Seraphim

We're studying Locke right now, and according to him, our natural rights came from God.

My question : How exactly does he meant by natural rights came from God anyway?

I have read the Bible, Hindu scriptures and Buddhism (along with other Eastern principles), and I don't remember anything about God giving humans any rights.

PS : Who is Locke? Name sounds familiar though ...

August Spies

John Locke, british philosopher concerned with economics. A founding member of liberal thought. Came after Hobbes. 18th century (right?)

Seraphim

John Locke, british philosopher concerned with economics. A founding member of liberal thought. Came after Hobbes. 18th century (right?)

My reply : A philosopher concerned with economics?

How exactly does Economics (or anything else other than Religion for that matter) have anything to do with Human Rights and God?

My reply to all this Locke crap is that he has no business poking into matters which doesn't concern him. And students nowadays shouldn't be burden by thoughts of people who died 200 years ago.

Wiploc

I don't know how Locke did it with god, but I'll bet you can do it the same way without god.

There is no way a god could give us morality. I'll bet there's no way a god could give us rights either. But if I'm wrong, if a god could give you rights, I'll bet I could give you rights the same way.
crc

Alonzo Fyfe

Occam's Razor. They are not needed in the complete explanation for any type of observable phemonema.

To illustrate my objection to natural rights, I once wrote a short story that I called "Rightons", about a group of people who invented a machine that measures what "rights" a person has -- the machine detected "righton emissions" -- where high emissions come from those who have done no evil, but performing an evil act causes a reduction in one's righton emissions.

Ultimately, it aimed at illustrating my view that this talk of "rights" actually makes very little sense.

This does not imply that I am a complete subjectivist or eliminativist when it comes to morality. Quite the opposite is true, in fact, but the talk of "rights" can AT BEST make sense only metaphorically.

Hobbs

Well, there goes Galileo, and Copernicus too. Darwin isn't far behind. And Plato and Aristotle are long gone. Hume is history. Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Franklin, etc? Useless burdens. And here I was, thinking that learning about what they had to say has helped us to lift lots of burdens.

Hobbs

I think that talking in terms of natural needs is far more productive, and true to boot. We have certain objective needs (food, etc) and subjective needs (friendship, etc; and the subjective needs are no less real for being subjective). Some conditions are more suitable than others for our being able to flourish and prosper as the sort of creatures we are, and some conditions are harmful to us.

I hate it when people talk about, for example, what children deserve in terms of proper care, education, health insurance, etc. Talking about it in terms of desert makes it too easy to say of bad kids that, well, they just don't really deserve these things as much as the better kids. In reality, those kids are precisely the ones who need more of this stuff if they are to be able to thrive as humans.

There is no basis at all for saying that there are natural rights. Because we need something does not give us a right to it. But there is a basis for saying that it makes for a far better society much more conducive to our well-being if we establish and enforce civil rights. Because we do not have a right to something, that does not mean that we don't really need it.

Then it is a matter of figuring out the ways in which we can effectively promote human flourishing, which is no easy task, especially since there is no God to present us with a user manual. We have to figure it out on our own.

Stephen T-B

I second what Jamie_L wrote:

"Rights exist within the context of moral frameworks and legal frameworks.
"That is, humans create rights for other humans (and even for non-humans, with respect to treatment by humans).
"As an analogy, think about this: do animals have rights with respect to other non-human animals? Is a wolf violating a rabit's right to life if it kills it? Of course not. There aren't rights involved.
"Does a bear violate a human's right to life if he kills someone? Again, it's a silly question. Why do we think it's not a silly question when we talk about people killing people?
"People have a right to life that comes from people. There is no objective right to life outside human interaction."

(I think it's worth reading again. Jamie, I hope you don't want a copyright fee?))

Harumi

I will forgive you for insulting Locke for the moment Seraphim, since you're from Malaysia, and not familiar with the United States constitution.

Locke was one of the first to create the idea of the capitalistic, bourgoise society. He was the first to write about the right to private property, hence, the economics part of it. He was also one of the constitutionalists, and his idea that man has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (as long as it doesn't infringe on anyone else's) is the basis of the US constitution. He was also the first to create the idea that the government be entrusted to protect our rights.

Other than the God part, I rather like his philosophy. His argument is based from God, merely because during his time period very few people did, and he is a man of his time.

But I'm not here to talk about Locke. I'm here to discuss whether or not humans have so-called 'natural rights'.

Leave off insulting Locke.

Harumi

How about humans as being homo sapiens?

Did I do well?