Human Rights

[Solitaire]

What are human rights? What defines human rights?
Do they differ from human liberties and human fredoms?
Are human rights similar to animal rights or natural rights?
Do they come from a higher power or from the lowly masses?

If one were the only person in the world does one have rights?
Or does it take two or more people in the world for human rights?
Maybe they are just an illusion like free will or buy one get one free.

:)

[Skeptical Greg]

Human rights are whatever any particular human or group of humans decides they are.

The ability to enjoy those rights are subject to that person or persons ability to claim them.

[Dancing David]

They are the 'liberties' defined by individuals and cultures. They are a human expressions of the desire to have the world be a 'just' place.
And yes I feel tha they should be exteneded to animals and plants. No creature should be made to suffer.
They are human values.

Peace
dancing david

[whitefork]

I am so very glad that the Declaration of Independence is not part of the laws of the United States.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.1. Hardly self-evident. That has to be demonstrated.
2. Implying that if there is no Creator, there are no rights - extemely distasteful.
3. If we have these rights, why is it necessary to act to acquire them?

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governedWell, it seems to me that governments are almost always instituted to deny rights to their citizens.
"Just powers" - pretty circular - if the governed don't consent, then the government is by definition unjust, and if the governed do consent, the government is just. That is simply false. Citizens can surely consent to be governed unjustly.

In my view, we acquire our rights by defining them, winning them, and maintaining them by force. They're not static - we define new rights all the time (right to privacy). We voluntarily give up rights (to own slaves).

I don't believe that these rights can be adequately derived by a priori argument. They are created by forceful action.

The validity of a set of rights is ultimately determined by the continued existence of the society that holds them as rights.

In short, what Diogenes said.

[plindboe]

It doesn't need to be so abstract. In 1948 UN proclaimed the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights", and that one is pretty much the reason that we use the phrase "human rights" so much these days.

http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

Peter :)

[LCBOY]

Originally posted by Dancing David
They are the 'liberties' defined by individuals and cultures. They are a human expressions of the desire to have the world be a 'just' place.
And yes I feel tha they should be exteneded to animals and plants. No creature should be made to suffer.
They are human values.

Peace
dancing david

Another level with having rights is to assert that one has them and recognize the rights of others. This is where "animal rights" fails. I believe that animals should have protections as in "animal protection". There are no rights within the animal kingdom. When a lion kills it's prey it is not arrested and tried for murder is it? When a shark kills a seal does it receive a trial of its peers, a jury of sharks?

[c4ts]

Originally posted by LCBOY


Another level with having rights is to assert that one has them and recognize the rights of others. This is where "animal rights" fails. I believe that animals should have protections as in "animal protection". There are no rights within the animal kingdom. When a lion kills it's prey it is not arrested and tried for murder is it? When a shark kills a seal does it receive a trial of its peers, a jury of sharks?

I believe this may be more relevant to the thread on human nature.

[Loki]

Synchronicity,

What are human rights?
Necessary rules to ensure the viability and growth of the human race.

What defines human rights?Humans.

Do they differ from human liberties and human fredoms?
Depends - how do you want to define liberties and freedoms?

Are human rights similar to animal rights or natural rights?
Not the same, because human rights govern human-to-human behaviour.

Do they come from a higher power or from the lowly masses?
See above.

If one were the only person in the world does one have rights?
No, and not much else either.

Or does it take two or more people in the world for human rights?
Yep.

Maybe they are just an illusion like free will or buy one get one free.
Not an illusion.

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by Synchronicity

Or does it take two or more people in the world for human rights?

Yes; the idea of rights means that all people in any society have to have such rights, and all people to respect each other's rights, because if only one person is denied them, then they are no longer rights but privileges.

Maybe they are just an illusion like free will or buy one get one free.
:)

it depends what you mean by illusion; if you mean something which has no existence in and of itself, then yes, rights are illusions; but if you mean something that is false or deceptive, then it depends on what these rights are and what basis they're defined on ;) :D

[Hegel]

:cool:

Humans don't have any more rights than those which people give them. Humans don't have any inherent rights. However I do feel that people should grant others certain rights, that vary from culture to culture.