The problem with positing that rights come from the State, is that any reasonable person would concede that the State can violate rights, a’la Nazi Germany. If rights come from the State, that would not be possible. Thus, rights must precede the State.

George Carlin pretty well settled this. We have no rights, only privileges. They are given to us by our government, and they will be taken away any time it sees fit. Source, 1942 we sent japanese Americans to internment camps, and before that we'd throw anyone in jail if we thought they liked communism.

They government is under no obligation to uphold their end of this contract, and you should feel lucky you were born in a country that will mostly allow you to have your privilege

And our will to fight for them.

Another logically consistent way you can define a right is that a right is something a person has intrinsically. Something they are born with and that cant be taken away in a vacuum. So something like the right to say what ever you want would be consistent in that as in a vacuum no one would be able to stop you from saying certain things. A right to weapons can be seen as the adaptation of the natural right a person has to protect themselves via what ever means they see fit. Its just been adapted to fit a society and the technology of modern times.

Unique compared to what, exactly?

Yep.

There forever and always has been and will be power imbalances. That's how power works, not everyone can or is even suppose to have the same amount of power. And its the nature of power to accumulate.

The US does indeed have a unique culture of people becoming wealthy. It allows for people to keep more of the wealth they earned compared to other countries. Most millionaires in the US aren't born into wealth, they earn it.

Class mobility in socialist countries is a bit over stated as there is already a smaller class disparity in those countries in the first place so of course it would be easier for people to raise class status when the gap isn't as large. In the US you still have class mobility but it happens in a much wider range compared to other countries. IE the potency of the class mobility in the US is much higher. Not to mention the US having more freedoms than those other countries comes with the downside of letting people make the wrong decisions.

Darwin is referring to biology were as we are referring to society. Both have separate rules as to how success is gained. But even by evolutionary standards wealthy people did adapt to some situation they found themselves in and became wealthy as a result of said adaptation. So wealthy that they no longer need to worry about adaptation ever again and in alot of cases neither do their children, thats what success is.

Forced redistribution of resources has never worked out well. I dont think its in peoples best interest to attempt to topple a stable societal structure that has provided all the resources we have in our modern world. Its like saying someone deserves to get something stolen because they were tempting a thief. Its the thief that is the problem, not the person who get stolen from.

Whenever I see “natural law” I can only think about the people who feebly try to argue that, for example, it’s fine for a man to kiss a woman but a man kissing a man is now—somehow—violating natural law.

Aren't rights just another imaginary word that we use in our imaginary vocabulary of how we describe our imaginary set of morals? This article mentions the fact that some would describe them as "nonsense", but fails to provide any meaningful rebuttal. To me, the word "rights" seems to be just another word for a set of moral codes. A set that we imagine to be more fundamental in some way or another.

Going on at length to adress "where rights come from" seems like a pointless excercise at best. They come from our imagination, mean nothing to anyone else, and have no consequences other than the ones we give them. Their definition is whatever we agree on, and clearly people don't agree much on the topic. They are a set of moral codes described by a fancy word.

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They are not nature's rights I guess.

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The phrasing was little off, I think. What humans can do, experience, make sense of reality, is not shared by animals. I doubt animals can know truth or falsity, or concepts of freedom, but good or bad through their experience, animals, I think, can learn.

I agree with what you’re saying. Most people who make arguments about natural rights have not clearly defined what a right even is. Most take it to mean this right which is conferred to you by the laws of nature, or of some spiritual or natural moral obligation that is correct just because the morality of the universe deems it so. It’s a self referencing argument that has no basis. It’s true because it is.

The only logically consistent way you can define a right is that which is based on what you personally value. A personal value is an axiom because it is a self evident phenomenon, and natural rights are corollaries that stem from that axiom. As a social species, we value certain things such as cooperation, compassion, and mutually beneficial behaviors because that is what we evolved to do. This is why people generally agree on what a right should be but aren’t able to describe a logically consistent basis for why they feel that way. They are afraid to admit their values have no logical basis outside of biology.

Many other species of animals don’t have the same values as us. Many female spiders will cannibalize their mates after breeding. Hyenas will brutally murder their prey. Lions will murder the offspring of their competitors. We would say that no human has the right to act this way, but why do we then apply a different standard to animals? They certainly don’t feel guilt about their ways. It is because their values are different from ours. This also why some will disagree on whether or not a particular “right” should even exist in the first place. Should I have a right to own a gun? What about a tank? What about a nuclear bomb? At what point does owning an increasingly deadly weapon no longer become a right? The answer depends entirely on your values and what you deem appropriate. So it is with rights themselves.

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My Opinion: The ordering tendency or principle of the universe, historically referred to with concepts like "The Logos" refers to the observed fact of order, diversity, and complexity of extant phenomena. This ordering principle which subsumes the myriad conventions for describing the known universe is the foundation of how we exist since we are a result of the ordering process through which the tendency or principle acts/works. Evolution is the contemporary, and epistemologically, greatest form of comprehending this ordering principle / process.

Rights come from evolution in and through the emergent faculties which resulted from it. We have the conventions of rights because we evolved to be conceptual beings with animal needs. We are also social and political beings as a result of our evolutionary historicity and thus we relate with one another in a manner consistent with how these evolved predispositions are consistent with the tendency. The "fitness" of a convention of rights is mostly based in how rational they are (for the sake of justifying agreement), and how well the contribute to the survival of individuals/the group. Put simply, all justified rights are ideally predicated in terms of how they promote the essential basis of our physical and metaphysical existence and the pluralism implied by moral equality - Everything else is just wishful thinking (a.k.a limited justification) and/or the arbitrary/non-necessary imposition of such thoughts on the self-determination of others ( aka the imperfect elements within existing conventions).

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property rights are a convention born out of value production and retention. We live in the world producing things, we use money as a basis for value representation and exchange, and we are incentivized by the relationship we have with the various things which are produced - particularly food, shelter, heat and water (so we dont die). without property rights to reasonably insure that we have consistent access to these things, we probably wouldnt cooperate well as a species and many people would not survive. Property rights can exist in many forms, but they exist in principle for survival even though they are social conventions.

Most justified rights exist for survival whether or not this is how they are predicated within the various conventions. But many rights are justified because they contribute to making a variety of things work better - the other side of the justification equation.

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TL;DR - although I agree that rights are not naturally emergent in the typical way in which they are, and have historically been, described, this article seems predicated in an over-priority of political buzzwords, particularly US culture and politics with the term 'freedom' - a broadly used, but not well defined term to describe a person's right to self determination. linked articles seemed to be predicated in similar conventional terms which I find too inaccurate and unoriginal for my tastes as a lover of wisdom. I do, however, agree with the aspect of this project which emphasizes what was described as the need for specification, prioritization, and geneology. Traditional theories do not well address these. I also agreed in principle with some of the interpretations.

I personally think we need to start with the big bang and work forward but that is too much to write out in detail here

I think this whole conversation is reducible to the existentialism branch of philosophy. Yes, human experience of reality is very subjective, which means that a subjective view of what consciousness is exactly is appropriate, considering it is the only view we will have. If we've no choice but to live accordingly, as though our minds are something more than biology, then it really can't be disingenuous to do so. We are trapped by subjectivity and our experience of consciousness does feel like and could be described by the concept of a soul (subjectively, not literally). If the universe and its laws actually cared and would prefer that we perceive ourselves as meat machines rather than as persons, then it shouldn't have made us to perceive ourselves as persons.

>In order to live, we need to breathe. So we have the right to breathe anywhere, anytime, and anyway we want.

The ocean would like a word.

Also Pompeii.

People die of suffocation all the time.

If these are "natural rights", then why doesn't nature respect them?

If nature doesn't respect them, then how are they "natural rights"?

I think the soul is a very useful concept, as is the sort of material/immaterial dualism that tend to come with it, when it comes to describing and understanding the human experience, which is ultimately a subjective experience above all. Wouldn't dream to claim anyone should believe in this literally though.

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The 'law' of gravity, simplified, is a description of the relationship between the masses of particles/objects and is rightly classified as a component of physics / physical ontology. Rights, and normativity broadly, belongs to the category of metaphysical ontology - there is a relationship between the physical and metaphysical but this relationship needs to be properly explained in a way which is compatible with the generally agreed upon conventions, generally divided by the terms 'science' and 'non-science'

I dont know what you mean when you say that "we have a right to feel grounded." to me feeling grounded equates with an emotional sense of stability related to one's physical or social place in the world. I agree that this as an ideal way of being, but I struggle to see how we could use a non-primary emotion as the basis for any legal convention of rights in and of itself.

For me, I attempt to connect the metaphysics of ideas and feelings (things that exist dependently on a subjective mind) to the physics of the universe in which subjectivity arose. To do so, I use the concept of evolution, since what we are is a result of the specific evolutionary steps our species took to get to the present state of things.

Human beings are animals, in principle just like any other, the majority of us seeking food, water, thermal regulation, and shelter, and we also embody fight or flight tendencies and the tendency to recapitulate through sexual embodiment and activities like dating and pair bonding. From an evolutionary perspective you can tie survival tendencies to the physical and, in doing so, concepts related to survival are then bridged and can serve as the basis for normative conventions.

However, there is more than survival. We often seek to improve our existence and so there needs to be a secondary basis since normativity covers both the survival and improvement aspects of living.

I created a system, feel free to reach out if you are curious :)

I dont think there is an level of disadvantage that can't be overcome with enough competence. If the disadvantage largely exceeds the competence then yes the naturally the competence makes up a smaller proportion of an individuals agency, but the opportunities still arise to take advantage of said small level of competence to SOME degree at least.

There are people whos disadvantages out way their competence but that doesn't mean they have no options at all. And id think its a very very small minority of people in the first place.

If what you call the moral universe predates the social contract, then what you have is a Lockean view of natural rights, not a social contract based one.

For a view of natural rights to be rooted in a social contract, it needs an actual social contract to work, not a law of nature disguised as a social contract by inconsistent terminology.

If one is not a part of the social contract, then saying that they "don't have the right to commit crimes" is incoherent as a right/obligation analysis doesn't apply to them.

If the social contract is just a theoretical device for the philosopher to discover the natural rights, then you've just given a Rawlsian-like justification to Lockean natural rights, but you haven't actually shown where those rights come from or what gives them weight.