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The Fallacy of Human Rights
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| EvilTree |
It's a hotly contested issue, yet few have real understanding of what human right is, or what it should be. But when someone perceives that human rights are violated, they get really riled up about it.
But just what is human right? Every nation seems to have its own definition of human rights. Canada has its Charter of Rights and Freedoms. US has its Bill of Rights.
I doubt all of these documents are same, though they may share similarities. But human right is supposedly an universal thing, meaning everyone in the world has it. However, since there is no concrete, shared sense of human rights, I don't see a point of having it.
Is having human rights a good thing? I believe that a clearly defined human rights is a good thing to have, as it provides a measure of security and stability to everyone.
But I question the practical use of human rights. To me, by definition human right is universal; supposedly everyone has it.
But not everyone has it, because someone is violating their 'rights'. Are these rights violators punished? In most cases, no, in international sense. Therefore to me, there is no practical use of human rights, as there is no real mechanism to enforce it.
It's like having UN or whatever giving everyone in the world 50 bucks, but somebody takes that 50 bucks from some people. What can UN do to punish that somebody? Nothing really.
I would go as far as suggesting that the notion of human rights is immoral, as in practical sense not everyone has it and is unfair.
What's the point of this rant? Eh. It's just me venting some steam. (And preparing to take on my philosophy prof) :D |
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| Endlesswave |
| Well not only humans rights but rights in general. I took a philosophy of law course at York that delt with a load of that kind of stuff...it was pretty crazy. Human rights SHOULD clearly be defined so that there is not discrepancy with what is an what isn't a violation. |
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| DigiNut |
That's why a truly free society operates and the two exclusive and inalienable human rights: the right to life and the right to own and control private property.
That's called freedom, and you can give those two rights to every single person on the planet without violating anyone else's.
Try to add any more "rights" to that list, and you're already infringing on one of the above. |
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| MarkT |
I did a double major in psychology and philosophy at York...with the bulk of my philosophy studies being concerned with moral and political philosophy. I had a professor who I liked so much, I intentionally took 4 courses with her throughout my time there.
She presented an interesting idea on virtually the same topic. While what EvilTree said makes sense...ie. that morality is subjective and changes over time and across different societies...there are certain things that we can *almost* say are intrinsically wrong. Her example was piking babies. "Piking" meaning to impale upon a stick in the ground (in the spirit of Vlad the Impaler), if I remember right. Regardless of any particular society's code of ethics, laws, etc...it would probably be universally agreed upon that "piking babies is wrong".
One could then argue that while virtually nothing is intrinsically "good" or "right" (ie. good or right in and of itself...good by nature...good without human value judgements making it so), it's not impossible to come up with basic general principles of right and wrong that will transcend time and cultural differences, for example.
so while "human rights" cannot be easily defined, as a global community we have some basics that are reasonably seen as universal...freedom from arbitrary imprisonment or physical abuse by the state, murder is illegal/wrong, etc. (yes, some countries don't feel this way, or have a gov't or police force that doesn't operate under these assumptions, but for the most part, "the world" would condemn them as violating human rights.
universal law and morality will always be a grey area...because one could always argue that there are NO 1st principles from which to derive laws that we don't create ourselves as human being...nothing is intrinsically "good".
Neitzsche said that nothing is truly good or valuable outside of what humans attach to it...ie. "good" is a human contruct.
that's my philosophy speech for today...and it is based solely upon recollection...so any current students more familiar with the material can feel free to elaborate or correct any errors or inaccuracies ;) |
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| DigiNut |
| Nietzsche was a pissant. Humans have an innate instinct to protect their life and their property, no matter what environment they're raised in. It's easy to extrapolate from that and say that those things should be protected by law, and it makes sense because you can protect those things equally for everyone without violating anyone else. |
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| Endlesswave |
| quote: | Originally posted by DigiNut
Nietzsche was a pissant. Humans have an innate instinct to protect their life and their property, no matter what environment they're raised in. It's easy to extrapolate from that and say that those things should be protected by law, and it makes sense because you can protect those things equally for everyone without violating anyone else. |
I wouldn't go so far as to say Nietzche was a pissant. At least in terms of what Mark T was saying. Humans attach VALUE on something no? Hence value on property, value on how we feel about certain things, situations etc. Wasn't that what he was saying? I think that is precisely why we SHOULD have things like human rights, to protect those vaules we apply towards things as well as the right to be free. |
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| DigiNut |
We don't attach value to them, they have value. The value of ideas is a mental construct, the value of property is not. If you try to take food away from a dog, it will growl at you. It's not "attaching value" to what's in front of it, it doesn't even have that mental capacity.
Human rights are meant to protect physical things (life and property), not ideas, which is essentially what it's been bastardized into doing.
The philosophies of subjectivism and moral relativism are utter crap. They're completely anti-intellectual as they essentially involve saying "hey, other people have a different idea of what's right and wrong, so that must mean there's no such thing as right or wrong". That's the logic, right there, and it should be easy to see that you're skipping about 15 steps in the reasoning process.
And Nietzsche was a pissant, look up his bio! |
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| rabbitjoker |
| quote: | Originally posted by MarkT
Neitzsche said that nothing is truly good or valuable outside of what humans attach to it...ie. "good" is a human contruct. |
Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so. |
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| muzzybear |
| quote: | Originally posted by DigiNut
We don't attach value to them, they have value. The value of ideas is a mental construct, the value of property is not. If you try to take food away from a dog, it will growl at you. It's not "attaching value" to what's in front of it, it doesn't even have that mental capacity.
Human rights are meant to protect physical things (life and property), not ideas, which is essentially what it's been bastardized into doing.
The philosophies of subjectivism and moral relativism are utter crap. They're completely anti-intellectual as they essentially involve saying "hey, other people have a different idea of what's right and wrong, so that must mean there's no such thing as right or wrong". That's the logic, right there, and it should be easy to see that you're skipping about 15 steps in the reasoning process.
And Nietzsche was a pissant, look up his bio! |
Diginut, you are a wealth of information... eloquent and informative! I enjoy reading your posts! |
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| EvilTree |
| quote: | Originally posted by DigiNut
That's why a truly free society operates and the two exclusive and inalienable human rights: the right to life and the right to own and control private property.
That's called freedom, and you can give those two rights to every single person on the planet without violating anyone else's.
Try to add any more "rights" to that list, and you're already infringing on one of the above. |
'Inalienable' human rights?
Ok. I'm going to quote Robert A. Heinlein, since he says it in more amusing way than I can.
-from Starship Troopers, p. 119
"Ah yes, the 'unalienable rights'... Life? What 'right' to life has a mn who is drowining in the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. What 'right' to life has a man who must die if he is to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of 'right'? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only lternative to death, which man's right is 'unalienable'? And is it 'right'?"
To put my little spin on it, is your right to life violated if you get hit by a lightning? What if someone hits you with a car by accident? Is your right to life violated? If so, what shoulda be done about it? Punish nature? Punish the person who had no intention of doing bad, but did so accidently?
| quote: | | We don't attach value to them, they have value. The value of ideas is a mental construct, the value of property is not. If you try to take food away from a dog, it will growl at you. It's not "attaching value" to what's in front of it, it doesn't even have that mental capacity. |
Humans don't act like dogs.
So to some people, while accepting that food has value because it is essential to survival, but think differently to different foods. Like someone who likes sushi a lot (giving a lot of value to it) but someone who dislikes it and eats it only if he has to. Some may choose to not eat sushi no matter what the circumstance is, giving no value to it.
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Human rights are meant to protect physical things (life and property), not ideas, which is essentially what it's been bastardized into doing. |
I'll buy that for a nickel, for now.
| quote: | | The philosophies of subjectivism and moral relativism are utter crap. They're completely anti-intellectual as they essentially involve saying "hey, other people have a different idea of what's right and wrong, so that must mean there's no such thing as right or wrong". That's the logic, right there, and it should be easy to see that you're skipping about 15 steps in the reasoning process. |
What's to say your opinion is the right/just/moral idea and other people's isn't? |
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| EvilDust |
| quote: | Originally posted by DigiNut
We don't attach value to them, they have value. The value of ideas is a mental construct, the value of property is not. If you try to take food away from a dog, it will growl at you. It's not "attaching value" to what's in front of it, it doesn't even have that mental capacity.
Human rights are meant to protect physical things (life and property), not ideas, which is essentially what it's been bastardized into doing. |
Right. So we shouldn't penalize someone for plagiarism. We should be able to copy works of art and ideas, claim them as original and sell them for cash! After all, who's to say that wasn't our own original thoughts?
| quote: | Originally posted by DigiNut
The philosophies of subjectivism and moral relativism are utter crap. They're completely anti-intellectual as they essentially involve saying "hey, other people have a different idea of what's right and wrong, so that must mean there's no such thing as right or wrong". That's the logic, right there, and it should be easy to see that you're skipping about 15 steps in the reasoning process. |
If only life were this simple, we wouldn't be debating about abortion, homosexuality, capital punishment, racism, raising kids appropriately, how to treat women, invading countries, the importance of money, etc. etc...
Again, you have to ask yourself, what makes me right and others wrong? |
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| MarkT |
| quote: | Originally posted by DigiNut
[FONT=Tahoma][COLOR=#99CCEE]We don't attach value to them, they have value. |
no, I disagree...
Food has no *intrinsic* value...instrinsic value meaning value that is independent of anything other than itself...ie. "inherently" valuable or good or bad or whatever. If food is valuable to a human being to be eaten...then it's value is relative to that human being, that human's level of hunger, the amount of other food available, etc.
so there is no inherent and measurable value outside of what an organism (human, whatever) would attach to it ;) |
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