What are "rights"?
Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 11 months ago to Philosophy
Too often these days, people use the language of "rights" loosely. A "right" is something that one morally deserves, and it ought to be provided or at least not violated by Other people. We all have a natural right to life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. A natural right is something you deserve by nature, and nobody else can take away from you. Most fundamentally, we have a right to life, which implies you own your life (private property), which implies liberty, and if you own yourself you own your mind and your labor, and the value you produce (more private property), and the right to life implies your right to defend your life (and property), and the right to equip yourself for this self-defense. These rights are natural for all living human beings, and inalienable.
In some sense, the term "right" merely refers to a moral obligation or debt in general. If you agree to pay me $150 to play the organ for a ceremony, and I do it, then I have a "right" to demand $150 from you. But this is a very general usage, distinct from the concept of natural rights. Some rights we agree to (eg, trade), others we have by our nature as living humans.
Unfortunately, some people recognize the authority and security and prestige of the term "natural rights," and they want that positive association for other things they want, so they have tried to borrow (hijack?) this language. So they say we have a "right" to a job (and a certain wage), or a phone or TV or other standard of living and recreation, or a house, or free healthcare, or free education, or X (the growing list is potentially endless). But there is a big difference: to say a product or service is owed (like natural rights to life, etc) is to say that someone somewhere is obligated to do the work to provide them. Progressives are not merely talking about the right to pursue these things. The politicians and people demanding these "rights" are saying they must be provided to them even when they are unable or unwilling to provide them for themselves. That implies that someone "owes" them these "rights." Someone, somewhere, must be responsible to produce the value to supply these "rights." So the person who demands a free X is putting an Other person under obligation to work for person is a violation of his liberty. When John Doe demands the "right" to be provided with a good or service by Jane Roe, he is violating her natural rights.
The term "right" is rightly used for natural rights, rights we have in virtue of our nature, of being alive. Unfortunately the term "rights" is increasingly used not for what people earn, but what they deserve in spite of (or even because of) their inability to earn it. Their inability or unwillingness to produce what they want becomes a claim on the rest of us, an ever increasing mortgage on all those who do produce excess value.
Take the example of the "right to a house." (I don't know if anyone is actually claiming this is a "right," it is just an example for the sake of discussion.) Everyone, including John Doe, deserves their own house by "right," even for free if John can't pay for it and even if John is not responsible to maintain it (perhaps just because John is unable or unwilling to buy it or maintain it); if it is conditioned on John's ability to pay (maintain, etc), then it is not really like natural rights, it is just another thing that must be earned and should use different terminology. Where does John's house come from? Someone (eg, Jane Roe) has to provide it by building it or paying for it to be built. This means Jane or Other people somewhere, real people, are obligated to work for this John's "right to a house." This implicitly makes Jane and Others the slave of John, to some degree.
But this violates the natural rights of Jane and all the Other people now obligated to work for the John's house. The natural rights to life and liberty imply that I own myself (private property), and my mind and my labor and the fruit of my labor (private property), and nobody else has the "right" to violate my natural rights. Yet this is exactly what the "right to a house" (and any other good or service) does.
People like to use the language of natural rights because people hold them in high regard (natural, unalienable, etc). Ironically, by claiming the "right for John to be provided X by Other people," they are destroying the natural rights of those Other people, and so they are destroying the high doctrine of natural rights that caused them to want to use the term in the first place. A "right" to violate someone else's natural rights is a contradiction in terms.
In some sense, the term "right" merely refers to a moral obligation or debt in general. If you agree to pay me $150 to play the organ for a ceremony, and I do it, then I have a "right" to demand $150 from you. But this is a very general usage, distinct from the concept of natural rights. Some rights we agree to (eg, trade), others we have by our nature as living humans.
Unfortunately, some people recognize the authority and security and prestige of the term "natural rights," and they want that positive association for other things they want, so they have tried to borrow (hijack?) this language. So they say we have a "right" to a job (and a certain wage), or a phone or TV or other standard of living and recreation, or a house, or free healthcare, or free education, or X (the growing list is potentially endless). But there is a big difference: to say a product or service is owed (like natural rights to life, etc) is to say that someone somewhere is obligated to do the work to provide them. Progressives are not merely talking about the right to pursue these things. The politicians and people demanding these "rights" are saying they must be provided to them even when they are unable or unwilling to provide them for themselves. That implies that someone "owes" them these "rights." Someone, somewhere, must be responsible to produce the value to supply these "rights." So the person who demands a free X is putting an Other person under obligation to work for person is a violation of his liberty. When John Doe demands the "right" to be provided with a good or service by Jane Roe, he is violating her natural rights.
The term "right" is rightly used for natural rights, rights we have in virtue of our nature, of being alive. Unfortunately the term "rights" is increasingly used not for what people earn, but what they deserve in spite of (or even because of) their inability to earn it. Their inability or unwillingness to produce what they want becomes a claim on the rest of us, an ever increasing mortgage on all those who do produce excess value.
Take the example of the "right to a house." (I don't know if anyone is actually claiming this is a "right," it is just an example for the sake of discussion.) Everyone, including John Doe, deserves their own house by "right," even for free if John can't pay for it and even if John is not responsible to maintain it (perhaps just because John is unable or unwilling to buy it or maintain it); if it is conditioned on John's ability to pay (maintain, etc), then it is not really like natural rights, it is just another thing that must be earned and should use different terminology. Where does John's house come from? Someone (eg, Jane Roe) has to provide it by building it or paying for it to be built. This means Jane or Other people somewhere, real people, are obligated to work for this John's "right to a house." This implicitly makes Jane and Others the slave of John, to some degree.
But this violates the natural rights of Jane and all the Other people now obligated to work for the John's house. The natural rights to life and liberty imply that I own myself (private property), and my mind and my labor and the fruit of my labor (private property), and nobody else has the "right" to violate my natural rights. Yet this is exactly what the "right to a house" (and any other good or service) does.
People like to use the language of natural rights because people hold them in high regard (natural, unalienable, etc). Ironically, by claiming the "right for John to be provided X by Other people," they are destroying the natural rights of those Other people, and so they are destroying the high doctrine of natural rights that caused them to want to use the term in the first place. A "right" to violate someone else's natural rights is a contradiction in terms.
And I agree with you, Progressives have "right" 180 degrees wrong. We affirm negative rights (thou shalt not take away my life, liberty), they affirm positive rights (thou shalt provide me with product/service X).
I have the natural right to treat myself for whatever injury or illness I may have. I have the natural right to live in a house.
However, just because I have the right to something does not mean that I can demand from someone else that it be given to me.
The root problem is that Progressives have twisted the meaning of “right” 180 degrees. Instead of a right being something no one else can deny you it has become a synonym for an entitlement.
That I must nourish my body to survive is a law of nature. Nature provides me with many opportunities to do so but – and this is critical - nature does NOT guarantee my success as a “right”. Nature is completely agnostic when it comes to my survival or comfort as an individual or how I might ovecome the many perils it places in my path.
Rights DO exist as essential glue in human societies, but they are not elements of nature.
Rights are a brilliant solution first imagined and then implemented in human societies to overcome through social organization many of the dangers which exist in nature. Rights are the formal and intellectual expression of “social agreements” to protect and help one another in mitigating the dangers of nature, including those presented by other humans. Rights therefore are as often as not in conflict with (base) nature rather than being part of it.
So don’t get me wrong. I’m all in favor of defining certain economic or social goods as rights but only by voluntary agreement, not by coercion. So if a group among us want to define a grade 12 education as a “right” and share the associated costs between us, that’s cool as long as those who decide otherwise may peacefully opt out.
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I agree that rights, whether natural, God given, or unalienable.. whatever one wishes to call them, must be asserted. That assertion is my right. It is natural. It is not a law of nature which your premise seems to conflate, or at least cause me confusion regarding my understanding of natural rights. Nature has given me existence. Along with that are necessities which must be acquired in order to continue that existence. These are universal in that every being possesses some natural rights which other beings may violate. The violation of these rights does not negate their existence, nor one's right to assert them. In my mind man's existence by virtue of nature, his right to exist and his rights to exercise the force required to continue his existence predates any society. Therefore it is a precursor to any rights proscribed or recognized by society. Perhaps our misunderstanding is just a matter of semantics?
Either way it is of little consequence to me if you do not see it the same as I do, so long as you support them for yourself and others. In the end the affect it is the same.
Thank you for the stimulating exchange.
Respectfully,
O.A.
don't permit that anymore, y'know. -- j
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Another means for obtaining land is to inherit it.
If (almost) anything is written into a contract then it is valid, simply because the free association of contracts is valid.
But owning land does not guarantee survival, and it is not the only way to survive. As you pointed out, even if someone owns dirt, that does not mean they have the tools (which someone has to build), or the seeds (which the Government has to provide?), or the no-how to make it work.
And you don't need land to survive. You don't need to hunt deer in the King's forests; you can produce value in other ways, and trade it for meat.
I don't think the our welfare state is due to the fact that not everyone is a landowner, or that not everyone has a (private?) vegetable garden. It is much more complicated, and more due to the collectivist mindset that wants people to depend on the State.
Then you have to answer the question, how much useable land is there, and how much land does 1 person need?
Then you have to control the population accordingly.
Maybe that's the role of Gov't?
It would be such a radical change I don't know what it would look like.
One does have to answer that question, do you have a natural right to land, like you do air?
Maybe I produce, "just enough", for me.
Capitalism requires us to produce a surplus. Earn enough to cover rent, food, electric, vacation, entertainment and retirement.
> (call it public property?)
HA, that was tried in the 60's, the Hippy Communes. (and earlier with the Pilgrims) no one wanted to work.
But, in a way, yes. Relative to the parasites, a pauper community. where you toss these people and say good luck (we can do this with our abandoned military bases. We call this Detroit now)
As opposed to those that just want to be off-grid, but not communal.
I agree, "conquest" is how land was acquired. and of course the spoils of war.
>But what is the alternative?
I don't know. I merely point out that your true liberties begin with occupying dirt. No other rights matter until you secure dirt.
We have a welfare state because people don't have access to grow or forage, as a result we have to provide for those. If they had property, then there would be no reason to "assist" them. They would have all the tools they need to provide for themselves. The most the "state" could/should do is to perhaps provide seed.
If we take away land grants then we must provide welfare. Don't hunt deer in the Kings forests.
What you are saying, no offense, sounds like the many characters in Atlas Shrugged who complained that they couldn't succeed because "nobody gave them a chance."
Maybe one solution would be to find like-minded people to get together an buy a lot of land, share it in common (call it public property?) or temporarily divvy it up, so that you can collect your water, grow some vegetables, set up a tent, and others can do the same. (One problem is that "public property" is hard to defend; how do you tell someone to not take your vegetables if you can't say you own them?) Someone would have to pay for it, but if you are lucky enough to get the benefits of this land without having to pay for it, this might address your objection.
Edit: spelling.
But, it makes my point. If we were nomadic, property rights, or boundaries didn't exist. Go hunt, forage, grow food where ever. You could take care of yourself.
Now we added ownership to this, and territory.
What "rights" do you really have?
I suppose land ownership, from the original landowner to today's, was based on a person's claim and ability to defend it. (This is true of any private property ownership, not just land.) Squirrels don't know or care about this, but they will know and care when I trap and remove them. The original landowner was not stealing from anyone. Soon all land will be claimed, and will only transfer ownership through trade, gift, or theft. Government granted land, which indicates that they claimed it, "owned" it, and so it was theirs to grant. They granted it to new owners, because they know that people tend and care for, and make valuable (i.e., productive), land that they privately own. It is amazing what private property rights does to motivate people in this way. We don't do that now because land has pretty much been claimed.
People are born indebted to a landlord. This has always been the case, ever since the first landowner. Even in the past, people still had to pay the price for landownership. One option used to be to move far away to the nearest unclaimed land, claim it, settle it, and defend it. No small price to pay. Another option was to produce excess value, save enough of it, and trade it for land ownership. Now the first case is not an option; that is a difference today.
I'll leave a couple of questions for myself here. If all modern people are born indebted to landowners, doesn't this imply a degree of slavery, or at least lack of liberty?
Second, what happens if one man (or small group of men) gain ownership to all the land in the world? Then they couldn't they decide to never sell, only rent, and rent high, or not rent at all? Or what if they own all the water? I suppose this would fall back to ownership depending on what you can defend. But is this a common objection to private landownership? And ownership of any truly scarce resource, I suppose.
But what is the alternative? Are you suggesting rejecting the notion of private property when it comes to land?
Conquest. Whether this is "theft" or not ... that's a can of worms I won't open, as I can see both sides, from a historical perspective.
After conquest, the government (US in this case) THEN gave property to its people. My world history is a little weak, but seems I remember that this is a fairly normal turn of events. When the Russians or Chinese (hypothetically, I'm NOT predicting) take over North America, I would expect the cycle to repeat, and those friendly to the new regime will be granted the property of the conquered.
I'm not talking about being a "producer", I'm talking about not being a "parasite".
Our modern world requires us to be one or the other. The middle ground is to be self sufficient (neither a lender or Borrower).
"real estate" is the lowest common denominator.
I can have no water unless I have property for it to flow across.
I can grow no food without dirt.
I need a place to invent something.
We have a right to live, correct? Therefore, I have a right to occupy space. If I can't occupy space, or have to pay for it, then what rights do I have?
Any other rights are irrelevant without owning/controlling some dirt.
We aren't born engineers, or plumbers. Those are skills that require "space" to learn.
True, if you can't afford the rent in the city, you have to go someplace else. No one owes us a Manhattan Penthouse. If I chose not to play in our modern world - where do I go? How do I live like a squirrel?
I think I can get free land in Alaska. If we took all the parasites and threw them into Alaska and told them to sink or swim, most would die - but, that would be their choice.
Sounds like we took 3 lefts when we should have taken one right. :-)
No doubt, if every person born was granted 1 acre of land somewhere, there'd be those that would complain they got rocky soil on the side of a mountain and the Senators son got beach front.
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