Political Philosophy: Liberty and Rights
1. What Are Rights?
Aeon J. Skoble is a professor of philosophy at Bridgewater State University. His research in moral and political philosophy includes theories of rights, the nature and justification of authority, virtue ethics, and theories of legal interpretation.
Individuals have rights. But are they natural? And how do they compare and contrast with legal or constitutional rights? Are legal or constitutional rights similar to those inalienable rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence? Professor Aeon J. Skoble distinguishes such constitutional rights, such as the right to vote, from the rights protected by governments and constitutions—natural rights not actually granted by governments themselves. He concludes that legal systems should create rights that are combatable with natural rights.
- The Philosophy of Liberty [Video]: An ISIL classic animated video on the philosophy of liberty and self-ownership.
- Rights [Article]: Leif Wenar provides an excellent overview of rights, including critiques, categories, and history.
- Natural Law and Natural Rights [Article]: An excellent collection of essays and articles provided by the Online Library of Liberty.
- Second Treatise of Government [Book]: John Locke's seminal defense of a classical liberal political system based on the rights of life, liberty, and property.
Use these questions to enhance your understanding of the topic. We recommend watching the featured video first; the suggested resources will also help.
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Comments
Bringing in the idea of "natural" rights is misleading and unnecessary. When a person argues for natural rights, he or she is simply stating: (1) I think these are the most important, or essential, rights; (2) I believe that everyone should have these rights. It cannot be proven scientifically or philosophically that there really are natural rights. Debating this point is missing the point. When we discuss rights, we only need to figure out what we think our rights should be and how to protect them.
That the moral conception referred to in philosophical discourse as "natural rights" is non-empirical, that is not subject to the rules governing empirical data, is inherent in the definition of a "moral conception." As far as I am aware no serious treatment of the philosophy of rights has ever considered this as a problem. Moral conceptions can't be proven scientifically because it is impossible to do so. But so what? Unless you are a strict empiricist or a logical positivist this only means that there are realms of knowledge and rationality that are non-empirical. One has to also wonder what can be "proven philosophically." Philosophy is not a hard science like physics. One can prove a physical theorem in a laboratory, but where and with what instruments would a person prove a philosophical theory....philosophically?
You say discussing the nature or even the relevance of "natural" rights theory is "misleading, unnecessary, and. . .missing the point," but then you conclude that what we ought to be doing is "figuring out what we think our rights should be and how to protect them." The question that immediately presents itself is by what criterion (or criteria) would we begin to measure the validity of a right or a series of rights that we SHOULD have? Very early on we run into the is/ought problem. One SHOULD be able to do X without fear of losing life, liberty, or property, for example, but WHY SHOULD HE? Naturally we do not readily look for scientific postulates in cases involving philosophical propositions. However, I could of course, working from an empirical angle, say that the individual's economic output would be maximized if he is allowed to do X with his property and that in the aggregate, therefore, society is better off, but this obviously would not have the force of a "right" because if the conditions are reversed we might reasonably conclude that the individual's property can be confiscated and redistributed along economically efficient lines so that in the aggregate social wealth is maximized.
I have read everything written by Rand a minimum of 5 times and I only bring that up so that what I say will not be dismissed out of hand.
I do not like this discussion of Rights and my animosity toward it revolves around the complete lack of coverage of why the term "Right" was used in the first place. That means that an entire category of understanding was totally ignored. The category to which I refer is truthful identifications.
Rights are truthful identifications about Man that represent a set of specific actions that we need to perform in order to survive as humans. If we fail to perform any of these actions, survival is not possible and without survival happiness becomes a moot point.
That "Rights" are actions should be obvious because the term was included in the Preamble and codified in the Bill of Rights and protected, or at least that was the theory. Protected from what? From laws, which by definition limit human action. They wanted no laws to stop any of the actions implied in our inalienable truths. But they never defined what those actions were.
If Societal Law was based upon Moral Law, we would have a way to judge a law as being good or bad. But we don't because of the split between the two. The problem is that the normal response to this is to say, "Why would a Muslim live by a Christian law?"
The real question is, "Is there a level of Morality below any and all religions?". I say, "Yes, there is".
Those actions are the ones we need to perform if we expect to live or to extend our lives: Choice, To seek the truth in all things, and to Create one's identity.
These three actions are the Primary Virtues. This perspective now provides us with solutions to many problems that have plagued us since the beginning.
Freedom, for instance, can now be very clearly defined. Freedom is the state of being able to perform the Primary Virtues without being impeded by another or group of others. And "constitutionality" now means something new and is easy to define. A law is unconstitutional if it is a primary evil, meaning, it violates the ability to perform a primary virtue.
I think it is extremely important for our species to start thinking in these terms and I would recommend adding this to the discussion of Rights.
I have always been more of a consequentialist Libertarian, but I can still see plenty of value in the content of this video and "The Philosophy of Liberty" in understanding policy.