Comment by jerkstate
6 years ago
The Enlightenment-era view is opposite. According to philosophers of that era like Hobbes, everybody has natural rights. According to Locke, these rights are life (everyone is entitled to live), liberty (everyone can do what they want, unless it conflicts with #1), and property (everyone is entitled to what they create and what they own, unless it conflicts with #1 and #2). We agree to forego and suppress some of our natural rights, enjoying all of the fruits of our labor, imprisoning lawbreakers who haven't broken any of these, allowing killing of people in some circumstances, penalties for certain types of speech, etc., and allow ourselves to be governed for our mutual benefit. Those rights are constantly being re-negotiated (for example: the USA's founding documents specifically enshrine the right to own guns, but there is a national discussion about whether we should continue to have this right. Also, we have historically had freedom of speech, and that has been adjudicated not to include credible threats or speech that would directly and intentionally cause physical or financial harm, according to natural rights #1 and #3, and some would like to adjudicate that further to ban speech that would cause emotional harm) If any group of people disagrees too strongly with the status quo, civil disobedience happens. Civil disobedience is people exercising their natural rights in opposition to the state.
It's important to note that the recognition of natural rights was critical in the argument against monarchy, if this concept of natural rights is eroded or replaced in government, the concept of negotiating rights and/or civil disobedience becomes very different in philosophy, because it would mean that rights are granted by whoever's in charge of the government, rather than being an emergent property of humanity that the people agree to limit for the greater good. If you surrender the concept of natural rights, you lose all of your negotiating power, as citizens.
> If you surrender the concept of natural rights, you lose all of your negotiating power, as citizens.
That's not true; under the constitution of my country, which is a republic, rights are based on the sovereignty of the people.
A more relevant issue is: does it matter? My country didn't transition from a monarchy to a republic because the king was convinced by strong reasoning to abdicate; there was a coup d'état, and he was forced into exile.
I'd agree, the concept of 'universal rights' is useful in the sense you are basically saying 'hey pretty much everyone agrees with this, nothing to see here'. A useful rhetorical tool.
However as you point out - using 'sanctity' type special status cut's both ways - what pretty much every other country sees as sensible action - control of lethal weapons - is blocked in the US, partly by, by pointless debates on 'rights'.
> If you surrender the concept of natural rights, you lose all of your negotiating power, as citizens.
True power comes from collective action - the Baron's ganged up on the king to force the Magna Carta - it wasn't the power of the philosophical argument - that's a cover to allow face saving ( though, of course, face saving is essential to non-violent progress ).