You Have No Rights

[Savi]

This is an email I sent to the Atheist Experience (TV show). I decided to post it here to see what the Volconvo community thinks of it.







If you have the time, I’d like to know what the members of the show have to say about the concept of rights. Before/if you respond, I should mention that I’m an agnostic atheist. As an agnostic atheist, I’m skeptical about god claims. Most people say that rights come from God. I can’t say that I believe this, obviously, because I don’t believe in any gods. However, many atheists also believe in rights, but they don’t agree with theists about where rights come from. I don’t understand why someone would be skeptical about god claims but not skeptical about the claim that people have rights. To me, both of these types of claims seem equally extraordinary and require equally extraordinary evidence.



Let’s examine what a “right” is. Based on the way rights are often described, they seem to be nothing more than intense desires shared by a vast majority of people within a society. A right is something we want so badly, we’re willing to convince ourselves that we’re entitled to it (the right to life, free speech, etc). There is no reason to believe that anyone owes us something just for being alive or human. The assertion that we have a right to various things that we want very badly is extremely bold and requires rational justification. I’m not saying it’s unreasonable to want things like free speech. I’m saying it’s unreasonable to claim that we’re entitled to it, or that it is owed to us based on some divine, cosmic, or moral principle.



If we have rights, I'd like to see someone prove it. I’d like someone to at least show me some evidence that we have rights. How can one know we have them? It's one thing to say that you'd like people to be treated a certain way. But it's an entirely different statement to say that we simply have rights and are inherently entitled to a certain type of treatment. How/why does this entitlement exist? What force or entity makes us entitled to certain things? Why are certain things simply owed to us?



When someone tells me, for example, that we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, I ask them to tell me how they know this and to demonstrate that these rights exist. The simple reality is that there is no evidence for the existence of rights, and I don’t see how a skeptic could believe in something as seemingly magical as the concept of rights.

[Cephus]

Rights are invented out of whole cloth by societies. They have no existence or application outside of a society.

[HoleyCarbonGrid]

Even if rights have no objective basis, what is wrong about a particular society from assuming certain things constitute "rights," and acting to enable their protection? While I agree that this provides a less firm basis for intervention into other societies, what if the bulk of societies as a whole agree about the existence of certain rights?

[SoylentGreen]

[I][B]
If you have the time, I’d like to know what the members of the show have to say about the concept of rights. Before/if you respond, I should mention that I’m an agnostic atheist. As an agnostic atheist, I’m skeptical about god claims. Most people say that rights come from God. I can’t say that I believe this, obviously, because I don’t believe in any gods. However, many atheists also believe in rights, but they don’t agree with theists about where rights come from. I don’t understand why someone would be skeptical about god claims but not skeptical about the claim that people have rights. To me, both of these types of claims seem equally extraordinary and require equally extraordinary evidence.

Please explain what is the extraordinary claim in people have rights? When you say equally, do you mean not believe in people as you do not believe in god?

Let’s examine what a “right” is. Based on the way rights are often described, they seem to be nothing more than intense desires shared by a vast majority of people within a society. A right is something we want so badly, we’re willing to convince ourselves that we’re entitled to it (the right to life, free speech, etc).

So you are not convinced that we have the right to life, free speech, etc ?

There is no reason to believe that anyone owes us something just for being alive or human.

Why do parents try so hard to keep their children alive then?

The assertion that we have a right to various things that we want very badly is extremely bold and requires rational justification.

We can observe human behaviour, which is more than can be said for gods behaviour.

If we have rights, I'd like to see someone prove it. I’d like someone to at least show me some evidence that we have rights. How can one know we have them? It's one thing to say that you'd like people to be treated a certain way. But it's an entirely different statement to say that we simply have rights and are inherently entitled to a certain type of treatment. How/why does this entitlement exist? What force or entity makes us entitled to certain things? Why are certain things simply owed to us?

As you said, "requires rational justification". Humans are social creatures, and rights are tools that help build a society.

When someone tells me, for example, that we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, I ask them to tell me how they know this and to demonstrate that these rights exist. The simple reality is that there is no evidence for the existence of rights, and I don’t see how a skeptic could believe in something as seemingly magical as the concept of rights.

Take a look at the behaviour of a pack of wolves in the wild and the social order they develop. An Alpha Male will claim his right to dominate. Social creatures use tools such as rights to create a society.

[Cephus]

Even if rights have no objective basis, what is wrong about a particular society from assuming certain things constitute "rights," and acting to enable their protection? While I agree that this provides a less firm basis for intervention into other societies, what if the bulk of societies as a whole agree about the existence of certain rights?

Then collectively, those rights exist, but their existence stops as soon as you go outside of that collective agreement. It's when people start claiming that rights exist objectively and use that assertion as an excuse to go invading other nations. Absolutely no rights of any kind exist objectively, period.

[cfreetenor]

I'll give it a go.

The number one priority and rule for any functioning society must be some modicum of respect for its members. In a sense, rights as a concept are a manifestation of this need for universal respect. They have been determined, largely through trial and error, to be the best standards to set for every human life if society is to function correctly. Essentially, most rights boil down to the following rules:

1. You own your life.
2. You own what is given to you (through trade or otherwise).
3. You own the fruits of your own labor.

Other instances of rights in the civilized world can at large be derived from these three.

Before these three criteria are met, no real progress can be made as a society at large. Therefore, rights are inalienable not because of a divine influence, but because they have been imprinted into our instincts as necessary precautions to continue to thrive as a species.

You see this in animals as well. Canines have a notorious sense of ownership and are often violently territorial. The benefit of civilization is the removal of the need for violence to express these needs. This is why acts of violence in any capacity amount to a violation or disrespect of an individual's rights.

[Kathy]

[I][B]When someone tells me, for example, that we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, I ask them to tell me how they know this and to demonstrate that these rights exist. The simple reality is that there is no evidence for the existence of rights, and I don’t see how a skeptic could believe in something as seemingly magical as the concept of rights.

The Declaration of Independence says that phrase, and the Declaration of Independence has no bearing whatsoever on the United States Of America other than as a historical document. The U.S. Constitution makes no mention of a "right to life", let alone a right to liberty or a right to the pursuit of happiness. In case you're interested in what else isn't in the U.S. Constitution, the right to travel is not in the U.S. Constitution, and the right to marry isn't in there either.

[Savi]

The Declaration of Independence says that phrase, and the Declaration of Independence has no bearing whatsoever on the United States Of America other than as a historical document. The U.S. Constitution makes no mention of a "right to life", let alone a right to liberty or a right to the pursuit of happiness. In case you're interested in what else isn't in the U.S. Constitution, the right to travel is not in the U.S. Constitution, and the right to marry isn't in there either.

The point is that rights are assumed to exist (hence the Bill of Rights). I'm challenging that assumption.

[Kathy]

The point is that rights are assumed to exist (hence the Bill of Rights). I'm challenging that assumption.

Huh? You could not have written the phrase "certain inalienable human rights" 1000 years ago. It would not even have entered your mind, and it wouldn't have made sense if it did. It wouldn't make sense to a person living in the Amazon rain forest even today. And by that I mean it would be gibberish. Rights are not physical objects and so cannot exist outside the minds of human beings. They are just concepts that human beings thought up. Prior to that time they did not exist. At some time in the future they may no longer exist. They have no existence outside of what at least SOME human beings say. We do now have a fairly general worldwide consensus on and recognition of what fundamental human rights are, but that doesn't mean they "exist" apart from that consensus.

[Hickory]

The notion of human rights rests on several other ideas.

First, there is the idea of property: property is anything having real existence that a sentient being is aware of and wants to use.

Second, there is the idea of disputes over property: disputes over property arise when two or more sentient beings plan to use the same item of property in ways that are incompatible with one another.

Third, there is the idea of settling disputes over property by means of neutral arbitration: each party to the dispute presents his evidence and arguments to an unbiased third party who, after due consideration, hands down a decision intended to resolve the dispute in a way that is fair and reasonable.

Fourth, there is the concept of how a neutral arbiter may be found: persons willing to arbitrate the dispute are asked to submit their names, a list is made up, and the disputants take turns striking, say, a third of the names off the list, rounded to the nearest whole number, until only one name remains. That person is then selected to arbitrate the dispute, and, if the disputants did their homework prior to making their decisions about who to strike off the list, he will be the closest approximation of a neutral arbiter that is available under the circumstances.

When disputes over property are settled by neutral arbitration, precedents are set: the reasoning used by arbiters to arrive at their decisions is written down and studied by later arbiters who find themselves having to settle disputes of a similar nature. Result: the strongest reasoning exerts the greatest influence, and future decisions become progressively more tightly constrained into the form dictated by that reasoning.

Human rights are generalized descriptions of the constraints on decision making that have evolved out of neutral arbitration.

To say that rights do not exist is to say that it makes no difference how disputes over property are resolved, that no decision handed down by an arbiter is any more fair or reasonable than any other, that reason and the evidence tell us nothing about which party to a dispute is in the right or in the wrong.

To see how nonsensical that view is, let us consider a concrete example.

Suppose that it is 2 AM and you are sound asleep. Suddenly you are awakened by your daughter screaming. You jump out of bed and rush into her room. She is sitting up in her bed, wide-eyed, looking toward the window, and she says: "A man was leering at me through my window!" You grab a pistol and rush outside. As you round the corner of your house on the side where your daughter's room is located, you come face-to-face, from a distance of about ten feet, with a very large, very dirty, bearded man with a very big knife in his hand. Before you can speak, he lunges at you with the knife, and you commence firing. Result: he closes the distance between you very rapidly as you repeatedly pull the trigger, almost reaching you before falling dead at your feet.

The question is, should you be punished for what you did to him? You did not own his body; he did. Yet you riddled it with bullets, killing him.

The answer, I submit, is obvious, and not arbitrary in the slightest. He violated your rights repeatedly. First, he trespassed by coming onto your property without permission. Second, he invaded your privacy (and your daughter's) by window peeping. Third, he attempted murder by coming at you with a knife. The bottom line is this: he did not respect your rights, so you were relieved of all responsibility to respect his rights.

There is nothing arbitrary about that conclusion. No reasonable person would claim that there was anything unjustified or unfair in what you did, or that you ought to be punished in any way.

It is by the analysis of such examples that the principles of human rights were discovered, and those principles are fully as objective and reality based as are the laws of physics.