Are there ANY intrinsic rights or do they differ?

[uppityperson]

due to sociology, custom, etc? Not a copycat but a serious question. Are there any intrinsic rights, whether involving people or not, between people, people and other things, other things, for people, for animals, for things with life, for things, etc etc etc?

[Guaranteed]

1. Yes. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. nt

[uppityperson]

2. I think these should be, but often aren't. Does this mean

they are repressed rights or allowances where they are?

[Guaranteed]

3. They're definitely repressed rights.

In some cases, they're taken away, and rightly, with due process.

[uppityperson]

4. some places they are not considered rights at all.

thinking of places with slavery (whether legal or not), misogynistic countries too.

[Guaranteed]

7. It's just part of "natural law" that Locke and other philosophers

referred to back in the Enlightenment era.

Those rights were given to us by whatever put us here- everyone has them, whether they know about or stand up for them, or not.

[petronius]

5. I think the only truly intrinsic right any living being has

is the right to try and cling to its miserable existence for as long as possible. Everything else is a social construct...

[uppityperson]

8. this is what I was wondering too. Not saying there should be no rights

as there should be, but are there any intrinsic ones or are they all just, at least from humanity's viewpoint, ones that have socially evolved?

Too many days at home leads to cabin fever, laughter at bad copycats and a question in the early night.

[sandnsea]

12. True - but

if a social construct isn't made that conveys rights to the individual - then somebody will come along and create one that doesn't. Since clinging to ones miserable existence can only truly be accomplished with each individual having the right to direct ones own existence, doesn't the intrinsic right to liberty become the more important right and much more than just a social construct?

[petronius]

13. That's why I said "try" - there's no right to actually succeed in the clinging

Basically, my take is that there is no such thing as a 'natural right' except the right to try and stay alive - and the only reason that's a right is that no one can stop you from trying.

The idea that individuals have a right to liberty and the directing of their own existence is hugely important, but that right is socially constructed, and only exists if society agrees it does. (As an aside, I think saying "just a social construct" under-emphasizes the validity of socially created rights - in the absence of real natural rights they're the only ones that matter, and liberty is one of the biggest.)

[sandnsea]

14. If liberty is the basis to survival

Then perhaps that is man's natural state. Animals have liberty, why shouldn't humans?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

6. ahhh, Grasshopper.

a wise question.




(finally!) :)

[uppityperson]

9. next one should be something about humans evolving

socially, psychologically, technologically, as a whole---something along the line of these evolutions and the responsibilities that go along with them. Then, question as to will humans be able to socially evolve to the level of their technological evolving.

[Guaranteed]

10. In my view, thousands of years down the line we'll end up in

basically a communist, totalitarian society, working toward a very real, greater "whole" of us, made up of the nerves of communication facilities (whatever replaces our telephone and power wires of today) and the arteries of freeways... with, of course, our politicians making up the "brain"....

[Trajan]

11. There should be distinctions here ....

As a live being, you have capabilities: You can express ideas and move from place to place .... These abilities are 'intrinsic' to your being a 'normal' human being ....

When we speak of 'rights', we establish the presumption that one of these abilities can be denied by an external agency, in that something is actively applied to a human being that would restrict one of those abilities ... In other words: you can do anything that is humanly possible, unless you are physically restricted from doing so .... You can do anything you want, unless someone stops you ....

A mouth can be muzzled, or it will speak at will ... a body can be incarcerated, or it can move at will ....

The notion of a 'right' is where one can expect NO legally prescribed suppression of the ability to speak or move freely, but such 'rights' are bargained in a society; they are codified through law, and are therefore a human construct .. They can be claimed to be 'intrinsic', but intrinsic abilities can be restricted even if one has a declared 'right' to speak or act in a specific manner ... One would hope that a society allows freedom to speak and act, but there is no explicit 'right' given by nature ... Only abilities ....

Your abilities are intrinsic .... Rights are an abstract, indeterminate idea .... 'Rights' are the result of a social compact ....

[Spider Jerusalem]

15. "Rights" are a social fiction.

The idea of intrinsic or natural rights is a peculiarly Western, and more specifically Anglo-Saxon one--it has its origins in the philosophies of John Locke, in his "Second Treatise on Government" and Thomas Hobbes, in "Leviathan"; these influenced the French philosophers and political scientists of the 18th century, like Voltaire, Rousseau and Montesquieu, who in turn (with Hobbes and Locke) influenced men like Jefferson and Adams. It's only through the success of the American experiment, and through the legacy of centuries of globally dominant Anglo-Saxon political culture, first in the form of the British Empire (itself greatly influenced by Locke, Hobbes, etc. especially by the 19th century Liberals, and with a tradition of "rights" going back through the English Bill of Rights of 1689 and the Magna Carta to before the Norman invasion), and then by the United States, that the concept has been as influential as it has.

[rman]

16. When we put it to practice, it becomes fact.

Even though it won't be perfect.
You're not saying we better not have rights, or that we simply have no rights, do you?

[Spider Jerusalem]

18. No, I'm saying that "rights" only exist...

within the framework of collective social agreement, as a definition of the limits of obligation and freedom in the relationship between citizen and state (or subject and king, as it was originally). They certainly aren't "intrinsic", and they don't and can't exist independent of that social framework.

[jody]

17. No "intrinsic" rights but some "inalienable" rights where

"inalienable" is used to identify certain rights which a free, sovereign people say government cannot limit.

See in wikipedia: Natural Rights, Inalienable Rights, and Human Rights

[jody]

19. “Darwin at the Zoo” is an interesting book review, Scientific American.

“Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved” by Frans de Waal.

They disagree, they discuss, they bicker a little, like all primates and philosophers. They illuminate not only ageless questions of ethics but also current concerns such as the Geneva convention and "why universal empathy is such a fragile proposal," as de Waal writes in his response to his critics. By the end of the book it seems clear that we can no longer look at morality as a sort of civilized veneer on a cold and selfish animal, even though that view goes back long before Darwin went to the zoo. Its origin lies in the Western concept of original sin--when Adam and Eve ate their first apple.