Do Natural Rights Exist?

[Diogenes]

I'm reading the Social Contract right now and I've been wondering if we have any "natural" rights. Rousseau seems to reject the idea of the right to property which makes sense.

The only reason I ask is because I was discussing with a philosophy professor about this and he said that a lot of what came out of the Enlightenment about the idea of natural rights was just bullshit used to convince the people to revolt against monarchy

[JazzRemington]

The only reason I ask is because I was discussing with a philosophy professor about this and he said that a lot of what came out of the Enlightenment about the idea of natural rights was just bullshit used to convince the people to revolt against monarchy

This.

It's the product of specific historical conditions that saw the advancement of markets and capitalist production relations. Basically, they saw the objective material conditions and rationalized it by claiming "natural rights" over property and self.

[jmpeer]

Of course rights are not natural, but they are socially advantageous. It's reasonable to assume there would be such a movement in a time when they are not common sense, explicit, or commonly respected, but it's not bullshit. Your teacher's ethnocentric view is bullshit. Ask him to justify how a monarchy is more socially advantageous than these rights, then he may call them bullshit.

This is coming from a guy who doesn't even like the document or author he's defending.

[AfricanAztecSamurai]

the only rights that are guaranteed in this world are the ones you can enforce yourself with your own weapons and fists.other than that history has shown peaceful people dont last too long.

[Queercommie Girl]

The only reason I ask is because I was discussing with a philosophy professor about this and he said that a lot of what came out of the Enlightenment about the idea of natural rights was just bullshit used to convince the people to revolt against monarchy

But Capitalism is still generally speaking more progressive than Feudalism. If one is "anti-capitalist" in a pro-feudal direction, then frankly one is even worse than a capitalist.

If "natural rights" were used as an ideological tool to bring down the feudal monarchy, then in such a specific historical and socio-economic context it did serve a relatively progressive purpose. It's not very meaningful to talk about "natural rights" in a purely abstract and "intrinsic" manner.

[Queercommie Girl]

the only rights that are guaranteed in this world are the ones you can enforce yourself with your own weapons and fists.other than that history has shown peaceful people dont last too long.

You do realise that the Japanese samurai was a layer of the feudal landlord class that is technically even more reactionary than the bourgeois? Why would you use such a term in your handle?

[hatzel]

Your teacher's ethnocentric view is bullshit.

I'm struggling to see what's so 'ethnocentric' about the statement in question...

[Sadena Meti]

Some natural rights might exist. Take existence for example. Something comes into being through whatever natural forces, it exists. Does it not have the right to continue to exist? I'm not sure we should apply this to rocks and trees, but people certainly, and though I'm not a vegan, maybe even animals. Do we have the right to wipe out a species of virus?

[Thirsty Crow]

Some natural rights might exist. Take existence for example. Something comes into being through whatever natural forces, it exists. Does it not have the right to continue to exist? I'm not sure we should apply this to rocks and trees, but people certainly, and though I'm not a vegan, maybe even animals. Do we have the right to wipe out a species of virus?

The existence of the concept of "natural right" cannot be verified. "Natural rights" do not exist in the same way that a boar or an oak tree do. They are, rather certain ideas regulating social relations within a specific historical period. But those ideas didn't fall from the sky (and they are not God-given) - they are a product of the historical development of exactly those social relations within which they operate as regulatory mechanisms (ultimately backed by threat of force).

[AfricanAztecSamurai]

the samurai part comes only from my interest in military history/tactics thats it,nothing political there.but I still beleive that the only rights we have are the ones we aknowledge and defend.i mean isnt that the point of this website,isnt what all the geat revolutionaries did/were willing to do.

[ChrisK]

Any talk of "natural rights" is simply turning a standard descriptive term "right" with the name of an existing thing. "Natural rights" is meaningless.

[Queercommie Girl]

Any talk of "natural rights" is simply turning a standard descriptive term "right" with the name of an existing thing. "Natural rights" is meaningless.

Actually to talk about "natural rights" in any kind of abstract philosophical sense, whether it's positive or negative, is basically meaningless. The only way to analyse "natural rights" is within a particular historical and socio-economic context.

There are no "Platonic" concepts, only historical ones. Personally I'm not really a big fan of abstract philosophy.

[ChrisK]

Actually to talk about "natural rights" in any kind of abstract philosophical sense, whether it's positive or negative, is basically meaningless. The only way to analyse "natural rights" is within a particular historical and socio-economic context.

There are no "Platonic" concepts, only historical ones. Personally I'm not really a big fan of abstract philosophy.

The only way that a historical notion of human rights is interesting is seeing how they are used to legitimize the bourgeois.

[Queercommie Girl]

the samurai part comes only from my interest in military history/tactics thats it,nothing political there.but I still beleive that the only rights we have are the ones we aknowledge and defend.i mean isnt that the point of this website,isnt what all the geat revolutionaries did/were willing to do.

To be willing to determinedly fight against oppression (of any form) is certainly admirable.

But to say something along the lines of "only those who can physically defend their 'rights' deserve them" isn't really correct, because it's almost like saying "the weak should have no rights".

Communism isn't a social darwinist style jungle where only the strong can survive. In fact, even the relatively more "progressive" layers of the feudal knights and samurai you like believed in things like "defending the weak", and "help those who have trouble helping themselves".

[Queercommie Girl]

The only way that a historical notion of human rights is interesting is seeing how they are used to legitimize the bourgeois.

Early capitalism was certainly relatively progressive with respect to the feudal monarchy.

The fundamental difference between the socialist conception of "human rights" and the capitalist one is that for socialists, rights are never class-independent. Socialists only support the human rights of workers and other exploited classes, not the rights of the exploiters. The more "freedom" a capitalist has to exploit workers, the more "freedom" a worker has to be exploited.

[ChrisK]

Early capitalism was certainly relatively progressive with respect to the feudal monarchy.

The fundamental difference between the socialist conception of "human rights" and the capitalist one is that for socialists, rights are never class-independent. Socialists only support the human rights of workers and other exploited classes, not the rights of the exploiters. The more "freedom" a capitalist has to exploit workers, the more "freedom" a worker has to be exploited.

Sure it was progressive. But that has no bearing on some metaphysical "natural rights". The reality is that socialists do not need "rights", as those are simply a misuse of the the ordinary word, right.

[Queercommie Girl]

Sure it was progressive. But that has no bearing on some metaphysical "natural rights". The reality is that socialists do not need "rights", as those are simply a misuse of the the ordinary word, right.

Ok, but I am not really talking about "human rights" in the metaphysical sense, I'm talking about them in the concrete historical and socio-economic sense.

Like my trans friend got fired from a company in Shanghai simply because she is trans. That's a concrete case of a violation of basic human rights for LGBT people. And I would expect all genuine socialists to support her basic rights. You see what I mean? This kind of concrete examples is much more useful than purely abstract philosophical discussions.

[ChrisK]

Ok, but I am not really talking about "human rights" in the metaphysical sense, I'm talking about them in the concrete historical and socio-economic sense.

Like my trans friend got fired from a company in Shanghai simply because she is trans. That's a concrete case of a violation of basic human rights for LGBT people. And I would expect all genuine socialists to support her basic rights. You see what I mean? This kind of concrete examples is much more useful than purely abstract philosophical discussions.

Ah, got it. Sorry, figured you were talking about some abstraction.

[caramelpence]

The discourse of natural rights is based around the idea that rights are discovered rather than invented - that there are rights that exist as fundamental moral attributes, reflecting a type of natural law. The notion of natural law is distinct from natural rights insofar as its origins lie in the philosophy of Ancient Greece and it was only later that philosophers took up natural law and used it to argue that there are rights that exist as basic and objective moral attributes.

If we speak of human rights rather than natural rights then we are not saying that rights exist as basic moral entities and that they are therefore entities that can be discovered. To assert that someone should have a certain human right or that a human right is being violated is a shorthand way of saying that there are certain basic human attributes or functions that are so important for the flourishing of human beings that they ought to be given a kind of protective capsule, so that they receive protection even when they might otherwise be outweighed by other moral considerations such as the maximization of utility. From this perspective, and to use the term deployed by one political theorist, a right is a kind of turmp-card. In this sense, if we are looking at the discourse of human rights, it is not the right that is the basic moral entity, it is the attribute or function to which the right corresponds, and the assertion that there is such a right is a way of affirming the importance not only of the underlying attribute but also the bearer of that attribute, i.e. the individual human being. To say that there should be a right to free speech, for example, is a way of indicating the importance of being able to speak freely for human flourishing and the value of the free-speaking human being. The fact that people do often use rights in this way - as a way of drawing attention to important attributes and/or their violation - makes it problematic to understand rights wholly in positivistic terms, depending on whether a right is actually being enforced at a given point in time. People use the language of rights as a way of adding credibility and strength to their political demands and arguments - it is an instance of language embodying power - and to ignore this is to abstract from the actual place and role of rights-discourses in political activity and language.

There is no reason why socialists should not support rights (or make use of the language of rights) if they are viewed as protective capsules and legal-linguistic devices, rather than as they are understood in natural law, which is rightly rejected as metaphysical and lacking any sense of how ethics are historically and socially grounded. A close reading of Marx's On the Jewish Question, which is frequently quoted to support the argument that Marx was opposed to human rights as such, shows that Marx's objection was to the rights that exist in bourgeois society, because those rights were seen by Marx to protect and promote human attributes and functions that were not worthy of protection because they did not support human flourishing - most notably, the ownership of private property - so that Marx envisaged a society in which rights would correspond to and defend more authentic and worthy human attributes, such as fulfilling and non-alienated labour.

[Zav]

the only rights that are guaranteed in this world are the ones you can enforce yourself with your own weapons and fists.other than that history has shown peaceful people dont last too long.

This is, unfortunately, pretty much true, though people can be peaceful and still have the ability to defend themselves.