DO RIGHTS EXIST?

The English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704), many of the thinkers of the French Enlightenment, the writers of the American Declaration of Independence in 1776, and the Russian-American novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982) believed in the existence of objective natural human rights. (Many of these thinkers referred to them as "man's rights," or the "rights of man.") I do not believe in such rights; at least as they seemed to. And I am dubious about universal moralities.

As I see it, natural rights are subjective. That is, everyone has their own idea what rights should be recognized by individuals and by societies and governments. You may believe that I should respect your right to live your life. I may believe that you should respect my right to privacy. That fellow across the street may believe in his right to play loud music. That woman down the road may believe in her right to drive on the left.

The wealthy person may believe in his absolute right to own property. The tax collector may believe in his right to collect taxes for the government under statutes passed by a parliament. A child may believe in his right to speak up in a school against a perceived injustice.

There are any number of situations in which people believe they have rights, and believe that their rights (as they understand them) should be respected.

But . . . are they right?

In the case of the neighbour across the street who believes in his right to play music loudly, the state or municipality may have something to say about it. His neighbours might disagree. Not only would there be the question of what the musician's rights might be, but there would likely be additional questions about when and where he would have the right. On his own property? Before midnight or 11 p.m.? On weekends only? If the sound wasn't above 100 decibels?

We all observe that societies set up rules. People in those societies then have practical legal rights or privileges. Of course, sometimes these rights won't be enforced. A woman may get a legal restraining order from a court ordering her abusive spouse to stay away, but whether her right to be left alone will prevail will depend on whether this order is effectively enforced.

No, we're really not talking (for the moment, at least) about legal rights. We're talking about moral rights; that is, about rights that people may properly morally assert.

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So. Are there objective, natural, moral human rights?

Right away, I have a problem with that word "objective". What does it mean? Does it mean "universal"? Does it mean "demonstrable"? Does it mean, simply, "absolutely right"?

Very problematic, that word.

I take it that the word "objective" in the case of rights means something like "able to be demonstrated before all reasoning people to be plainly real and correct; able to win (near) universal consent."

(If the linguistic structuralists are right, the word "objective" only has meaning as opposed to another word, probably "subjective." According to them there is no absolute meaning to a word, only its meaning in opposition to another.)

The next word in our debatable phrase is "natural". Now everyone who does some thinking knows what a slippery customer the word "natural" is. It has numerous meanings in numerous contexts. I take it that here it means "not created; not artificial; arising out of real situations which make these rights easy to win popular consent."

Okay?

As for "humans," I guess we will all accept that there might be some limits as to who human beings are; who counts as human beings. In addition to homo sapiens sapiens, some sentient species (dolphins? space aliens? Neanderthals?) might count; but children, the mentally challenged and mad persons might not fully count. They might have some rights, but not the right to walk around freely without supervision.

Even for the fathers of the American Declaration of Independence and Constitution, slaves and women didn't count, at least not fully. Our understanding of who and what human beings are has gradually increased and become more specific.

So where does that leave us?

Presuming we will make allowances for some disagreements here about who consitutes a human being, we can accept this part of the terminology in question.

Finally, that brings us to the word "rights".

What is a "right"?

Some people would think of a right as a privilege or allowance made to someone that a group of people pledges to use force to protect. But we have here agreed to talk about moral rights. They're the kind we're interested in. We must try to separate them, at least intellectually, from the other kind. (Moral rights tend to become legal rights when governments enshrine them in constitutions, declarations and laws.)

Ayn Rand defined a (moral, natural, human) right thus:

A "right" is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man's right to his own life. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action --- which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. ("Man's Rights," The Virtue of Selfishness, pg. 124, hardcover).

Rand goes on to say:

Rights are conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational. Any group, any gang, any nation that attempts to negate man's rights, is wrong which means: is evil, which means: is anti-life. (John Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged)

I like and approve of these paragraphs; in fact, I think of them as one of the more noble and illuminating intellectual creations of humankind. But I still have some problems with them.

The First Problem With Rand's Definition of Rights

For example, what about that slippery word "principle"? "A 'right' is a moral principle," says Rand. Um, what's a "principle"?

It turns out that a principle, according to several dictionaries, is a kind of beginning statement or idea. It's the basic argument, the building block, on which an argument is built.

Um ... but what justifies it?

I struggled trying to understand in depth Ayn Rand's concept of rights for two decades. The problem seemed to be that sticky word "principle."

Finally, I consulted dictionaries.

Everything in the natural human rights argument depends on whether there is some kind of moral principle that is absolute at the basis of the argument, and whether that principle is valid.

I conclude that there is not.

What is there, at the base of the argument?

Well, ultimately there is a statement, a feeling. People who believe in the argument feel and believe that there is some sort of basis, perhaps a right to life, which justifies the whole of the rest of the argument.

If pressed, a Rand will talk about a right to take action of protect and continue one's life. A Locke will talk about circumstances in which, Locke feels, it is rational or right to acquire property.

The Second Problem With Rand's Definition

Note that Rand gives, not one, but two definitions of rights. (They appear as the first sentence in each of her two quoted paragraphs.) Rights are, first, "a moral principle defining a man's freedom of action in a social context" and then "conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival."

[To Be Continued and Revised]

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Last modified: 12:13 PM 6/9/2002