SimplyAtheistic

Yeppers.
Jake

mhc

All people born in this country are holders of certain rights, including the right not to be killed unjustly.

yguy

OK, so a significant majority can, through legislation, justly take away such right to life as children are perceived to have, in which case it would be legal for parents to kill their children for any reason or no reason.

Still comfy?

mhc

We don't have a right to life, as I see it. No one does. We have the negative right to not be killed unjustly.

Answerer

That is the result of karma.

Abel Stable

I wouldn't say that "human rights" are a safeguard against cruel laws. Afterall, if legislation can take away a right, then what clout does that "right" have? Or are some rights more important than others? If so, where did the grading scale come from?

How is a right defined? How is a right confirmed?

yguy

None. That's what I'm getting at. To say rights are granted by to society is to validate tyranny by the majority.

I would say that a right is inherent as long as it doesn't impose illegitimate responsibility on others to provide or maintain it. For instance, to say I have the right to health care whether or not I can pay for it is to make my health care the responsibility of those who can; so that health care is not an inherent right. OTOH, parents have the responsibility to protect their child's right to life because they are responsible for the child's existence; and collectively we have a responisbility to protect children's lives because someone protected our lives when we were children.

Clutch

What is this supposed to mean? By "inherent" do you mean, "independent of any societal factors"? If so, then yes, that follows.

But what's the actual negative consequence supposed to be? Where are these children who exist independent of any societal factors?

yguy

If a child's right to life is granted by society, it can similarly be taken away at the stroke of a pen. That being the logically ineluctable consequence of the proposition that rights are determined by consensus, I submit that said proposition is absurd, to say the least.

I don't suppose there are any, but how is that relevant?

Clutch

Well, the thing about this claim is that it's false.

Try it. You have a pen? Make the right to life (or any other right) disappear. Get back to me when you've managed it.

The silliness of your claim here should constitute grounds to reconsider the conclusion you attempt to extract from it.