anything else (animals, etc)... once again, many would say we don't! The majority of humans however clearly do believe we have more rights and that we can use and do to animals as we see fit.

I guess in a strange way, I see your point that some people wring down that "these are natural human rights" doesn't make it so. But, the basic premise of humans having basic rights... to live and exist... that seems clear. Reality is... despite the words being written, none of us really has those rights because we have to live within "society". I can't just do whatever i want, whenever i want. I could try to say that is my right as a human, but ultimately, that isn't going to cut it. So.. we try to raise ourselves up as a species to declare what "should" be true.. the standard we should aim to attain... the all humans have basic natural rights. Human nature seems to ensure some humans exploit others, etc... thus leading to violations of these rights (slavery is an example)

[Aznsilvrboy]

I don't really understand your definition of "natural rights". Nothing is naturally given as everything can be naturally taken away at any time.

You're thinking within the construct of law. This not not about law/legal rights. Natural rights are rights that are inherent to every human being for simply being human and are (should be) inalienable. Of course, we know this is not true and in a lot of countries these rights are absent. Hence, "human rights" violations.

[Aznsilvrboy]

You attempt to clarify is only highlighting the holes in your basic premise IMHO. You refer to prior history and say certain rights weren't "documented" (and whatnot) and somehow think that means something or matters. Let's just cut to the heart of it.... the point of "humans" defining and declaring each individuals "basic human rights" is to state the obvious... we are all human and no human is necessarily better than any other on that basic point. In the "olden days", in almost every circumstance, a small group of humans attained power, and lorded it over the other humans - thus impinging on their rights. (think Kings and nobles ruling the peasants, etc) Many would argue things aren't really different today....

If you want to extend the point beyond humans and argue do we really have more rights than anything else (animals, etc)... once again, many would say we don't! The majority of humans however clearly do believe we have more rights and that we can use and do to animals as we see fit.

It's not about documentation, it's about the difference between rights that the state "grants" you versus the rights that you should have as a human. You admit that so-called "basic human rights" are really a artificial construct and not really "natural" and I actually agree with you. To declare them natural rights seems like a misnomer to me.

[UrbanPoet]

Because we are people.
We have the ability to analyze and reason.
We aren't animals.

If these social instutions never existed, we would be in a society of chaos.

[gman]

You're thinking within the construct of law. This not not about law/legal rights. Natural rights are rights that are inherent to every human being for simply being human and are (should be) inalienable. Of course, we know this is not true and in a lot of countries these rights are absent. Hence, "human rights" violations.

That does not exist unless it is protected by some kind of law.
If there is no legal protection, the one who is stronger has more right than the others just like animal world.

[uber_shnitz]

Well it's been like that for centuries aka humans haev always thought themselves as "more" than the other beings on the planet and as such, we've established a set of "rights" we deserve for being humans, rights that not all other animals get. Whether you want to argue the right or wrongness of this is an interesting way to approach it I guess, but in a way, we're on top of the food chain so we decided the rules of how we deal with others (including ourselves). Does anyone look down on a lion playing with the zebra it's about to eat? No, because as the predator, the lion has made the rules of what happens to those "under" him.

I agree that natural rights are pointless without legal backing of some kind. The reason countries or dictators are accused of infringing "human rights" is because there is no legal backing to these rights in some areas of the world.

[Tiberius]

It's not about documentation, it's about the difference between rights that the state "grants" you versus the rights that you should have as a human. You admit that so-called "basic human rights" are really a artificial construct and not really "natural" and I actually agree with you. To declare them natural rights seems like a misnomer to me.

Essentially, I would say that basic human rights do exist. However, I do not believe they are Respected! Considering that humans are capable of free thought, many choose to not fight for the rights they should have, and instead accept the compromise imposed on them. Often the compromise is unfortunately one that is something like "I will not be free and will serve or else I know I will be killed.". They know what is being imposed on them is wrong, but choose to live with their rights compromised. The basic human right still exists for that individual, and if they suddenly had means to flip things around, they could do so and they could make their prior master their slave - thus proving their right to live a free life always existed and has simply being taken advantage of. So while basic human rights do exist, and pretty much every human would agree to this (the only ones who would tend to not agree would be those in power, and if they suddenly lost power, I'd bet their tune would change!) - in general, humans do NOT end up respecting these rights when given a chance to exploit them for their own personal benefit. Sad, but true.