> It certainly isn't a human right.
Freedom of expression is in Article 19 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
Freedom of expression is in Article 19 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
If you say freedom of expression is a human right,then how come no soldier or prisoner is afforded that right? Did they forfeit their humanity? If so,by what authority did they forfeit their own humanity?
Human right as in rights you have for being a human,not a membet of a specific nation or group but rights you are born with. UN defines human rights based on what member states agree is a human right based on voting and electiond. Universally means by nearly every sane and rational human,not by a simple majority.
Good example: most people agree rape is wrong because it's a terrible thing to happen to person and it isn't acceptable. However,the right to not get raped is not a right you have simply for being a human but rather socieities agrees it shouldn't happen to anyone. You'd find marital rape is unprosecutable in some countries and perfectly legal in the west even in the last few centuries. I.E.: people decided it wad bad.
Otoh: a person can eat(if they find food),sleep,and be alive because they're human.
I view them as an un-elected advisory group.
I posit that breaking the very morals you believe in yourself, and lying about it, is immoral.
i'm not saying you have to agree with it, but this seems like as universally accepted an answer to "what are basic human rights?" as any that might be given (i'm assuming there is actually no universally agreeable definition, but this seems like one of the more respectable and frequently cited sources).
Human rights are not objective truths. The entire concept is something we made up based on beliefs that we formed through the course of history and we formalized the ones that a bunch of us were able to agree upon. They are a figment of our imaginations that we buy into because they're useful tools for structuring a society that isn't absolute chaos. As a result, citing a list that the UN formalized as some sort of factual evidence is, to me, on par with citing religious texts to promote their corresponding belief systems as "correct". That's not to say the list doesn't have value, only that it's open to debate and represents beliefs rather than facts.
I would wager that most people have never bothered to ask the question because morality is useful either way. Even if your claim is true, most people also believed common myths like the earth being flat at one point, so that’s hardly a compelling argument.
I’m not saying morality has no place, only that it’s not a physical reality and you can’t point to a list as definitive proof of what is and is not moral.
You're right. But if it's a question of evidence, I can certainly provide it.
The fact that most people in the world adhere to one of the major religions [1] [2], which have moral duties, a fortiori implies that your view isn't the most common. Even this is vastly under-counting, of course, since it excludes humanists and non-humanists who adhere to secular ethics. I think the uncommonness of your view is quite clear and it would be disingenuous to deny that.
Second, your view isn't the most common even among professional philosophers whose raison d'etre is precisely to ask and analyze these questions. Specifically, your view is the most common neither among those who study meta-ethics nor among the general population [3].
> Even if your claim is true, most people also believed common myths like the earth being flat at one point, so that’s hardly a compelling argument.
I didn't say its uncommonness makes it untrue. I said it's neither the most common (which may or may not warrant a higher burden of proof) nor the most plausible.
[1] http://www.pewforum.org/2017/04/05/the-changing-global-relig...
[2] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...
On a separate note, I take issue with the suggestion that an individual identifying with a major religion qualifies as adherence to its principles. This is nitpicking and doesn't impact the larger point you're making, but I think it's an important distinction in general.
I agree that this an important distinction, but a person identifying with a major religion is a strong prima facie reason for thinking they're moral realists. Keep in mind that believing there are some moral facts is a much, much weaker position than believing all or even most moral claims of their religion are true.
> What's the case for moral realism that makes it so compelling?
My personal favorite are Moorean arguments of the form:
(1) Torturing people for fun is morally wrong.
(2) If there's at least one moral fact, then moral realism is true.
(3) Therefore, moral realism is true.
You can replace (1) with your favorite moral fact, such as
(1) The Nanjing massacre [1] was morally wrong.
(1) The torture and murder of Kelly Anne Bates [2] was morally wrong.
(1) The torture and murder of Unit 731 victims [3] was morally wrong.
and have the argument go through. The key point is that, as far as I know, there's no argument against moral realism whose premises are all more plausible than (1).
Another class of arguments are so-called partners in crime arguments [4][5][6], which link moral reasoning with prudential and epistemic reasoning.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre#Massacre
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kelly_Anne_Bates#Mur...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731#Activities
[4] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/000484008026364...
[5] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00048402.2016.1...
[6] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00048402.2017.1...
[1] https://philpapers.org/rec/HUEPCA