What is a Right?

[rahmota]

Just what is a right? Is it something inherently a part of a person? Something that you get just for being born a human? Is it something that must be earned or taken or is it granted by a higher power or secular authority just what are these elusive things called rights? Just how far do they go and what do they cover? And what is the difference between a right and a priviledge?

I am a firm believer that certain thigns are rights and they are a part of a person just for being born.

You have the right to live your life in your manner as long as you do not affect or deny another their right to live their life.

You have the right to liberty and freedom so long as you do not deny that same right to another.

You have the right to think or believe anythign you so desire as long as you do not deny that right to another.

You have the right to defend your life and the life of those in your protection.

You have the right to privacy in your own home and sanctum. Your home is your castle and not to be lightly invaded.

There will be more to this but I want to hear what you have to say about this start first. So have at it what is a right?

[Seshat]

Nature gives us certain 'rights':

* The right to try to survive.
* The right to die, possibly horribly, if we flunk the first.
* The right of our bodies to be recycled in the 'circle of life'. Eventually. If we don't fall into peat or end up becoming fossilised.


Everything else is a social construct. A kind of promise we humans make to each other, that enables us to cooperate with a minimum of screaming and flinging monkey poo at each other.

Some of our 'rights' come out of our primate evolution. These are nearly instinctive to us - you can see them in action watching shows like 'Monkey Business' on Animal planet.

That said, I would like to see the following 'right' become universal on Earth:

* the right to move to a society which venerates and believes in the same rights as you, or as close to such as society as happens to exist.

That way, someone who's in a country which operates under a set of rules they find obnoxious could go somewhere else, that perhaps operates under a set of rules they find congenial.

It has a corresponding right, a right of a society:

* to continue to operate under the set of rules on which it was founded, as evolved and modified by the majority of the members of that society.

Or to express it in terms of the right of the individual:

* to not have their society's basic rules and mores changed on the whim of a minority.



As for rights I prefer in a society, I think the UN Declaration of Human Rights is an excellent start.

[Banrion]

Wait I got this one. I just read the definition in my ethics book.

The idea is to imagine what life would be like if there were no government and then to justify the establishment of a political state to remedy the effects of nature.

By definition then, our social constructs are developed for the express purpose of protecting our rights. Without a social construct that dictated rights, we would have exactly the same rights as a cheetah in the savanna or a polar bear in the arctic. We as humans have banded together to protect that which we have decided are our rights.

[rahmota]

Well thats an interesting thing. So basically in the absence of social contructs the only rights you have are those you can defend or achieve through force or removal of self from the position and situation.

[Seshat]

Pretty much, yes.

[rahmota]

Hmm kinda makes that right to keep and bear arms a lot more important in those circumstances dont it...

[Seshat]

Well, that depends on the social constructs your society develops.

But a breakdown of society severe enough to require someone like me to bear arms (or arm bears, for that matter) would almost certainly cause me and the people I love most in the world to have really severe problems.

Two of us are dependent on medications which are too expensive and difficult for societies less sophisticated than ours to manufacture. If the social constructs that keep our cities and industries running were to break down, both of us would become incapacitated.


Now, taking us from the highly sophisticated and back to our primal roots:

Most primates operate in social groups. Certain types of social construct are embedded so far back into our brains that we may as well consider them 'universal rights'.

* As children, we have a right to nurture.

* All members of the tribe have a right to food. High-status members will typically have the most desirable foods, however.

* All members have the right to social contact, and social interaction.

* All members have a right to share in the tribe's resources, though high status members may have the most desirable den space and other scarce resources.

* Except in times of severe scarcity, the tribe will defend any member of the tribe who is valuable to the tribe and unsuited to being a defender themselves. In times of severe scarcity, some of the least fit (and in some species, infants) may be sacrificed for the survival of the tribe.