Comments | morgoth_2005: Rights

morgoth_2005

Rights

Mar 23, 2011 19:28

I am still waiting for someone to prove the philosophical existence of human rights to me. I accept them as a working concept that I like and can work with but not inherently and not absolutely.

Rights can be of two kinds: religious and irreligious.

The former, then, are those given to us by God. They are handed down to us and we have them, but they ( Read more... )

Comments 4

autrement_que March 23 2011, 20:48:18 UTC

знаешь, кого надо спросить? Таню Томаеву, она ровно по этой теме пишет диссер в Бирбеке. Найди ее у меня в фб в друзьях, и спишись с ней. Прям брось это ей в почту.

morgoth_2005 March 23 2011, 20:51:42 UTC

Birckbeck u menya naprotiv. Ya ne shuchu. Dumayesh nado?

koot March 24 2011, 00:23:04 UTC

Could it be thus: human right don't *exist*, but are *ascribed* to human beings. When we want to treat humans as humans, we endow them with certain rights that reflect our understanding of humanity (as opposed to, say, objects or animals). So I suppose our concept of human rights changes accordingly with our notion of humanity. If the ultimate dignity of humanity comes from God, then it should somehow form our idea of human rights.

traverse March 24 2011, 09:57:33 UTC

Hi Andrey, the whole concept of HR is a bit of a mess, to be honest. I would say there is no single way of thinking about rights. I am going to be very simplistic here and leave important bits of the argument out, but it is only possible to claim that human rights "exist" in any meaningful sense if we stipulate some kind of a "natural order" which is both a) what actually is, and b) what ought to be. We talk about rights when we believe that something should be allowed us (some good, or some freedom or non-interference with whatever it is we are doing) even if it is not, as a matter of fact, happening. So, rights serve as justification for the meeting of needs that humans have in order simply to be able to go about their lives, to preserve them but also fulfil their life goals as humans. Our understanding of human life goals affects the specific content of rights. For medieval scholars the paramount right was the right to self-preservation. For example, if you are having breakfast in the morning, you are exercising this right. Having ( ... )