Freethought & Rationalism Archive

August Spies · 04-19-2002, 11:36 AM

Can anyone here provide a good philisophical argument against human rights? (in the Lockean sense)if so id like to hear it and ill try to compose an argument myself, thanks.

*Im posting this because I read through much of the rights threads, and saw some good arguments but they were not flushed out or well stated and most of the thread seemed to just be petty bickering.
Also if someone has a link to a solid argument against lockean type human rights theory please post it.

[ April 19, 2002: Message edited by: August Spies ]

Bill · 04-19-2002, 02:09 PM

Locke is hardly known for a fully thought out theory of rights. Locke is best known for his Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690) which touches his theory of rights very little. Locke's theory of rights is best presented in his Two Treatises of Government (1690), but that is a writing which receives far less attention in modern times because of the primitive nature of his views.

For instance, Locke wastes a great deal of time (the first of the Two Treatises refuting Filmer's theory of the divine right of kings, an idea which had been substantially counteracted by the time of the Magna Carta, four centuries earlier. The <a href="http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/" target="_blank">Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy</a> both praises and rapidly dismisses Locke's second of the Two Treatises this way (<a href="http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/l/locke.htm" target="_blank">HERE</a>):

Quote:

The constructive doctrines which are elaborated in the second treatise became the basis of social and political philosophy for generations. Labor is the origin and justification of property; contract or consent is the ground of government and fixes its limits. Behind both doctrines lies the idea of the independence of the individual person. The state of nature knows no government; but in it, as in political society, men are subject to the moral law, which is the law of God. Men are born free and equal in rights. Whatever a man "mixes his labour with" is his to use. Or, at least, this was so in the primitive condition of human life in which there was enough for all and "the whole earth was America." Locke sees that, when men have multiplied and land has become scarce, rules are needed beyond those which the moral law or law of nature supplies. But the origin of government is traced not to this economic necessity, but to another cause. The moral law is always valid, but it is not always kept. In the state of nature all men equally have the right to punish transgressors: civil society originates when, for the better administration of the law, men agree to delegate this function to certain officers. Thus government is instituted by a "social contract"; its powers are limited, and they involve reciprocal obligations; moreover, they can be modified or rescinded by the authority which conferred them. Locke's theory is thus no more historical than Hobbes's. It is a rendering of the facts of constitutional government in terms of thought, and it served its purpose as a justification of the Revolution settlement in accordance with the ideas of the time.

Modern rights theory does not rest on the so-called "social contract." Instead, modern rights theories are, like our own Bill of Rights, implemented by governmental Constitutional provisions, and are thus in actuality merely government fiat (being grounded in nothing further than their declaration of existence). Thus, the <a href="http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/" target="_blank">Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy</a> says this about <a href="http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/r/rights.htm#Contemporary%20Discussions" target="_blank">modern theories of "rights"</a>:

Quote:

Contemporary rights theorists have developed further analyses of rights. An initial division is between positive and negative rights. Positive rights are rights to benevolent actions from other people, such as rights to food, clothing, and shelter, or the right of an accident victim to be helped. Given the emphasis on benevolence, positive rights are sometimes called welfare rights. Negative rights, by contrast, are rights of noninterference. These include two subgroups of rights: active and passive rights. Active rights (or liberty rights) are rights to do as one chooses. For example, the liberty right of movement entitles me to travel without being chained or locked up. Passive rights involve the right to let alone, such as the right not to be injured, and the right to keep trespassers off my property.

Today, rights theory continues to have practical political applications, just as it did in the 18th century. The most important example of this is The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted on December 10, 1948, by the General Assembly of the United Nations. Whereas 18th century rights theorists focused on the uncreated or "natural" aspect of rights, thereby terming them "natural rights," the Universal Declaration focuses our particular status as humans, thereby terming them "human rights." Many elements of the Universal Declaration draw on classic concepts, such as the equality of people, the inalienable nature of rights, and the fact that these rights cut across all political boundaries. However, the Universal Declaration also departs from 18th century models. Unlike the 18th century discussions, which - inspired by natural law theory -- articulated only a few rights, the Universal Declaration lists dozens of rights. Along with rights to "life, liberty and the security of person," all humans also have specific rights against enslavement, torture, arbitrary arrest, and exile. We have a cluster of rights regarding due process in prosecution, such as the presumption of innocence. There are a series of liberty rights involving the right to movement, to marry, to have a family, to divorce, to freedom of thought, and to religion practice. There are political rights to participate in "genuine elections" and cultural rights to devolop one's personality. Economic rights include the right to work, to favorable pay, to join trade unions, and to paid holidays. We also have welfare rights to social security, to health care, to special assistance for child care, and to free education. Although few if any countries today adequately abide by all of these rights, the Universal Declaration sees these as a "common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations."

Again, the focus is on the commonality of the human condition (we are all members of the homo sapiens species, and as such, we grant each of us whatver "rights" we decide are desireable as a group). Since there cannot be any sort of worldwide agreement about any God(s) granting certain specific "rights" to people, the focus for any worldwide debate about human "rights" must necessarily be secular in nature. And again, these "rights" are no longer viewed as any part of a "social contract," but are granted by governmental fiat, if through no other means, at least through the means of the government in question signing onto the treaty establishing The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

While Locke is certainly an important milestone on the path to modern rights theories, his ideas on the matter of rights are certainly no longer of major importance.

== Bill

phaedrus · 04-20-2002, 01:21 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by August Spies:
Can anyone here provide a good philisophical argument against human rights? (in the Lockean sense)if so id like to hear it and ill try to compose an argument myself, thanks.

Well why dont you provide your thoughts on locke's stand? Then you might get an arguement against it coz no one knows exactly what is about locke's views that you think make sense or like.

JP

Kim o' the Concrete Jungle · 04-20-2002, 03:25 AM

One problem I find with the language of rights is that it is fundamentally passive. For example, you can say that "human beings have the fundamental right to self-determination." But so what? A statement like that doesn't really lead to anything. It does not suggest any obvious course of action. It does not, of itself, prohibit anything, or encourage anything. It doesn't say how you might exercise this "right to self-determination."

Of course, you can infer certain actions and prohibitions from a "right". But equally, someone might argue that possessing a "right" is not necessarily the same as exercising that right. I remember back when Dianna married Prince Charles, she inherited with her new title "the right to drive sheep over London bridge" (or something like that -- I don't remember the exact details). I remember that she promised to notify the appropriate authorities before she exercised that right.

I am sympathetic to the aims of the people who drew up the American constitution, and the English and French bills of rights upon which it was based. (I also know about the French critics who wondered why "the right to eat" was not considered a fundamental human right.) But the language of "rights", I find, is rather weak. It doesn't seem to place any particular obligation upon anybody. You can see its weakness when you compare it to the older idea of "privilege". A "privilege" is something very much more robust. It is something you may exercise in an emphatic way, something that everyone assumes you will exercise at every opportunity, and something you may have and use whether you have earned it or not (which is probably why "privilege" has such a bad name nowadays).

Personally, I have no arguments with the sentiments generally expressed in the language of rights (I agree with many of them), but I would prefer that they were expressed in more emphatic language. I would prefer them to be cast as a set of "obligations" -- the fundamental obligations of man and woman; the price one pays for one's membership in the company of human beings. Instead of saying, "human beings have the right to self-determination," I would say, "human beings are obliged to decide the direction of their own lives, and to allow others to do the same."

Can you see the difference? The first statement is passive. It doesn't really suggest that you do anything, it only tells you that you passively possess something. The second statement, however, says that you have an obligation to actually do something, and most importantly, it obliges you not to stand in the way of others.

The idea of "social obligation" might sound a bit strange to American ears, where the public discourse tends towards "individualism", but here in Australia, there is a definite sense of social obligation. For example, in Australia, voting is not considered a right, but a democratic duty, and if you don't vote in a federal election you are fined $100. It works. Because there are fines involved, the Australian electoral commission is obliged to go to a great deal of effort to ensure that people are registered to vote, and that there are sufficient polling booths to allow people to vote. And because there are fines involved, people do actually vote. So our elections are not controlled by special interests; the disinterested general public votes too, and that limits the power of any one "voting block".

The notion of "obligations" instead of "rights" leads, I think, to a greater sense of active engagement in one's society. Like Americans, Australians argue about politics -- and I hate our current Prime Minister with a passion -- but you won't hear very many Australian's questioning the very legitimacy of government itself, because Australians are engaged in their political process. And they are engaged, not because it is their right, but because it is their obligation. That, I feel, is the way it should be.

That's my argument against rights. It's not that rights are bad -- they are not. It's just that I feel there is an even better way -- a more emphatic way -- of expressing the same sentiments.

Is this the sort of argument against "rights" you were after? You mention Locke, but I don't know much about his philosophical notions.

August Spies · 04-20-2002, 05:25 AM

By Lockean rights I just meant the idea of inalienable objective universal human rights. Ones that every human has, even prior to society.

I just meant this view as opposed to say, Mill's view that human rights (while not being true) should be used for the utilitarian good they produce when used.

does that make sense?

Ted Hoffman · 04-20-2002, 07:45 AM

August spies

Quote:

By Lockean rights I just meant the idea of inalienable objective universal human rights. Ones that every human has, even prior to society

Well, sir, there are no human rights that existed prior to "society" for without civilization we were (and indeed are) just like other animals.

MadMordigan · 04-20-2002, 10:26 AM

Welcome back August!

Bill · 04-20-2002, 05:19 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by IntenSity:
Well, sir, there are no human rights that existed prior to "society" for without civilization we were (and indeed are) just like other animals.

EXACTLY!

The concept of "inalienable human rights" is the ultimate ethical stance, and like all ethical stances, there is nothing the least bit inherent in them. Please see my April 20 reply to ManM in <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=56&t=000138" target="_blank">THIS THREAD</a> for the backup on this point.

In human society, the concept of "inalienable human rights" is something produced during a particular stage (called "the Enlightenment") within Western Civilization. So far as I know, there hasn't been any broad acceptance of this concept within any other civilized society (as opposed to the occasional mutterings of some philosopher or another; those, I've heard about).

== Bill

Kim o' the Concrete Jungle · 04-20-2002, 06:25 PM

I agree with Bill that not all societies have this language of human rights. But most societies do have some sort of mechanism for directing the behaviour of its members, and particularly, for curbing anti-social behaviour. Things like theft and murder are wrong no matter what cultural environment you come from. So while there may not be any universal or entirely objective basis for rights/obligations/moral judgements/etc, that doesn't necessarily mean you can do just anything.

It's worth keeping in mind that, in the real world, there was never any such thing as Rousseau's "noble savage". Human beings have always been social, from the first Australophithecene right up to the most modern Homo Sapiens Sapiens. We are adapted for living in societies. We could no more abandon social organisation than we could abandon tool use, or language. We are locked into that particular survival strategy.

In any civilisation, there is a trade off between two interests -- the needs of the individual verses the needs of his society. If we neglect the needs of the individual, then the individual will fail to thrive within his social context (which could lead to crime, corruption, and revolution, as the individual "opts out" of his society). If, on the other hand, we neglect the needs of the society, then we will get social decay. Consequently, a civilisation may become too weak to offer the traditional protections and opportunities to its citizens, and will collapse as its citizens abandon it for more meaningful and beneficial social structures.

I know that the notion of the "social contract" isn't very popular these days, but then, we live in the kind of society where some rich people think its perfectly okay to let the poor starve in the streets, and where some of the starving poor, in turn, think its perfectly okay to mug people for a living.

Bill · 04-21-2002, 05:52 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Kim o' the Concrete Jungle:
I know that the notion of the "social contract" isn't very popular these days, but then, we live in the kind of society where some rich people think its perfectly okay to let the poor starve in the streets, and where some of the starving poor, in turn, think its perfectly okay to mug people for a living.

I agree back with you, Kim. But I don't think that reinstating the "social contract" idea is the answer. Frankly, the idea was OK for the simpler times of the Enlightenment, when a man's word was his bond, but it won't hack it in modern times when everybody seems to be angling for ways to cheat on their contract obligations.

We are just beginning to see the creation of truly scientific theories of morality, which are (not surprisingly) based upon evolutionary theories. There have been a half-dozen or more really good books written in the last decade on exactly this subject. A few of the best are:

<a href="http://www.secweb.org/bookstore/bookdetail.asp?BookID=192" target="_blank">Darwinian Natural Right: The Biological Ethics of Human Nature</a>, by Larry Arnhart;
<a href="http://www.secweb.org/bookstore/bookdetail.asp?BookID=191" target="_blank">Created From Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwininism</a> by James Rachels;
<a href="http://www.secweb.org/bookstore/bookdetail.asp?BookID=199" target="_blank">Biology and the Foundation of Ethics</a>, edited by Jane Maienschein and Michael Ruse;
<a href="http://www.secweb.org/bookstore/bookdetail.asp?BookID=783" target="_blank">The Science of Morality: The Individual, Community, and Future Generations</a> by Joseph L. Daleiden; and
<a href="http://www.secweb.org/bookstore/bookdetail.asp?BookID=194" target="_blank">Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics</a> by David O. Brink (recommended by Professor Michael Martin)

At some point, science will need to up and say that, as a matter of scientific fact, morality is defined this way: (... TBD ...).

However, until that happens, we will need to struggle through with the best approximations that we can devise. However, "social contract" theory is clearly obsolete for our modern times. We can clearly do better, even without a comprehensive moral theory based upon scientific facts.

== Bill

04-19-2002, 11:36 AM	#1
August Spies Contributor Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: The Vine Posts: 12,950	Against Human Rights Can anyone here provide a good philisophical argument against human rights? (in the Lockean sense)if so id like to hear it and ill try to compose an argument myself, thanks. *Im posting this because I read through much of the rights threads, and saw some good arguments but they were not flushed out or well stated and most of the thread seemed to just be petty bickering. Also if someone has a link to a solid argument against lockean type human rights theory please post it. [ April 19, 2002: Message edited by: August Spies ]</p>

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04-20-2002, 03:25 AM	#4
Kim o' the Concrete Jungle Regular Member Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 475	One problem I find with the language of rights is that it is fundamentally passive. For example, you can say that "human beings have the fundamental right to self-determination." But so what? A statement like that doesn't really lead to anything. It does not suggest any obvious course of action. It does not, of itself, prohibit anything, or encourage anything. It doesn't say how you might exercise this "right to self-determination." Of course, you can infer certain actions and prohibitions from a "right". But equally, someone might argue that possessing a "right" is not necessarily the same as exercising that right. I remember back when Dianna married Prince Charles, she inherited with her new title "the right to drive sheep over London bridge" (or something like that -- I don't remember the exact details). I remember that she promised to notify the appropriate authorities before she exercised that right. I am sympathetic to the aims of the people who drew up the American constitution, and the English and French bills of rights upon which it was based. (I also know about the French critics who wondered why "the right to eat" was not considered a fundamental human right.) But the language of "rights", I find, is rather weak. It doesn't seem to place any particular obligation upon anybody. You can see its weakness when you compare it to the older idea of "privilege". A "privilege" is something very much more robust. It is something you may exercise in an emphatic way, something that everyone assumes you will exercise at every opportunity, and something you may have and use whether you have earned it or not (which is probably why "privilege" has such a bad name nowadays). Personally, I have no arguments with the sentiments generally expressed in the language of rights (I agree with many of them), but I would prefer that they were expressed in more emphatic language. I would prefer them to be cast as a set of "obligations" -- the fundamental obligations of man and woman; the price one pays for one's membership in the company of human beings. Instead of saying, "human beings have the right to self-determination," I would say, "human beings are obliged to decide the direction of their own lives, and to allow others to do the same." Can you see the difference? The first statement is passive. It doesn't really suggest that you do anything, it only tells you that you passively possess something. The second statement, however, says that you have an obligation to actually do something, and most importantly, it obliges you not to stand in the way of others. The idea of "social obligation" might sound a bit strange to American ears, where the public discourse tends towards "individualism", but here in Australia, there is a definite sense of social obligation. For example, in Australia, voting is not considered a right, but a democratic duty, and if you don't vote in a federal election you are fined $100. It works. Because there are fines involved, the Australian electoral commission is obliged to go to a great deal of effort to ensure that people are registered to vote, and that there are sufficient polling booths to allow people to vote. And because there are fines involved, people do actually vote. So our elections are not controlled by special interests; the disinterested general public votes too, and that limits the power of any one "voting block". The notion of "obligations" instead of "rights" leads, I think, to a greater sense of active engagement in one's society. Like Americans, Australians argue about politics -- and I hate our current Prime Minister with a passion -- but you won't hear very many Australian's questioning the very legitimacy of government itself, because Australians are engaged in their political process. And they are engaged, not because it is their right, but because it is their obligation. That, I feel, is the way it should be. That's my argument against rights. It's not that rights are bad -- they are not. It's just that I feel there is an even better way -- a more emphatic way -- of expressing the same sentiments. Is this the sort of argument against "rights" you were after? You mention Locke, but I don't know much about his philosophical notions.

04-20-2002, 05:25 AM	#5
August Spies Contributor Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: The Vine Posts: 12,950	By Lockean rights I just meant the idea of inalienable objective universal human rights. Ones that every human has, even prior to society. I just meant this view as opposed to say, Mill's view that human rights (while not being true) should be used for the utilitarian good they produce when used. does that make sense?

04-20-2002, 10:26 AM	#7
MadMordigan Beloved Deceased Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Vancouver BC Canada Posts: 2,704	Welcome back August!

04-20-2002, 06:25 PM	#9
Kim o' the Concrete Jungle Regular Member Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 475	I agree with Bill that not all societies have this language of human rights. But most societies do have some sort of mechanism for directing the behaviour of its members, and particularly, for curbing anti-social behaviour. Things like theft and murder are wrong no matter what cultural environment you come from. So while there may not be any universal or entirely objective basis for rights/obligations/moral judgements/etc, that doesn't necessarily mean you can do just anything. It's worth keeping in mind that, in the real world, there was never any such thing as Rousseau's "noble savage". Human beings have always been social, from the first Australophithecene right up to the most modern Homo Sapiens Sapiens. We are adapted for living in societies. We could no more abandon social organisation than we could abandon tool use, or language. We are locked into that particular survival strategy. In any civilisation, there is a trade off between two interests -- the needs of the individual verses the needs of his society. If we neglect the needs of the individual, then the individual will fail to thrive within his social context (which could lead to crime, corruption, and revolution, as the individual "opts out" of his society). If, on the other hand, we neglect the needs of the society, then we will get social decay. Consequently, a civilisation may become too weak to offer the traditional protections and opportunities to its citizens, and will collapse as its citizens abandon it for more meaningful and beneficial social structures. I know that the notion of the "social contract" isn't very popular these days, but then, we live in the kind of society where some rich people think its perfectly okay to let the poor starve in the streets, and where some of the starving poor, in turn, think its perfectly okay to mug people for a living.

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