Philosophy: Do inalienable rights exist?

[cpayne]

John Locke argued that humans have innate natural rights that are “inalienable,” chiefly the right to life, liberty, and private property. Later this was improvised by Thomas Jefferson into life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, for the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

Aquinas, on the other hand, didn’t discuss natural “rights,” but natural laws–moral guidelines innate within the human practical intellect, just as real as the axiomatic theoretical knowledge in the speculative intellect.

So my question: Do natural, innate human rights exist? What are they? What makes them obligatory and “inalienable”? Or are they a sort of Enlightenment-era spin-off from the earlier idea of innate moral laws?

The answers, of course, would have considerable bearing on American political philosophy. Do Americans as a whole still believe in inalienable rights to life, liberty, and private property? (If this turns into a right-to-life discussion on abortion, that’s okay, but that’s not really what I’m wondering about.)

 

[Flopfoot]

Well, what are rights anyway?

In a practical sense, the idea of having a ‘right’ is only going to impact on the way other humans should treat you.

For example, whether a human has a right to life or not is not going to impact on a lion eating a child. It will only impact on the way that humans are expected to treat each other.

So couldn’t it be said that in a practical sense, that there is a natural law “Thou shalt not kill” which all humans must abide by, is that there is a right “all men have the right to life”?

 

[cpayne]

Well, what are rights anyway?

In a practical sense, the idea of having a ‘right’ is only going to impact on the way other humans should treat you.

For example, whether a human has a right to life or not is not going to impact on a lion eating a child. It will only impact on the way that humans are expected to treat each other.

So couldn’t it be said that in a practical sense, that there is a natural law “Thou shalt not kill” which all humans must abide by, is that there is a right “all men have the right to life”?

So if we have innate rights, that basically translates into others having innate obligations toward us; and these innate obligations are based on natural moral laws? That sounds pretty good to me, if that’s what you’re saying.

 

[Flopfoot]

Yep, that is what I am suggesting.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

I have brain freeze again. We have free will. That springs from having faculties of observation and reason.

But I can’t take us from there to the existence of free will as an inalienable right. Other than the knowledge that God giveth and God taketh away. Can anyone else help?

I guess my questions revolve around cause and object:

Do we have free will to be free?
Or do we have free will to get us through the long dark night of captivity?

To be free: bit of circular reasoning there. OK, I’m fallible. We have freedom for its own sake?

LDNC: What makes free will a better strategy for getting us through the LDNC – better say than zombyism?

What is the point of being free? What does freedom do that captivity cannot do?

 

[john_doran]

you right want to check out Natural Law and Natural Rights, by John Finnis - speaks to precisely this question.

basically, rights ground duties, such that a right to life, for example, grounds a duty in others to respect the right-holder’s life.

typically, rights are a feature of legal morality rather than ethics, though there is obviously overlap.

as far as the concept of “inalienable rights” is concerned, an inalienable right would be a right that grounds a duty it would never be justifiable to violate.

“are there inalienable rights” is not that much different a question from “are there absolute (i.e. exceptionless) moral norms”.

my answer to both is, “yes”.

 

[toaslan]

John Locke argued that humans have innate natural rights that are “inalienable,” chiefly the right to life, liberty, and private property. Later this was improvised by Thomas Jefferson into life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, for the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

Aquinas, on the other hand, didn’t discuss natural “rights,” but natural laws–moral guidelines innate within the human practical intellect, just as real as the axiomatic theoretical knowledge in the speculative intellect.

I don’t think rights exist as such. I think Aquinas nailed it. What we say is our right to life, is instead the truth that life belongs to each man by virtue of his humanity. Going this route keeps us rooted in the natural law, and thus in divine law.

Locke et al are coming out of a wrong view of human society, the Leviathan. In that view, it is in the state of nature that man is busy bashing his neighbor over the head, unable to rise above his beast-ness; it is only when the state comes into being, and constructs an artificial system of laws, that man is saved from himself, able to live at peace with his neighbor, and able to have higher civilization.

Aristotle, and Aquinas, would say that law rises naturally out of the nature of man. He is by nature a social–and therefore law-oriented–animal. What belongs to human nature is what is good for him–what makes life itself possible for him, and what makes a good life possible for him.

Thus, no rights! Only goods belonging to him by nature.

 

[cpayne]

I don’t think rights exist as such. I think Aquinas nailed it. What we say is our right to life, is instead the truth that life belongs to each man by virtue of his humanity. Going this route keeps us rooted in the natural law, and thus in divine law.

Locke et al are coming out of a wrong view of human society, the Leviathan. In that view, it is in the state of nature that man is busy bashing his neighbor over the head, unable to rise above his beast-ness; it is only when the state comes into being, and constructs an artificial system of laws, that man is saved from himself, able to live at peace with his neighbor, and able to have higher civilization.

Aristotle, and Aquinas, would say that law rises naturally out of the nature of man. He is by nature a social–and therefore law-oriented–animal. What belongs to human nature is what is good for him–what makes life itself possible for him, and what makes a good life possible for him.

Thus, no rights! Only goods belonging to him by nature.

(1) What do you think of John Doran’s response, above?
(2) What do you think of the use of “natural rights” in the U.S. Declaration of Independence? Is that transculturally valid, or is it sort of a Western Enlightenment idea?

 

[cpayne]

What is the point of being free? What does freedom do that captivity cannot do?

I focused in on the last question because I felt like I actually had something intelligible to say about it: Freedom is necessary for genuine relationships to exist, and a genuine relationship with God is the greatest good possible for a human. So God had to allow us freedom so we could achieve our greatest good, despite our also using freedom to commit great evils.

I just now had another thought: If humans can construct more or less virtuous political systems, does that mean freedom is also necessary for the best political system, since those who are free can genuinely choose virtue?

 

[toaslan]

“are there inalienable rights” is not that much different a question from “are there absolute (i.e. exceptionless) moral norms”.

my answer to both is, “yes”.

OK, I too would answer both yes. I not think the questions are interchangeable. I always have to do the translation in my head when it’s a question of rights: I ask myself if the right in question is a good which belongs by nature to this or than man. Sometimes I find no translation.

If you say there are rights, then there are duties that correspond. And one man’s right extends right up to the point where another’s right begins. What happens is a struggle between who is more able to assert his “right.”

I take the spawning of rights all over the place as a sign that this is not the right understanding of human interaction, nor is it a practical way to provide law and order.

If you say there are goods belonging to a man by nature, then you can look at the nature of man, and the goods arising from that nature, and the goods rising from the more essential definition of man would be the more fundamental goods.

So Life is the first good, which belongs by nature to man the rational animal. Living Well is the next good. He lives well if he is able to fulfill and satisfy his nature as rational/social/religious, etc. Whatever helps him be rational, social, religious, will belong to him by nature too, and law should be framed to serve those things, and to prevent them from being taken from him.

A weakness of the artificial “rights” approach is that it quickly mutates into–the guy with the most muscle or votes gets the most rights.

The duties which march with rights are instead in natural law responsibilities corresponding to privileges and goods caused by other goods, I think.

example: The good of marital union produces the good of a child. The child is not a duty. He is first and foremost another good.

How is that?

 

[toaslan]

(2) What do you think of the use of “natural rights” in the U.S. Declaration of Independence? Is that transculturally valid, or is it sort of a Western Enlightenment idea?

*When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

 

[chevalier]

I often prefer Aquinas’s perspective because I don’t like the focus on rights. However, I’m not American, not even Anglo-Saxon, so it’s less odd in my case.

To the same effect as alienation of the right to life, for instance, would be some hypothetical ability (it’s on purpose that I’m not saying “right” and I decided not to use the word “authority” either) to give someone permission to kill us in such a way that our allowance would make it lawful for the person. Instead of rights, we could talk about what he have the authority over, I guess, or even ability. Ability might surprise you, but, after all, alienation of a right is a question of ability in that same sense. If the right is inalienable, you lack the ability to transfer it.

So, without lending too much credit to the concept of inalienable rights, I say we have no ability to make it morally right for a person to kill us (for example) by our own choice. Life, dignity, sexual freedom, some aspects of freedom, strike me as examples of this. Sexual freedom seems to be the only one absolutely inalienable because let’s say we’re a military commander in danger of capture, issuing orders to our soldiers, in case of capture and use as a living shield, to shoot us regardless. The command stays legitimate even if we change mind later and don’t will it at all. Of course, there’s more to it than just our decision about our life, but at least we aren’t prevented from deciding about our life and death this way. Similarly, we can sign away portions of our freedom, although we can’t authorise anyone to sell us into slavery despite our future violent opposition. Our dignity to some extent protects us in such ways that we can dispose of or suspend or whatever such, for the sake of humility, although we still can’t really entitle someone to spit in our face removing all moral responsibility. But in no way can we entitle anyone to supply our missing consent in sexual matters. And there’s no such thing as self-defence or dire necessity or just case in such matters. So that’s the biggest absolute.

Additionally, the problem with such things is that even if we have some moral right, it doesn’t automatically follow that whatever we do it eludes moral evaluation because the moral character, good or bad, right or wrong, is not something that can be excluded. It can not apply, but it can’t be excluded. We can transfer some property or give consent to this or that, but we have no lordship over the right and wrong, good and evil. Therefore, it’s wrong to use the concept of rights to escape moral responsibility. It’s in laws where it doesn’t matter what you do if you have the right. But in morality, it always still matters what you do, regardless of such rights. Unless I’m badly mistaken, which I don’t think I am. But I’m a lawyer, not a moralist.

You probably still want me to answer if we have rights or not? Well, maybe. But it’s more about the shoulds and should nots of what to do, than our benefit. Our right to life or dignity is not like a property right, even one made inalienable for some reason. Different kind of right. We don’t possess it.

 

[Truthstalker]

Well…

John 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name:

right here is the Greek eksousia: authority, etc. It is also translated "power’. This particular right is worth pondering on its own.

A theory of rights should stem out of something aside from the Enlightment, IMHO.

 

[cor]

Aquinas does talk about rights, somewhat. For example:

newadvent.org/summa/2084.htm
“right to vengeance”

newadvent.org/summa/5053.htm
“right to marry”

One can take the view that duties derive from rights or one can take the view that rights derive from duties. For example, because I have a duty to tell the truth, I have a right to tell the truth.

 

[john_doran]

One can take the view that duties derive from rights or one can take the view that rights derive from duties. For example, because I have a duty to tell the truth, I have a right to tell the truth.

well, sure, but your right to tell the truth gounds a duty in others - in this case, a duty not to prevent you from telling the truth.

that’s the only aspect of rights i was talking about. i certainly wasn’t trying to suggest that all duties have their basis in the rights of others (which i do not, in fact, believe).

 

[chevalier]

Rights can be ambiguous. Sometimes they’re defined by an appropriate duty in others, sometimes not. Sometimes the others have the duty not to prevent you, sometimes they don’t and you’re just not wrong in what you’re doing. Sometimes you have the right, the other person has a duty, but there’s no execution - e.g. marital rights and duties as regards “relations”.

Aquinas’s right to vengeance would be of the latter kind, since you have the right to defend yourself when being struck out of vengeance as well.

By the way, Deuteronomy says (Chapter 32, 35):

35 Revenge is mine, and I will repay them in due time, that their foot may slide: the day of destruction is at hand, and the time makes haste to come.

Vengeance is not quite something we’re right in doing, regardless of a perceived right to vengeance which we give up when forgiving.

 

[toaslan]

I often prefer Aquinas’s perspective because I don’t like the focus on rights.

Me neither. I think the reliance on rights betrays a misunderstanding of human nature and thus of society. It is Aristotle versus the new guys of the “enlightenment.” Aristotle always takes us back to the nature of man as to a touchstone, and as to what is good. The new guys, forsaking the more difficult endeavor of trying to agree on what is the nature of man and therefore what is good, described the state as an artificial construct which imposes law in order to rescue man from his own nature. So law is unnatural for them, and arbitrary, and all about rights. Being fundamentally arbitrary, if it’s all about rights, then all rights are arbitrary–and the guy with the most might gets the most rights.

That’s what’s wrong with rights!

To the same effect as alienation of the right to life, for instance, would be some hypothetical ability … to give someone permission to kill us in such a way that our allowance would make it lawful for the person. …

I say we have no ability to make it morally right for a person to kill us (for example) by our own choice…let’s say we’re a military commander in danger of capture, issuing orders to our soldiers, in case of capture and use as a living shield, to shoot us regardless. The command stays legitimate even if we change mind later and don’t will it at all. Of course, there’s more to it than just our decision about our life, but at least we aren’t prevented from deciding about our life and death this way.

I think I’ll take exception to a part of this. That commander is not willing his own death directly when he issues that order. He is willing the defense of his troops, he is willing their victory in battle; if that entails secondarily his death, he wills that secondarily.

It’s the principle of double-effect in morality, like if a woman suffers an ectopic pregnancy where not only will the baby die but so will she if nothing is done, then it is permissible to surgically remove the fatally diseased part of her body, which secondarily results in the death of the child. Nobody is directly willing the little one’s death, but it is indirectly willed, and that is not immoral.

…it’s wrong to use the concept of rights to escape moral responsibility. It’s in laws where it doesn’t matter what you do if you have the right. But in morality, it always still matters what you do, regardless of such rights. Unless I’m badly mistaken, which I don’t think I am. But I’m a lawyer, not a moralist.

Aristotle would say while there are always distinctions, there is no divide between morality and law. Good law rises out of the right understanding of the purpose of man and the purpose of government. In that classic view, law is always about serving the virtue/happiness of man in society. Since happiness would be the ability (right?) of man to fulfill the highest part of himself, then laws would be framed which promote man as rational and religious.

You probably still want me to answer if we have rights or not? Well, maybe. But it’s more about the shoulds and should nots of what to do, than our benefit. Our right to life or dignity is not like a property right, even one made inalienable for some reason. Different kind of right. We don’t possess it.

not sure of your conclusion. Try this: Life belongs to each man by virtue of his nature as rational animal (an animal by definition is animated–alive). So in this sense, each man has a right to life.

 

[chevalier]

I think I’ll take exception to a part of this. That commander is not willing his own death directly when he issues that order. He is willing the defense of his troops, he is willing their victory in battle; if that entails secondarily his death, he wills that secondarily.

Double-effect applies, yeah. Giving an order to shoot him the moment he’s being taken captive would be questionable, for instance, although I suppose we’d be looking more favourably on that than on a suicide attempt by himself.

It’s the principle of double-effect in morality

Yep, I know double-effect. The case is not a standard double-effect one, as there’s a bit more to it.

not sure of your conclusion. Try this: Life belongs to each man by virtue of his nature as rational animal (an animal by definition is animated–alive). So in this sense, each man has a right to life.

He doesn’t have the “dominium” of it, though. Only the so called “dominium utile” perhaps, per analogy with a feudal form of servile property.

 

[toaslan]

(regarding a man’s life)

He doesn’t have the “dominium” of it, though. Only the so called “dominium utile” perhaps, per analogy with a feudal form of servile property.

Meaning, that though life **belongs **to a man, he has relative but not absolute control over whether or not he continues to live?

True, but the emphasis I was going for was about what belongs to us by nature. And so, what it is unnatural to be deprived of. Whatever would be unnatural would be prohibited by the kind of human law which is rooted in natural law.

 

[cpayne]

Well…

right here is the Greek eksousia: authority, etc. It is also translated "power’. This particular right is worth pondering on its own.

A theory of rights should stem out of something aside from the Enlightment, IMHO.

Well, Locke himself did argue that his theory of rights was derived from the Bible. However, I do not think he knew very well, or respected, the traditions coming out of medieval Christian philosophy.