Rights, Revisited

In the comments to A Swing and a Miss! below, I've had quite an exchange with Thibodeaux of Say Uncle, and now a comment from Spoons of The Spoons Experience on the topic of "absolute rights." They believe that absolute rights are a concrete reality. I do not. Here's the exchange to date (because Haloscan eventually loses them):

I have to say I'm against you on this one. - Thibodeaux

Then please, make your argument. Simply stating "I disagree" doesn't really get us anywhere. - Kevin Baker

I don't really see the point. You're not going to change your mind, and I'm not going to change mine. But if counting heads is the most important thing, I'm going to be counted in the other column. - Thibodeaux

I'd at least like an explanation of what it is you specifically disagree with me about. Even if we are unable to convince each other, I will be able to understand where you're coming from. For instance, I assume you do believe in "absolute rights"? - Kevin

Yes, I do, without the quotes. - Thibodeaux

What happens when you run across someone who doesn't? Or at least someone who doesn't believe in the same absolute rights you do? Someone who, say, believes he's within his rights to slit your throat with a boxcutter because you don't pray towards Mecca five times a day? - Kevin

This is why I said it was pointless to discuss; we could play "what if" all day long. As it happens, each and every one of us comes in contact with people who don't believe in the same set of rights. I recognize that we don't live in an ideal world, and we have to defend our rights as best we can.

However, I still maintain that even though rights can be violated, that does not mean that those rights don't exist, regardless of how many people approve that violation. If I understand you correctly, you maintain that, practically speaking, it does. Well, I disagree, but I don't see that either of us is going to change our minds. - Thibodeaux

What you're saying, in effect, is "I BELIEVE in the following rights..., and damn the rest of you to hell if you do not."

I have no problem with that. That is, actually, the basis of any society - a statement of beliefs shared by the majority of the populace. But if there were, in actuality, "absolute rights," shouldn't all (sane) people, everywhere believe in them? That's my only point. It is patently not the case, and never has been.

I don't think we're all that far apart, here.

When you go back and look at the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, those documents spell out the fundamental basis of the beliefs our society: "This we believe..."

Mr. Kennedy's disillusionment comes from the fact that, if we actually behaved as though we believed in those stated fundamentals, our government wouldn't be coercive and wouldn't be what it is today. Therefore he rejects American society as being hypocritical when it says it protects the rights of individuals. - Kevin

What you're saying, in effect, is "I BELIEVE in the following rights..., and damn the rest of you to hell if you do not."

Pretty much.

But if there were, in actuality, "absolute rights," shouldn't all (sane) people, everywhere believe in them? That's my only point. It is patently not the case, and never has been.

Were those people who believed in a geo-centric universe insane? Or just ignorant? Of course, philosophy isn't physics, but I think it's a logical fallacy to say that since not all sane people believe in something, then it doesn't exist.

I don't think we're all that far apart, here.

Probably not, since I agree with and enjoy practically everything else you've written on this blog. - Thibodeaux

You're right, philosophy absolutely isn't physics.

So your position is that there are some fundamental rights that eventually all societies will hold in common because they are REAL, and we will all come to recognize them.

That's a good hope to have. I cannot (and would not) fault you for it. As far as I'm concerned it matters not whether those beliefs are "real," because as long as people believe in them, they are. I believe that history shows an increasing recognition of (some) rights of the individual against the power of government. I simply understand that you cannot assume that all people will believe what you believe, and that you must be able to convince them through reasoned argument that you are right and they are wrong. ("Because it is!" doesn't count.) Or you must be willing (and able) to kill them if they want to force their beliefs on you to the exclusion of your own. - Kevin

So your position is that there are some fundamental rights that eventually all societies will hold in common because they are REAL, and we will all come to recognize them.

Not quite. I believe the fundamental rights are real, but I doubt if everybody will ever agree with that.

As far as I'm concerned it matters not whether those beliefs are "real," because as long as people believe in them, they are.

I don't agree that belief creates reality. I simply understand that you cannot assume that all people will believe what you believe As do I. - Thibodeaux

I think the real crux of the difference, Thibodeaux, is the definition of "real," then. - Kevin

I guess it depends on what you mean by "is."

Seriously, though, the difference is the appropriate reaction when your rights are violated. If, as you say, your rights are nothing more nor less than what the majority say, then it seems to me you ought to shut up and take it when the majority decides you don't have a given right. What justification do you have to do otherwise? - Thibodeaux

No, the choices when the majority decides that you don't have a given right are:

1) continue publicly and risk punishment, 2) continue secretly, and risk punishment, 3) submit, 4) strike out and guarantee punishment.

I missed one here: 5) Go elsewhere in search of a society that believes as you do.

If YOU BELIEVE in the right, it is real TO YOU. Only YOU can decide what the appropriate response is, FOR YOU. That's why I said above that "you must be able to convince them through reasoned argument that you are right and they are wrong. ("Because it is!" doesn't count.) Or you must be willing (and able) to kill them if they want to force their beliefs on you to the exclusion of your own." If you're going to resist (unless you don't care about that right as it affects others) the ability to make your resistance hurt is essential to preserving the right for others. Otherwise nobody's going to notice your resistance.

Of course, this gets you labeled "a fanatic."

As regards the concept of "real" - how can an idea, a philosophical construct, be "real?" You can't put your hand on it. It has no mass or physical dimensions. - Kevin

How can an idea, a philosophical construct, be "real?"

I don't know; ask Plato.

If YOU BELIEVE in the right, it is real TO YOU.

Well, again, I disagree. Belief is not reality, and reality is not personal. - Thibodeaux

I see you two are having fun, but I gotta say that I most strongly disagree with Kevin on this one. I believe in absolute rights. That doesn't mean that everyone will agree on what they are. It just means that some people are wrong.

It's interesting, Kevin, that you quote the Declaration of Independence in support of your position. If ever there were a document that rejected your view on rights, that's the one: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

All men everywhere have those rights -- whether they are acknowledged by their societies, or not. - Spoons

Why, Spoons? Because the Founders said so? You need to read "What is a Right?", because it addresses (actually, Heinlein addresses) that directly.

I think those rights are real in direct proportion to how strongly they are believed and defended. The Founders believed them enough to risk "lives, fortunes, and sacred honor" to uphold them, and so enshrined them for their posterity, but I don't think they are as "real" today given the entropy of our society.

You think you believe in "absolute rights," but what you actually believe is that those rights ought to be believed by all people. And I agree. But that doesn't (IMHO) make them "real". Only action makes them real. - Kevin

I realize that this is a subtle philosophical point, but it's something that everyone needs to understand - especially in the world today where two cultures are in desperate conflict.

The progenitor of my political philosophy is probably Robert Anson Heinlein. I quoted Heinlein in that earlier piece specifically on the topic of "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" from his book Starship Troopers:

"Life? What 'right' to life has a man who is drowning in the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. What 'right' to life has a man who must die if he is to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of 'right'? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only alternative to death, which man's right is 'unalienable'? And is it 'right'? As to liberty, the heroes who signed the great document pledged themselves to buy liberty with their lives. Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is the least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost.

"The third 'right' - the 'pursuit of happiness'? It is indeed unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition which tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives -- but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it."

Societies are made up of groups with similar beliefs. So long as those beliefs are compatible with the success of the society, they are "moral" for that group. A couple of posts below is one on abortion. Yet Romans - certainly looked to as a "civilized" society - practiced actual infanticide by exposure. They practiced slavery. Their soldiers looked upon rape as one of the spoils of war.

We are not born with an innate understanding of the "Rights of Man." Morals and ethics are learned and are part of the culture in which you are raised.

Rights are as well. All of these make up the logical framework under which a society functions. When the Founders wrote in the Declaration of Independence that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." they flew in the face of centuries if not millennia of history in which it wasn't self-evident at all. There were serfs and there was an aristocracy. At most there might be a "middle class," but they certainly weren't equal, and the powerful guarded their privileges warily.

When societies clash, their belief systems clash too. Size, power, and strength of arms matter a lot, but so does the robustness of the different belief systems. How resilient, how functional the systems are determines how changed each side will be by the clash - and they will both be changed.

Steven Den Beste has described the root cause of the current war in the Middle East as a failure of the Muslim world to deal with reality.

What is the root cause of the war? Collective failure of the nations and people in a large area which is predominately Arab and/or Islamic. Economically the only contribution they make is by selling natural resources which are available to them solely through luck. They make no significant contribution to international science or engineering. They make little or no cultural contribution to the world. Few seek out their poetry, their writing, their movies or music. The most famous Muslim writer of fiction in the world is under a fatwa death sentence now and lives in exile in Europe. Their only diplomatic relevance is due to their oil. They are not respected by the world, or by themselves.

He goes on to explain in detail. Their culture - their belief system - is failing in comparison to the West. They are certain their way is correct - but the empirical evidence is against them. They see Western culture - including its belief in equality, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - as the enemy, because their culture rejects all of those ideals. It is rigid. Ours is flexible.

Heinlein's "little red book" of philosophical sayings is The Notebooks of Lazarus Long (which, by the way, is about to be republished by Baen Books). In it he says something that has stuck with me for decades:

Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate -- and quickly.

That is, essentially, the root of the "hearts and minds" concept. We either convert them, or we have to kill them, but we should do so quickly, and without hate - because it's the hate that will change us..

Here in the West we are undergoing a bifurcation of philosophies: the Right, steeped in history and tradition, in equality and the rights of the individual; and the Left, the "progressive" "liberal" groups that - and this seems undeniable to me - hate traditional America but want to take advantage of all that it provides. But that's an entire other essay, and I'm not going to go there right now.

My point is that our belief system - the rights of individuals, the equality of birth, "life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness," the Bill of Rights, the whole nine yards - is a system of belief built upon millenia of history. It's a belief system that works, and works better than anything that's come before. But it's also fragile, and it can be wiped away if we don't fight to maintain it. A belief in "absolute rights" (IMHO) removes any onus on the people to fight to support it. "Absolute rights" implies that they exist outside of us, independent of us, and do not need our support.

I don't believe that. I believe that if we follow that path then those rights will slowly disappear from lack of support - from entropy.

Justice Scalia reportedly said something along the same lines once, only he was speaking of constitutional guarantees of our enumerated rights:

To some degree, a constitutional guarantee is like a commercial loan, you can only get it if, at the time, you don't really need it. The most important, enduring, and stable portions of the Constitution represent such a deep social consensus that one suspects if they were entirely eliminated, very little would change. And the converse is also true. A guarantee may appear in the words of the Constitution, but when the society ceases to possess an abiding belief in it, it has no living effect. Consider the fate of the principle expressed in the Tenth Amendment that the federal government is a government of limited powers. I do not suggest that constitutionalization has no effect in helping the society to preserve allegiance to its fundamental principles. That is the whole purpose of a constitution. But the allegiance comes first and the preservation afterwards.

I'm not so sure about the "deep social consensus" part ensuring an enduring, stable Constitution, myself. It all takes work. I'm sure that those rights are real only so long as we believe, and we act on that belief.