Sorry to nit pick but human rights protect you from having force used against you.
You can't have a human right to something that someone else must provide. That would be a violation of their rights.
You can't have a human right to something that someone else must provide. That would be a violation of their rights.
Reading your profile, it's clear that you claim to be able to correctly derive your stance against human rights from nothing but "sense perception of reality" combined with Objectivist logic. That being the case, you obviously aren't just trying to add some diversity to the conversation—you know you possess the final truth.
On the other hand, you are using sarcastic language and just "talking down" to me. Basically, light bullying. I'm referring to your last two comments.
> Reading your profile, it's clear that you claim to be able to correctly derive your stance against human rights from nothing but "sense perception of reality" combined with Objectivist logic.
How else would someone come up with any stance at all on rights (regardles of whether it agrees with mine)? I mean, you have to look at reality and you have to use logic. So I'm not sure what your point here is.
(Actually, I do know your point, it's to try to just find some way to put me down and make me look small.)
The superposter means, I think, that you cannot have a right that deprives someone else of their freedom. If nobody wanted to work at the water treatment plant, the government is hard pressed to compel anyone to work there within any sane persons logic. They would have to offer higher pay until someone did the job, but they couldn't point a gun at someone and make them do it. Unless they were a prisoner, or maybe a soldier.
That definition is much narrower than most people are willing to accept, because most people aren't willing to accept the libertarian terms of what society does or is for.
The OP therefore doesn't have a point since their argument relies on a false statement.
You can claim that the state will provide you things if you are without them, but that is more an offer on their part (albeit using coerced tax dollars) than violence upon others to force them to work for you without compensation, as the superposter implies.
He means you cannot be guaranteed something that means someone else is compelled to provide it. The state as a whole could be compelled to give you something by its own laws, but they can't force an individual by mandate to do work, outside the already outlined exception to slavery.
What puzzles me about this whole "a human right cannot be something that compels someone to do something" argument is how it breaks down not just on edge cases, but on common cases.
What do you think about the right to a fair trial? Or the right to a speedy trial?
Is the right to a fair trial not actually a human right, since the judicial system is (theoretically) compelled to be honest?
That's my problem with these libertarian-derived ideas about rights, they really only work out cleanly when you're talking about owning, trading, etc. For the very wide swath of human behavior that doesn't involve material possessions, what then?
Arguably, you can view this as a negative right in the sense that it is conditional (it only applies if you are subjected to a trial, so no one has to provide anything to provide it, they just have to refrain from unfair trials.)
Similarly, the right to a speedy trial again only applies when you are prosecuted -- so it can be met by refraining from prosecution when it cannot (or will not) be provided, rather than actively providing anything.
That's not to say that I agree with the "all human rights are negative rights" argument, just that it is quite simple to recognize fair/speedy trial rights as negative rights.
And, even with this one, it seems like such a strain to me to say "the right to a fair trial is a negative right because, even though you're compelling the government structures to act in a certain way, it only applies once you're in the justice system".
It seems tautological to say "it's a right that applies when it applies, therefore it's a negative right".
That same reasoning seems like it could apply to just about anything; access to drinking water is a human right, because once you are in a civilization that moderates your access to water, that civilization must refrain from tampering (as in with pollution, access controls, etc) with your access to it.
The right to participate in government can be viewed as the right to be free from government action without you being given the opportunity to participate. It can be met by government not acting, as well as by you having the opportunity to participate (directly or indirectly) in any decision it makes.
I think that those who hold to the pure negative view of human rights absolutely tend to view the right to participate this way (and frequently to prefer government non-action to action-with-participation.)
> And, even with this one, it seems like such a strain to me to say "the right to a fair trial is a negative right because, even though you're compelling the government structures to act in a certain way, it only applies once you're in the justice system".
What I think you miss is that being "in the justice system" isn't something that happens external to actions of the government. So it can be a purely a negative right, in that it requires government not to subject you to the justice system unless in so doing it also acts in a certain way.
If it was conditioned on something outside of the governments control, then it would not be a pure negative right. Particularly, if you view the right to a fair trial as applying not only to conditions when you are subject to the justice system, but to include a right to bring grievances against the government and other members of society and to have them fairly heard by an appropriate tribunal, then it becomes a positive right, because the situations in which it applies are no longer ones that result from government action. But, again, I think that many people, particularly those that view negative rights as the exclusive human rights, view the right to a fair trial in terms that are consistent with the purely negative view (and the right to a speedy trial is, as generally understood in the US, a right of that type, since it applies only to criminal trials, which occur only as the result of positive government action, so it is a right that is a pure restraint on government action.)
The right participate in one's governance is now "the right to participate in government that you can participate in, because without that right the government would be meddling in your stuff".
If people are happy jumping through those kinds of mental hoops to maintain the purity of a "negative rights are the only rights" worldview then ok, but let's be honest about how we're building these flimsy artifices on an idea that can't really support them.
No, its not. Its the right to be free of any imposition of government other than that which you are allowed to participate in.
Its not a contortion. Its exactly the whole thing that we get the idea of the right to participate from.
Yes, its possible to have different views of what the right to participate should mean, but they are newer and novel interpretations. That doesn't make them wrong, but they aren't the original understanding, and that original understanding isn't a "contortion".
There's absolutely compulsory behavior going on, even if it's the good kind of compulsory behavior (e.g. setting up structures of power that people have access to).
Unless you want to redefine "negative rights" down until it's "the ones we like, even though people are compelled to do stuff, like create machinery of democracy and not walk onto property claimed by others".
Which, again, ok, if it floats your boat, but it seems more like word games than meaningful discussion about human rights.
Those are limitations put on the use of power by government when dealing with justice, which not even close to being the same as thing as saying you a "human right" for that government to provide you with a service like internet access.
I just want to be clear that that's what you're saying.
I'm saying that you can't compare limits on government power as proof that there is a human right to get services from a government.
People have a human right to participate in their government, too. That certainly compels something to exist: a structure in which they can voice their desires in their governance.
It'd take a lot of contortions to work that right into being an ok-to-exist "negative right," and for my part just shows how "negative rights" breaks down really quickly once you get past the really easy stuff like speech.
>People have a human right to participate in their government, too.
Which is a limit on government's power. That is the essence of the entire Enlightenment philosophy that all this is based.
Start from nothing, and try to build up a system that at all resembles a democracy, and you're compelling people left and right. Throw in property rights, such as land ownership, and you're compelling people just about 24/7.
Just because you like being able to use the violence of the state to throw people off your lawn doesn't mean that it isn't compelling people to be in a certain place.
Does a child have the right to be cared for? Someone must provide this care.
Does a child have the right to be protected from prostitution? Someone must provide this protection and someone must provide for the needs that were driving the child into prostitution to begin with.
To me it seems you can easily have rights that force someone else to do something.
A human could live on an island.
In society, we trade for what we need from others, which is different from saying we require that others provide us with things.
In society, we require that restaurants that serve food also to also provide free water to anyone who asks because not everything should be commidified.
I have never not been able to get free water in a restaurant in the US. Usually they pour you some without even asking, if there is table service.
Only in Europe is there a perception that (a) businesspeople are raging assholes who (b) want to screw their customers even though doing so drives them away. So only in Europe are there actual laws forcing restaurants to give out water.
I'm not even kidding, here is a source: https://www.restaurants.com/blog/are-restaurants-required-to...
You can easily find more sources if you just Google "Are US restaurants required to provide water."
So yeah, your point is completley incorrect.
Also, I am actually trying to intellectually engage with the issue, and it seems like you're just making a pithy comment, but maybe I'm just misreading your intention.
Well... looking at your own source one would have to be really naive not to think that businesspeople are raging assholes.
Water charges from five cents to a dollar for a glass of water with some restaurants charging even if you did not order water!
That's almost the definition of businesspeople being assholes and wanting to screw their customers!
Its a social standard not only because of the very low cost but also due to the horrible things that happen to dehydrated people and the frequency that it recurs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehydration#Signs_and_symptoms
I suppose should have added the qualifier decent to society.
The original proponents of rights treated them as "individual rights." Later, people who wanted to violate "individual rights" made up the "human rights" idea as a contrast to "individual rights."
But for the sake of this conversation, I just went with "human right," accepting it as valid and not getting into all the mess I just talked about.
By the way, a Constitutional right, ideally, is just an individual right that has been written specifically into the Constitution.
That's a tendentious misrepresentation, bordering on incendiary, not at all suitable for this discussion forum. The human rights movement has roots in the Red Cross, the Geneva convention, and the post-war efforts to create international peace.
International conventions on human rights are not primarily used to "violate individual rights." Yes, they are used to make claims for the positive duties of states and societies to care for the suffering. When water is available, none should be excluded; when water is needed, that is a human rights issue, and measures should be taken.
(To make a counterpoint, the "individual" rights—of which you speak from a libertarian or Randian perspective—are not really all that individual. That's why the rhetoric of individual rights is so often used by those in favor of the rights of corporations. Randians equivocate the notions of the individual and the corporation for ideological reasons.)
Individual rights are not losing their credibility because some illegitimate market rigging is allowed by the State.
"Randians" is insulting (that is why mbrock is using it).
What kind of right do you believe internet use would fall under?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reno_v._American_Civil_Libertie...
Some have argued that prohibiting Internet access to an otherwise free person (not a prisoner) is cruel and unusual punishment. In 1992 that was laughable. In 2015, it's much less laughable.
To say "the right to vote in a democracy is not a human right" is arguably not false, just going on narrow definitions of "vote" and "democracy," but the right to be involved in one's government? Oh yes.
Just because it is denied so many does not mean it is not still a human right.
I can't make out what your problem with my comment is.
That you only don't think all people should have the right to participate in all governments?
Stop strawmanning my words.
Edit: to be clearer - being able to get involved in your own government is a human right. Being able to vote in the French elections is a civil right, reserved to French citizens.
All cats are animals, but not all animals are cats.
I think we're saying the same thing, but somehow we got our signals mixed up.
Edit: it's also a bit weird to accuse someone of pedantry when the topic at hand is the subtlety of difference between terms ("what defines a human right as opposed to other rights").
It's also the most accepted definition.
Have a read of the section on economic and social rights: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic,_social_and_cultural...
Right - people should be protected from the government using force to lock them in a cage without communication to the outside world.