Old Man

I perceive this is the end of the intellectual debate.

Wiploc

Hey, Shadowy Man, I could have said what you said, but it might have taken six hundred words. Good post!
crc

themistocles

I only asked after reading Bossuet and I thought the circular reasoning of "'cause God says so" as a rather funny way of logically asserting a certain type of government. From which I then started thinking, most people (in America, anyways) might say that our rights are "god-given".

I guess I asked in a loaded way, thinking that I don't remember Locke mentioning god as the source of rights or that god was mentioned rather incidentally.

Ensign Steve

From what I understand, the Catholic church (an organizaion that put forth an original theory of natural law) has taken the position that the right morals are right objectively, and that god likes those morals, because he is moral. That is a lot less arbitrary than saying the morals are right because god said so. That is one good thing that organization has come up with. The Church knew that saying things are moral because god says they are was way too subjective, and to be meaningful, moral law needs to be objective. Then they say god gave us the natural ability to discern right from wrong, and that's their theory of Natural Law (very roughly).

As far as rights being "Natural" in the absense of god, I don't think that's the case. We don't get any of our rights from nature. If you were the only person on your island, you could behave in any which way you wanted, and you wouldn't be immoral because you wouldn't be hurting anybody. There would be no need for rights or duties in that situation.

It is only when you enter a social contract to live among other people that the need for rights come into play. These can be arrived at by logic. We don't have a gene for rights, nor was it a gift from god. It is what we have decided together makes living together work best for us. There is room for improvement, and I think it's a daily struggle (opportunity?) for us as people to try come up with a fair and just standard. But all the schools of thought on rights are based in logic.

As far as Rawls, I am not a studier of moral philosophy, I concentrate my studies more on existentialism and religion, but I have read his Theory of Justice, so it can't be all that obsure!

Jen

Jamie_L

People create rights for themselves and other people (and sometimes for animals and plants and things). There are no "rights" that exist apart from that. Your only natural rights are the rights to obey the natural laws of the universe.

Jamie

Ensign Steve

Wow, Jaime, you said it so much better than I did, and with so fewer words!!

LHP Adept

I thought the official line was that the Forbidden Fruit gave us that capability. Which means that our sense of right and wrong is ours because Eve and Adam took the advice of the Devil, hehe.

But, to address the OP, my holding on the subject has not changed. All our moral and ethical notions, including 'human rights', are the inventions of Man. If we agree that people have the inherent right to be free from (insert woeful condition here), that principle is valid only in the sense that we have decided it is.

christ-on-a-stick

Nicely put, Jamie.

"Rights" are a purely human construct and as such are only arguable within the framework of persons living together to form a society. Absent that, (i.e. JenD's alone-on-an-island scenario) the word becomes meaningless.