On Rights: Part 1

John Galt at The Rights Project asks:

1. Do I have any rights? If not, why not?
2. If yes, what are they? Why do they exist / What is their source?

Now, assume a second person shows up, and determine the following:

3. Do my rights and this second person's rights come into conflict in any way? Why or why not?
4. Do we gain (or lose!) any rights now that we are no longer alone? Why or why not?
5. What are the principles necessary to give us the best possible chance at living together peacefully?

Finally, assume X more people show up, and determine the following:

6. Does the addition of X more people have any affect at all on the answers given to the questions above? Why or why not?

In his comments, I promised him my views on the subject. So here are my views on the subject of rights.

To frame the discussion, I must quote Robert Heinlein's "Starship Troopers". While many folks may find Heinlein simplistic, unrealistic, sexist, fascist and so on, I can say that Heinlein had a great influence on my thinking. He was the first author to articulate and crystalize views that I held but didn't know how to articulate. The book that did that was "Starship Troopers".

I've recommended the book to many people and even given away copies free to interested friends and colleagues. Anyone who thinks "Starship Troopers" is a book about futuristic soldiers killing giant insects has never read the book. Starship Troopers is a philosophical, moral and political treatise set in a science-fiction universe. The sci-fi is merely the backdrop that supports these concepts.

There are many themes in the book but the best part to me is the discussion on the nature of rights by Mr. Dubois, the History and Moral Philosophy teacher of the main character, John Rico. This discussion is what I want to excerpt. It deals with rights as they applied to juvenile delinquency, specifically referencing as Mr. Dubois says, "...that magnificent poetry" of which we are all familiar.

From Chapter 8, Pg.125 of my copy of "Starship Troopers" (yours may vary):

..."The basis of all morality is duty, a concept with the same relation to group that self-interest has to individual. Nobody preached duty to these kids in a way they could understand - that is, with a spanking. But the society they were in told them endlessly about their 'rights.'

"The results should have been predictable, such a human being has no natural rights of any nature."

Mr. Dubois had paused. Someone took the bait. "Sir? How about 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness'?"

"Ah, yes, the 'unalienable rights.' Each year someone quotes that magnificent poetry, 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 of 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 - neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure I will catch it."

Mr. Dubois then turned to me. "I told you that 'juvenile delinquent' is a contradiction in terms. 'Delinquent' means 'failing in duty.' But duty is an adult virtue - indeed a juvenile becomes an adult when, and only when, he acquires a knowledge of duty and embraces it dearer than the self-love he was born with. There never was, there cannot be, a 'juvenile delinquent.' But for every juvenile criminal there are always one or more adult delinquents - people of mature years who either do not know their duty, or who, knowing it, fail.

"And that was the soft spot which destroyed what was in many ways an admirable culture. The junior hoodlums who roamed their streets were symptoms of a greater sickness; their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure."

"Starship Troopers" remains on the reading lists of the Navy, Army and Marine Corps and the only science fiction book on the lists at four of the five US military academies. If you have not read it, I recommend it highly.

With these words in mind, let me try and answer John Galt's questions...

1) Do I have any rights? If not, why not?

As I mentioned in my short reply to him, my answer, as much as it pains me, agrees with Heinlein: No, we do not have any rights. Specifically, we have no natural rights.

Natural, or God-given, rights cannot exist. To do so implies there is a higher order to the Universe that transcends us. More importantly, it implies a type of natural law that should be obvious, discoverable and immutable just as any other natural law. I think many of us, despite faith or belief, can agree this state of affairs is highly unlikely.

A man alone has no rights. Or the corollary, a man alone has infinite rights. I, standing alone in a field, can imagine myself any right I dare to dream up. King of the Ladybugs, Tyrant of the Ants, Almighty of the Second Sewer Pipe. I may believe I have absolute power, that I have a right to life and liberty and that the fishes should swim at my bidding but Nature will not care. Or listen as Heinlein alludes to.

How can I have any natural rights when Nature itself decrees that on a long enough timeline that it will deprive me of even the most basic so-called "right", the right to life? And even if Nature is feeling particularly generous today, there is no continued guarantee to my right to life tomorrow.

I can choose not to find food. Or I can try and fail. The results are the same and Nature is indifferent to the means that I arrive at my lack of food. Effort even of the best of intentions does not mean reward. Or if my efforts result in injury or sickness, my right to life is subsequently diminished. Go far enough and it ceases to be. Nature will be blind and indifferent to those circumstances regardless.

If I cannot prove a basic right to life, how can I possibly justify any further elaboration on other, more complex and profound natural rights? I cannot for Nature neither preserves or grants them.

All rights, if any, must come from us and us alone. What we call 'rights' can only evolve in the context of social interactions between human beings and nowhere else. As a result, what we perceive to be "natural rights" are little more than social cues and interactions we mutually agree upon.

This also covers the answer to question #2. Since "natural rights" do not exist, they can have no source.

It is when others arrive that things start to get interesting. If we have no natural rights, how can we assert their existence? How can we agree upon a framework that two or more individuals can acknowledge as "rights"? And can they exist in a universal context?

Perhaps. It depends on how you choose to define "rights".

The main problem is that social constructs are relative to their parent societies and those are constantly shifting and evolving. Plus, as Heinlein discusses in "Starship Troopers", morality is everything. But even morality is relative.

If a culture decides that sacrificing the redheaded, left-handed children and having the village feast upon them for a good harvest, is it moral? Even if, year after year, said feast results in bountiful harvests, is such behavior "moral"? If that is all you know and all the villagers down to and including the sacrificed redheads agree on its morality, how can we as outside observers judge such an act to be immoral or a violation of someone's "rights"?

Tricky problem, eh?

As John Galt discusses, actions taken voluntarily even against one's own self-interest or self-preservation are not and cannot be a violation of one's "rights". The actions of one having no effect on others in a harmful fashion do not involve "rights" at all except as that individual chooses to identify them. As I said, individual rights are a figment of one's perception, absent or infinite. The individual can even scream "My rights are being violated!" to all observers but as long as that person is lying on the sacrificial altar and putting the knife to their own throat, all it can be is a final grand performance in the great theatre of life.

But a slight change in circumstances gives us a glimmer of hope. As I said, "rights" can possibly exist as soon as you bring others into the equation since they can only come into being as a result of social interactions.

Is our sacrificial volunteer's rights being violated when he or she lies willingly on the altar but another puts their knife to their throat but at the moment the blade begins to move, screams "Why are you doing this?!? My rights are being violated!"? If our victim continues to allow having their throat slit after crying out, is it a violation of their rights? Does the willing have rights that are now being violated by another that they themselves found normal and umquestioned when it was by their own hand?

Think upon this. Tomorrow I provide my answer.