The Question of Rights
The Question of Rights
By Punkerslut
When it comes to the question of rights, it seems that there
are a variety of diversed opinions on the matter. As you go from
social issue to social issue, encompassing the political and
ethical implications, one will find that there are different
dispositions, each holding to the idea that their idea of rights
is the correct one. For example, in the case of Pro-Life and
Pro-Choice, on the issue of abortion. Pro-Life believes that the
unborn fetus has the right to life, whereas Pro-Choice believes
that the woman has the right to choose. In some cases of the
Pro-Choice movement, there are those who believe in limited
rights of women to abortion. They believe that a woman has the
right to abortion only in cases of incest and rape, or that a
woman has the right to abortion only up to the late second
trimester. When understanding the ideology of Conservative and
Liberal political parties, we find that the former more strongly
believe in the right to private property than the others.
Conservatives are opposed to welfare and social programs, in
that these are supported by taxation, which appropriates some of
the wealth of everyone, and they oppose these programs because
it violates what they believe is the right to property.
Liberals, on the other hand, are supportive of such wealth
appropriation, because they believe that every person who labors
is entitled to some of the profits of the land. In these
examples, as many others, we find that it is the question of
rights that the parties are arguing over. It is in this piece
that I will delve deeper into this question.
When looking at rights, there is an infinite plethora of them
that we could apply. We could argue that people have the right
to dress like the other sex, to make sexual advances towards
anyone at any time, to poke others, to borrow without paying for
something (steal), among many other things. Of course, this
short list of rights I provided was absurd and ridiculous. It's
mostly because when we think of rights, we tend to think of the
right to freedom of speech, the right to freedom of religion,
right to elect our own government officials and expel them upon
misconduct, among many other rights. The right to political and
labor association. These are all rights that we commonly think
about when we think of rights, or they are rights we appeal to
when arguing for or against a certain issue. Someone may oppose
the government supplying tax fund to churches because it
violates the freedom of religion; another person may oppose the
government censoring books on sexuality because it violates the
right to freedom of speech. So we find, that these smaller
issues, these matters that are brought to us today, are opposed
or supported based on what we believe the rights of the people
are. However, when comparing these often thought about rights,
such as freedom of speech, with those absurd rights that I
mentioned, such as the right to poke anyone at any time, one may
try to find a fundamental difference, to justify one and villify
the other. Of course, there is no difference, except the
foundation or justification beneath whatever right it is.
So, if someone were to support the cause for war, they may
argue that it is because a nation's people have the right to own
the property of the other nation; if someone were to oppose the
cause for war, they may argue that it is because a nation's
people have the right to security and their own homeland. We see
then that the current issue is decided upon based primarily on
the idea of preconceived rights. What, then are the reasons that
justify or villify a right?
To answer this question, I am going to draw a scenario, by
which we can judge why we believe that one party has the rights
or the other party has the rights. Then, once we decide which
party has the rights, we can poke and prod our own lifestyles
and philosophies until we find some sort of balance in
consistency. Consider the situation of a Nudist and a
non-Nudist. The first believes that if he or anyone else must
cover up their bodies, that he will suffer and be in misery. The
second believes the opposite, that if he or anyone else has
their bodies not covered up, that he will suffer and be in
misery. We have an opposition of interests in this situation.
Who's right prevails? That of the Nudist or that of the
non-Nudist? If we recognize the right of the Nudist, then the
non-Nudist suffers; if we accept the right of the non-Nudist,
then the Nudist suffers. Of course, this example is perhaps the
most believable, because any cultured person understands that
Nudists generally feel trapped when forced to wear clothes, and
feel the same for others -- and, as the common meme of the
Western Civilization goes, not wearing clothing in public is
considered taboo, if not outrightly illegal. Consider another
example, using the absurd rights that I talked about before.
What if someone felt a great misery, a great suffering and pain
in their heart, if they couldn't punch everyone they met? It
seems absurd and ridiculous, considering that human nature has
never demonstrated this before in history, but consider that in
one human they did manifest this. Now, this person and a normal
person. In the same scenario, one feels the need to punch the
other, otherwise they suffer; the other feels the right not to
be punched, otherwise they suffer.
It may very well be true that in this case, there is no
justification for one person's right, or the other person's
right -- at least, no justification that we can find. In the
normal political turmoil, between the rights that one group
asserts we have and those of another group, there is usually
some reason, if not absolute, that would allow us to stray
towards supporting one right over another. Revisiting the case
of abortion, one may argue that an unborn infant has no right to
life, since it is not conscious -- but when it does become
conscious, it gains that right to life. In the question of
tax-funded welfare and social programs, one may make a case for
them in arguing that the common people are responsible for
producing all the wealth of society, and therefore are entitled
to part of the dividend. When supporting such broad and basic
freedoms, such as that of religion or speech or life, it seems
that there needs to be no argument, in that the greater part of
the population desires these freedoms, and even those who don't
support these rights, they have some desire of a limited freedom
for them. We can reason, in some way or regard, to support one
right over another, when they contradict each other. Revisiting
the scenario of the Nudist again, one may argue that all animals
are born nude, and therefore, the Nudist shouldn't be blamed for
what his natural disposition is. But, what makes this scenario
so perfect for our observation, is that no matter what arguments
we present, both side will suffer some pain unless their right
is recognized. We can reason to the non-Nudist all that we like
that it is natural to be nude, or we can reason to the Nudist
all that we like that it is part of the non-Nudist's culture. We
can expend all the words of human language, use every argument
known to man, but no matter what we reason, they will still
suffer unless their right (and not the other right) to be is
recognized. This is the one fact that nothing can override,
except possibly a deeper explanation to the justification of
rights.
To anyone who have studied the depths of the field of ethics,
they will know that there are other approaches to this subject.
For example, the Utilitarians argue that there are, in fact, no
such things as right, but that an act is judged as moral or
immoral based on how much happiness or misery it creates;
though, I find certain flaws in such a system. Particularly, I
find that there are particular inductive reasoning falacies in
the philosophers of this system. For example, it may very well
be a good act to save a child's life, but I cannot conceive of
any reasoning that would render someone immoral for not doing
so. Or, for example, if one man is killed, and his organs save
the lives of ten people, does that mean the murder was just?
According to a Utilitarian, yes, but as I argued before, I do
not believe that there is any reason to believe that a person is
immoral to not sacrificing to the greater good. I believe in a
system of rights.
There are other systems which deal with morality and explaining
right from wrong acts, or differentiating them. The idea of
karma, for example, disables people from the ability to change
anything, and renders them subject to a system of justice
incorporated into the natural world. It argues that good things
happen to good people and that bad things happen to bad people.
Thus, if a man is going to have surgery, the doctor's ability
means nothing -- since the man will survive if he is good, but
will die if he is bad. That would be an entire violation of the
mechanics of the natural; besides, there are few who argue that
good things don't happen to bad people -- at least, in the world
in which we live in.
Or, instead of a non-rights based systems of ethics, there are
those systems which are based on rights, but presents a method
in deciding what those rights are. The most common of these
ethical systems are those of religion. The Bible, for example,
denies people the right to murder, to covet, among other things,
which we can be found in the Ten Commandments. The ethics of
Buddhism deny a person the right to use drugs or alcohol. Islam
denies the right to eating pork but allows them the right to
have many wives. All in all, the religious systems of ethics are
unfounded, in that there has yet to be an iota of evidence on
behalf of any spiritual beings. Even so, if a spiritual being
were to declare the validity of one right, is that even an
authority? There is no reason to believe that it is more of an
authority than any mortal man. Besides, if a god had argued for
man's right to rape women, would it be just? Or what of the
right to theft and murder? What if there were two gods with
contradictory moral systems? Whatever the case may be there,
there is no evidence for god, and furthermore, religious ethical
systems are dictated without the slightest bit of authority or
proof.
There is, plainly, no answer to who has a justified right. In
either case, someone suffers. Unfortunately, I have not been
able to, in all my theorizing and research, been able to come up
with a justifiable reason why one's right is more just than the
other. One may argue that the person who deserves the right is
the one who would suffer more, but in that case, the rights to
life, property, and the various liberties all are able to be
faultered, once society has been convinced that it wants
something more than another thing. It may very well be true that
there is no just answer to this dilemma, and our thinking on the
issue needs to expand to more open-minded thinking when
compromising. Whatever the case, I have written out what I have
discovered thus far on the question of rights.
www.punkerslut.com
For Life, Punkerslut