I’m trying to understand your last few posts. Do you believe that human rights SHOULD BE universal, but in fact ARE only for those who take them? Or does ‘universal’ here mean something like ‘with the inherent ability to claim and enforce them’? Because I’m not sure why it would be fundamental that criminals would be unable to enforce their rights?
Because of this, I’m not sure if you think we should defend rights for criminals, minors and/or the mentally incompetent as well as for homosexuals.
As a side point, you say that you encourage others to defend rights because you’re attached to your own rights. Is this a case of valuing them in others because you do in yourself, or a matter of your own rights being safeguarded by a society that defends rights in general?
As I said to TheOtherDavid, there are sometimes reasons to take actions that violate others rights. There are more such reasons for violating the rights of minors/criminals/mentally incompetant than for homosexuals and so I’d put more energy into preventing the violation of rights against homosexuals. In fact I think there’s so few reasons for violating the rights of homosexuals that I view it as an affront to civilization and to myself as a civilized human to do so.
As a side point, you say that you encourage others to defend rights because you’re attached to your own rights. Is this a case of valuing them in others because you do in yourself, or a matter of your own rights being safeguarded by a society that defends rights in general?
OK: so rights are universal over all people, but they’re not inalienable, in that you sometimes have good reason for violating them. I’m not sure whether that always reflects our approach, especially for minors: is it that we think they have rights such as voting, contract etc. but we violate this right due to some risk or danger? Or do we simply not hold that they have those rights?
On the sidepoint: fair enough. Presumably it’s mostly valuing them in others, as if you want to defend your own rights than doing so by encouraging a general culture of defence of rights is very indirect and the net effect to you personally would presumably be much smaller than simpler accruing greater wealth/power/knowledge.
Hm… I’ve never fully thought out the situation with minors. This probably would have occurred to me earlier if I had children of my own.
I want to say that I’m not sure that very young children can be considered fully human in the same way as adults, but this raises several red flags, not the least of which is the problem of determining when a person counts as “human” or not. I think rather than dig myself into a hole that I’m not sure I even support, I’d rather default back to my previous position -
Minors have rights at the same point that anyone else has rights: once they have the power/allies to assert and defend those rights.
The position in general does deserve some more pondering.
I suppose that depends on whether the ‘basic rights’ include things like voting and contract, that you might consider distinctively rights of citizens.
To be honest, I never know how to take human rights language. Some people treat it as morally factual that people have certain rights, whether these are upheld and exercised or not. For me, ‘rights’ has to refer to a sort of social contract. We say that people have the ‘right to life’ because it makes certain decisions more difficult to take than if we just said you had to do what was best for your citizens in general.
It’s very difficult to condemn a country for ‘not pursuing policies that evidence suggests maximises the freedom and quality of life of its citizens’. Doing so involves all sorts of sub-arguments and complexities. Whereas saying ‘they torture people’ at least gives you a clear point of objection, even if the fact and justification are both subject to argument afterwards.
Kudos on the ‘I’ve never fully thought the situation through’, btw. Remarkably rare words on the net.
I’m trying to understand your last few posts. Do you believe that human rights SHOULD BE universal, but in fact ARE only for those who take them? Or does ‘universal’ here mean something like ‘with the inherent ability to claim and enforce them’? Because I’m not sure why it would be fundamental that criminals would be unable to enforce their rights?
Because of this, I’m not sure if you think we should defend rights for criminals, minors and/or the mentally incompetent as well as for homosexuals.
As a side point, you say that you encourage others to defend rights because you’re attached to your own rights. Is this a case of valuing them in others because you do in yourself, or a matter of your own rights being safeguarded by a society that defends rights in general?
As I said to TheOtherDavid, there are sometimes reasons to take actions that violate others rights. There are more such reasons for violating the rights of minors/criminals/mentally incompetant than for homosexuals and so I’d put more energy into preventing the violation of rights against homosexuals. In fact I think there’s so few reasons for violating the rights of homosexuals that I view it as an affront to civilization and to myself as a civilized human to do so.
Both.
OK: so rights are universal over all people, but they’re not inalienable, in that you sometimes have good reason for violating them. I’m not sure whether that always reflects our approach, especially for minors: is it that we think they have rights such as voting, contract etc. but we violate this right due to some risk or danger? Or do we simply not hold that they have those rights?
On the sidepoint: fair enough. Presumably it’s mostly valuing them in others, as if you want to defend your own rights than doing so by encouraging a general culture of defence of rights is very indirect and the net effect to you personally would presumably be much smaller than simpler accruing greater wealth/power/knowledge.
Hm… I’ve never fully thought out the situation with minors. This probably would have occurred to me earlier if I had children of my own.
I want to say that I’m not sure that very young children can be considered fully human in the same way as adults, but this raises several red flags, not the least of which is the problem of determining when a person counts as “human” or not. I think rather than dig myself into a hole that I’m not sure I even support, I’d rather default back to my previous position -
Minors have rights at the same point that anyone else has rights: once they have the power/allies to assert and defend those rights.
The position in general does deserve some more pondering.
I suppose that depends on whether the ‘basic rights’ include things like voting and contract, that you might consider distinctively rights of citizens.
To be honest, I never know how to take human rights language. Some people treat it as morally factual that people have certain rights, whether these are upheld and exercised or not. For me, ‘rights’ has to refer to a sort of social contract. We say that people have the ‘right to life’ because it makes certain decisions more difficult to take than if we just said you had to do what was best for your citizens in general.
It’s very difficult to condemn a country for ‘not pursuing policies that evidence suggests maximises the freedom and quality of life of its citizens’. Doing so involves all sorts of sub-arguments and complexities. Whereas saying ‘they torture people’ at least gives you a clear point of objection, even if the fact and justification are both subject to argument afterwards.
Kudos on the ‘I’ve never fully thought the situation through’, btw. Remarkably rare words on the net.