I can't think of a single right that exists inherently. Where does such a right originate?
For every right that most people hold evident, you'll find people who disagree. This is why rights are codified in laws and agreements.
For every right that most people hold evident, you'll find people who disagree. This is why rights are codified in laws and agreements.
The US was built upon the idea that rights are inherent and not granted to citizens by a government.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
> This is why rights are codified in laws and agreements.
Which is what the US Constitution is. (Just because the say "We hold these truths to be self-evident" doesn't mean that they are)
Mind blown huh?
Simply put, those who are attacked will fight back. Those who are forced to say or believe something will instead resist the idea.
Therein you have a basis for the first and second amendment, i.e. freedom to think and freedom to defend yourself.
Curious wording. The vast majority of even modern human history seems to provide an incredible amount of contradictory evidence—at least if you’ll grant that “forced” can also mean socialized into a certain cultural and ideological narrative from birth. Sure, there are notable moments when resistance forms quietly, and perhaps even makes its way into the public sphere. However, resistance does not appear to me to be a default human trait. That’s usually only found in a smaller portion of what is typically non-boat-rocking humanity—those who hope to convince their fellow citizens to join them. The majority of humans appear to rarely make it habit to question anything at all.
Well not that I'm Christian, but Christian teaching is basically the opposite of this (Matthew 5:39 - i.e. turn the other cheek). And Gandhi's resistance was also an example of the opposite. In fact the opposite is the only way to deescalate a fight (or, as the US chooses to do, create the biggest weapons, but isn't that then affecting the rights of the people on the other side of the argument?)
> Those who are forced to say or believe something will instead resist the idea.
Really? Advertising, religion, nation states, even your belief that these are "natural" laws are examples of your inherent bias. As a smaller example, even politeness - civility - is a counter example.
And then you bring up every method of manipulation as if people don't hate all of those things. Why would we need to invent clever tricks to manipulate people if it was human nature to like it?
Sure, we're plenty effective both at hurting others and manipulating people, but it seems odd to express examples of our capability at doing that to unwilling people as evidence that we like those things being done to us...
Why would we have to go to such lengths to develop these capabilities if it was something we naturally liked? You're kind of proving the opposite of the point you think you are here....
If you want to be closed minded, and not accept that you are choosing your axioms in the same way as someone else exposed to different upbringings is - as per my examples, then I guess I have no chance of convincing you otherwise.
You can say there's construction there, but there's a limit to it. I mean, just as you can't simply construct a functional bridge out of anything you want, neither can you reasonably construct any sort of right and have a functioning society. There are both positive and negative rights, tensions among the rights of different people, and responsibilities imposed on individuals and society by any particular conception of rights.
OP quoted the Declaration of Independence, which is neither law nor agreement.
From our own human nature, actually. Think about this for a minute. Would a normal person be willing to believe something because you were forced to? If someone was violently attacked, would they not fight back?
By recognizing these aspects of human nature as something fundamentally not controllable by laws, we can instead force government to work with that human nature instead of contrary to it.
Now, the current conflict is being caused by pitting these against each other. Because people believe they are unsafe because of people who own guns or use hate speech, you now have two groups of people who believe that the other group is making them unsafe.
This is ironic, because we're actually becoming statistically safer over time, but it does lead to some very real conflict because people believe there's another group out there that wants to harm them, instead of realizing that both sides really just want to protect themselves, barring a few fringe whackos on either side.
If human nature is ultimately "not controllable by law", then that would certainly apply broadly, not just to cherry picked aspects of it.
Certainly assault, murder, rape, theft, harassment, abuse, cheating, and the like are facets of feral humanity; just as much as positive traits like self-preservation, compassion, parental instincts, social bonding, etc. Law usually stands in a directly contrary position to the former list, to wide agreement.
It's pretty hard to pin down what natural rights are. That a society ought to consider the limits of normal human behaviour I don't dispute, but that just informs the rights a society grants its members. Rights are still a human social construct.
We value our safety from, e.g., rapists more than the rapist's liberty.
Codified rights are effectively statements of belief of a government, to which they are binding themselves. As a statement of belief, there's no legal structures or arguments upholding them. They are simply installed by declaration (either dictatorially or by some measure of consensus) as an official part of the government's world view.
There have been many thinkers that have challenged Locke. I am currently reading the Second Treatise to try and really understand Locke's position before I make up my mind.
This is, of course, not an argument about moral rigts and wrongs, just a pragmatic one about how rights work.