Do Human rights exist?

[Benny Bunter]

What do you think?

 

[luka]

Nah. Just privleges that can revoked at any time.

 

[Benny Bunter]

It's all very vague isn't it?

 

[Benny Bunter]

Hot air

 

[luka]

People with mobility and mental health problems will be asked to work from home or lose benefits as part of what a UK government minister described today as doing “their duty”.

 

[dilbert1]

Raymond Geuss is great on this

 

[Benny Bunter]

Are they just a nice utopian idea that's actually totally divorced from reality and ultimately counterproductive?

 

[vimothy]

depends on what you mean by "exist". they are a thing which people appeal to. they dont exist in a platonic sense, but only within a political context which establishes them. human rights are a social construct, like gender.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Raymond Geuss is great on this

Rights as a trump card? Interesting. (Haven't read it yet though)

 

[version]

Are they just a nice utopian idea that's actually totally divorced from reality and ultimately counterproductive?

I don't think so. You only need to look at what's happened to various dictators and governments who've treated their people too harshly to see why it might be wise to afford them certain rights.

 

[dilbert1]

Yeah as a kind of inviolable appeal

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

if you take the question to mean do they exist innately, then no, of course not

they have to be proactively fought for and maintained

a much better two-part question would be "should there be human rights? and if so, should they be universal?"

my answer to both is a strong yes

I would prefer to live in a society with a conception of basic and universal human rights

deciding what those rights should be and how to adjudicate if two or more of them run up against each other is a much thornier problem

 

[vimothy]

then the question you need to answer is what is the context which affords people, in general, these rights? a universal moral code? a universal legal order (arising from a universal moral code or imposed unilaterally by a hegemonic power)?

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

it's the difference between U.S. Constitution - inalienable rights - and the U.S. Civil War - proactive struggle to enforce the basic human right to not be enslaved

 

[vimothy]

but do these rights pre-exist or are they brought into being by the constitution or the struggle to establish it?

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

the latter, brought into being

that's why you have to struggle to maintain (or expand) them in every generation. no conception of human rights is static.

and, expressed in a universal legal code. there is no universal morality.

doesn't have to be formal, can be oral or custom, i.e. the Roman mos maiorum

it's the best possible compromise of everyone with agency in a society

and I'm very strongly for extending agency as widely and strongly as possible, i.e. a more democratic society is a better one

 

[vimothy]

I dont disagree necessarily but that answer also opens you up to a critique that these rights, in principal universal, are in fact parochial, context specific etc etc, so they're not universal at all

 

[vimothy]

this tension is inherent to international law - you're appealing to, not a sovereign, but rather to a consensus

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

this comes up any time you argue for something universal without believing in an innate universal morality or natural law or whatever

sometimes you just have to live with that contradiction or ambiguity

that's why I said it has to be a compromise

it's also why I'm in favor of extending agency as widely as possible

I did say it's a much thornier problem than deciding whether or not there should be rights at all

 

[vimothy]

how do you square the circle?