I’m with George Carlin on this one:
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No, yes, no, and no.
You’re the one who is arguing otherwise.
You’re saying that human rights are based on being human.
Being human (homo sapiens) is a product of DNA.
Our DNA has not changed significantly in the past 100,000 years.
Our societal mores have.
There is no intrinsic dignity in humankind, other than that which we make for ourselves. We are made of the same carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen (etc., etc.) atoms as everything else around us. Those atoms form cells which are nearly indistinguishable from those of the common pig. Those atoms form DNA chains which are 95% the same as the common chimpanzee.
You’re the one saying, and I quote, “The very term “human rights” points to a source: humanity, human nature, being a person or human being. Legal rights have law as their source, contractual rights arise from contracts, and thus human rights have humanity or human nature as their source.”
If human nature is not intrinsically “knowing life has value,” then how can human rights come from the idea that life has value?
What/when defines “the beginning of humanity?” One day, we were our own separate species from homo erectus and, on that day, we gained human nature and dignity and human rights? What of the Neanderthals, with whom we coexisted (and interbred)? Did they have human rights? If homo sapiens has human rights back to the very first human, then why didn’t homo erectus? It wasn’t exactly a sudden transition: h. erectus was subjected to evolutionary pressure over thousands of years before (at some undefinable point) becoming h. sapiens. If h. erectus had human rights, why not h. habilis? And up the chain and back down until we ask: why doesn’t the chimpanzee have human rights?
What is the fundamental difference between us and the chimpanzee?
That sounds like someone answering from a religious perspective, not a scientific one.
“Human” means homo sapiens. What it is to be human can be measured, quantified, described. How do I know this?
Every cell, every nerve, every organ of our body is defined by DNA. Every reaction, reflex, instinct of ours is either programmed into our brains as part of our DNA, or learned based on our brain’s DNA-given ability to learn things.
“Dignity” cannot be measured, quantified, or otherwise scientifically described. It’s an abstract concept.
You seem to think it means that humans don’t kill other humans, but I’ve literally given you a billion counterexamples.
It all comes back to: if rights stem from basic human nature, why do they have to be enforced?
You keep saying that “don’t murder” is something intrinsic to humans, so intrinsic that “the right to live” is fundamentally baked into what it means to be human.
If that’s the case, why? Why do we keep killing each other? If being human means “not killing,” why is there so much killing? Why has there always been so much killing?
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I think the inalienable rights you speak of are not time-dependant by definition. But every slave who was brought to the United States suffered and died regardless. At the time those rights were not recognized even when a revolution was fought by others to enforce their rights. So the concept of such rights seems meaningless to me without the capacity to defend them. Every policeman who kills an unarmed individual without consequences demonstrates this rather obvious truth.
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That’s quite reductive. There is only a tiny fraction of our DNA that is human. We are much more virus by your definition.
You are welcome to have such a low opinion of humanity however the civilized world disagrees with you.
They do not stem from the idea. They stem from the fact of existence as a human being. It’s complicated, I know.
Whatever you would like to define it as is fine by me. The principle remains.
I don’t see that in my writing. Only that the RIGHT to life is inalienable though the life itself may be taken.
Moving goalposts again. No one said they stem from basic human nature but rather they are a condition of being human. The reasons people kill are myriad. This in no way diminishes the right to life. It only serves to illustrate that we must strive harder to protect it from those who seek to destroy life.
Actually, the right to life was well established and agreed upon well before colonization. This is why salves (africans) were not considered fully human. It was all part of the moral justification which became known as the ‘White Mans Burden’.
We have the capacity to defend them to some extent but we are imperfect and there is much room for improvement.
That corruption exists and that a system is flawed does not negate the basic dignity of human life nor does it serve to cancel our right to live it.
I’m sorry?
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What you are doing is called needling. It is the act of attacking single points without addressing the actual argument and is intellectually dishonest and lazy.
From the beginning I have stated that our rights exist as a condition of being human. That’s it. Though Donally chose a different wording, it is not the one I have been arguing. You know that but seem incapable of forming a cogent argument that does not rely on pedantry and semantic weasling. Why I am casting pearls before swine I have no idea. I’ll step back until I see you present a counter to my argument rather than needling points.
Okay, we’ll go back to the beginning.
Tell me where you and I start disagreeing.
You say that, simply because you’re human, you have the right to run your business (RTRYB) how you choose, including not serving people who wear religious garb.
You say this comes, not from the law, not from religion, nor from the acknowledgement of society around you, but simply from being human.
“Human” is the common name of the species homo sapiens. There is no currently living human that is not h. sapiens, and vice versa.
Whether or not a life form belongs to a species is defined by their DNA.
Therefore, whether or not a person is human or not is encoded into their DNA. The essence, or sine qua non of “human” is genetic.
The RTRYB is not encoded into DNA, since, for instance, if you had refused to serve Catholics wearing religious garb in Spain in the late fifteenth century, you would have met a very painful death. The painful death for defying the state religion bit is remarkably consistent until very recently (and even now, still happens).
So, if this right does not come from DNA, and doesn’t come from society around you, where does it come from?
Are you saying that the rights that are currently defined in the Universal Declaration have always been in effect, but not always enforced? If so, suppose they discover a new intrinsic right in twenty-five years, a Right to Not Be Quoted. Would that mean that you and I are currently violating each other’s RtNBQ that doesn’t currently exist, or rather does exist, but not as a right we’ve ever heard of? A right which we would currently find ridiculous, but future generations would be judging us on because the right has always existed as part of being human?
What good is a right if, at the time it’s being violated, it is not recognized as a right?
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Here’s how it works. Civilization and society decided that being human comes with it certain rights such has the right to life. We collectively decided that several times throughout the course of history and throughout different cultures. As communication among cultures increased, the idea of recognizing an inherent right to life gained popularity until the idea reached a state of gestalt. Some people even decided to make it part of a nation’s founding documents. Others chose to declare it in recently formed global communities and still others codified the ideas in to their already existing culture. The recognition of the right to life was developed over time but the underlying elements which lead us to that conclusion had always been in place. Much like the earth has always revolved around the sun, our misunderstanding did not change that fact nor did our discovery of the fact suddenly cause this to become true.
I suppose it’s entirely possible that one day we may as a civilization decide that other rights do indeed exist. The suggestion that we will not is probably incorrect as we have no way of knowing what we will come to understand in future.
A right gained by the condition of being is not very useful when it is not recognized. But just because you may encounter someone who does not recognize your right to life that encounter does not negate that right. It can be abused and violated but the right itself is inalienable and independent of external conditions.
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Probably why you believe that bigotry against religious people is justified and legal, because of reasons. I mean, many would do that to you, amirite?
Does being that full of hatred and loathing get tiring?
Does it bring you pleasure to feel the same about all theists as a whole that the holy rollers feel about atheists?
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