![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"Natural rights" vs "legal rights"
Jun. 10th, 2012 03:31 pmThis is one of those things that underlies a lot of my thinking. I'm not posting this because of any particular thing that's going on, but because it's a general concept that is basic to my philosophy and understanding of the world, and I wanted to just put it down here so I can point to it later, and so that people can help me refine it and see if it makes sense.
I believe that one problem that we have in all sorts of political conflicts is that the word "rights" has two different, basically unrelated meanings. You've got "rights" which are things that are intrinsic to beings, and then you have "rights" which are things that societies legally grant to entities for pragmatic reasons.
There are several names for this first category of rights -- "natural rights", "intrinsic rights", "human rights", "God-given rights", "inalienable rights". The second category probably has multiple names, but I only know them as "legal rights." The term "civil rights", in modern usage, is another word in that first group, but, annoyingly, in some pre-modern works, the term is used to mean "legal rights", the OPPOSITE of its current meaning.
Societies, through their governments and legal systems, grant legal rights. They can make up whatever legal rights they feel are useful and pragmatic, for whatever reason they want; they can change them when they feel it's reasonable to do so. Natural rights, however, are NOT granted -- they are intrinsic. Well, if you're theistic, you can think of them as "God-granted"; if you're a Deist, you might say that they are "endowed by their Creator" upon people. But they're NOT granted by governments or by societies. Legal systems merely recognize and protect natural rights -- they don't create them.
It's simple to enumerate legal rights -- they're whatever a society says they are. You list 'em, you write 'em down, there you go. Of course, there are going to be arguments and conflicts about their application, but their basic existence is simple and unambiguous, written down in literal black-and-white.
Natural rights, on the other hand, are confusing. Philosophers and theologians can argue about them endlessly -- but the idea is that they're trying to discover and encapsulate a thing that actually exists independently within the nature of the Universe.
(This is an idea which is easier to conceptualize by people who are in some way theistic, but which some atheists also hold. And, incidentally, the fact that it's easier to fold into a theistic view of the universe than an atheistic view is why some theists assume that atheists must be inherently immoral -- they believe that the belief in the existence of an objective morality MUST include the belief in God, because, for them, they ARE inexorably linked. Nonetheless, the vast majority of atheists I know DO believe in the recognition and protection of natural rights, so I am aware that they ARE separable.)
So, the question that one wants to raise here is, "So, what ARE those natural rights?"
It seems to me that the most fundamental natural right is "the right to self-determination." I think that most other natural rights flow from that center.
"The right to self-determination" includes "the right of control over one's own body," "the right to believe as one chooses," "the right to associate with whom one wishes to," "the right to have the apparatus of the government and society to treat you on your own personal merits rather than assumptions about your category", "the right to express one's opinions as one chooses". Then there are things which MIGHT be part of this, but I'm somewhat less sure of: "the right to own property and to do whatever one chooses to do with it." In my mind, this IS a "right", but "property" is a bit of an undefined term. For instance, I don't believe that "land" is, itself, "property" in a natural rights sense. I believe that "the right to own land" is a legal right that we, as a society, have decided is useful.
Some cultures define "the right to basic health care" to be a part of self-determination -- illness and injury prevent a person from acting as who they are, and therefore society has a responsibility to support people's ability to be who they are, by jointly combating those things. Personally, I don't agree with that -- to me, I think that having help mitigating the actions of an uncaring Universe is a natural right, but I DO think that it OUGHT to be a legal right.
Societies exist for two main reasons, I think: to form groups which have the ability to protect natural rights, and to form legal rights which, indeed, do mitigate the actions of an uncaring Universe. That we have no natural right to be protected from disease, famine, misfortune, and the like, but that a fundamental purpose of having a society in the first place is to provide that protection to one another. And that the establishment of legal rights is an excellent way to ensure that.
Edited to Add a discussion question: Let me paraphrase the question that people who are afraid of atheism ask: as a lot of you don't believe in the existence of an external, objective morality which exists independent of human thought, and yet, you value the same moral and ethical points of human dignity that I do -- for you, how did you come to value those things? You perceive right and wrong at least as strongly as people who believe in objective morality; you act at least as justly. Why?
I believe that one problem that we have in all sorts of political conflicts is that the word "rights" has two different, basically unrelated meanings. You've got "rights" which are things that are intrinsic to beings, and then you have "rights" which are things that societies legally grant to entities for pragmatic reasons.
There are several names for this first category of rights -- "natural rights", "intrinsic rights", "human rights", "God-given rights", "inalienable rights". The second category probably has multiple names, but I only know them as "legal rights." The term "civil rights", in modern usage, is another word in that first group, but, annoyingly, in some pre-modern works, the term is used to mean "legal rights", the OPPOSITE of its current meaning.
Societies, through their governments and legal systems, grant legal rights. They can make up whatever legal rights they feel are useful and pragmatic, for whatever reason they want; they can change them when they feel it's reasonable to do so. Natural rights, however, are NOT granted -- they are intrinsic. Well, if you're theistic, you can think of them as "God-granted"; if you're a Deist, you might say that they are "endowed by their Creator" upon people. But they're NOT granted by governments or by societies. Legal systems merely recognize and protect natural rights -- they don't create them.
It's simple to enumerate legal rights -- they're whatever a society says they are. You list 'em, you write 'em down, there you go. Of course, there are going to be arguments and conflicts about their application, but their basic existence is simple and unambiguous, written down in literal black-and-white.
Natural rights, on the other hand, are confusing. Philosophers and theologians can argue about them endlessly -- but the idea is that they're trying to discover and encapsulate a thing that actually exists independently within the nature of the Universe.
(This is an idea which is easier to conceptualize by people who are in some way theistic, but which some atheists also hold. And, incidentally, the fact that it's easier to fold into a theistic view of the universe than an atheistic view is why some theists assume that atheists must be inherently immoral -- they believe that the belief in the existence of an objective morality MUST include the belief in God, because, for them, they ARE inexorably linked. Nonetheless, the vast majority of atheists I know DO believe in the recognition and protection of natural rights, so I am aware that they ARE separable.)
So, the question that one wants to raise here is, "So, what ARE those natural rights?"
It seems to me that the most fundamental natural right is "the right to self-determination." I think that most other natural rights flow from that center.
"The right to self-determination" includes "the right of control over one's own body," "the right to believe as one chooses," "the right to associate with whom one wishes to," "the right to have the apparatus of the government and society to treat you on your own personal merits rather than assumptions about your category", "the right to express one's opinions as one chooses". Then there are things which MIGHT be part of this, but I'm somewhat less sure of: "the right to own property and to do whatever one chooses to do with it." In my mind, this IS a "right", but "property" is a bit of an undefined term. For instance, I don't believe that "land" is, itself, "property" in a natural rights sense. I believe that "the right to own land" is a legal right that we, as a society, have decided is useful.
Some cultures define "the right to basic health care" to be a part of self-determination -- illness and injury prevent a person from acting as who they are, and therefore society has a responsibility to support people's ability to be who they are, by jointly combating those things. Personally, I don't agree with that -- to me, I think that having help mitigating the actions of an uncaring Universe is a natural right, but I DO think that it OUGHT to be a legal right.
Societies exist for two main reasons, I think: to form groups which have the ability to protect natural rights, and to form legal rights which, indeed, do mitigate the actions of an uncaring Universe. That we have no natural right to be protected from disease, famine, misfortune, and the like, but that a fundamental purpose of having a society in the first place is to provide that protection to one another. And that the establishment of legal rights is an excellent way to ensure that.
Edited to Add a discussion question: Let me paraphrase the question that people who are afraid of atheism ask: as a lot of you don't believe in the existence of an external, objective morality which exists independent of human thought, and yet, you value the same moral and ethical points of human dignity that I do -- for you, how did you come to value those things? You perceive right and wrong at least as strongly as people who believe in objective morality; you act at least as justly. Why?