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From: tim@unc.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Nature of Rights
Message-ID: <5546@unc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 12-Jul-83 12:19:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: unc.5546
Posted: Tue Jul 12 12:19:29 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 13-Jul-83 20:07:12 EDT
References: umcp-cs.698
Lines: 53


    We don't need to postulate that there is any such thing as a
"real" right of a person.  By this, I mean that we don't need to refer
to rights as given by God, inherent in the nature of mankind, or
anything else.  When we talk about a grammar rule in a programming
language, we don't refer to some absolute rule that we are trying to
capture.  The rule is our creation, designed to facilitate
programming.

    Similarly, we create the concept of "rights" to facilitate human
intercourse.  There are certain actions that we all agree are
reprehensible, such as wanton murder, suppression of another person's
ideas by force, and so on.  If we just list these, though, there are
too many and the list is too inflexible.  We need a basis for
determining in arbitrary situations what the right course is, and we
require that this be compatible with our inherent wishes for the
conduct of society.

    The concept of "rights" is one such basis.  By listing the rights
of humans, we create a means for discriminating between proper and
improper actions in all situations.  We need not appeal to any
authority for this.  We simply need to see that it works.  My feeling
is that it does work, and my evidence is the American government, one
of the least oppressive in the world and one which has the idea of
human rights at its core (at least, that is the way the Supreme Court
has been running things in the last few decades).  Decisions are made
based on the Bill of Rights which correlate with our intuitive desires
for freedom, and these do not seem to wind up hurting the country.  In
addition, nearly all of the things which are assumed by nearly all
people to be heinous enough to be forbidden by law can be conceived of
as an infringement of the victim's rights -- this is a more abstract
point in favor of the "rights" model.

    Here we do have to invoke certain pre-existent principles.  It is
instructive to go back to the programming languages analogy.  Although
the syntax rules we are discussing are not pre-existent, they will be
judged better or worse depending on how smoothly they carry out the
purposes of the language.  (For instance, a rule that you have to say
"Mother, may I" at the top of any loop will be judged as rather a poor
one.) This judgment is inherently subjective.  The same goes for our
selection of rights.  This is a topic I could go on about, but I don't
feel like it right now.  Maybe later.  (Do you have any idea what a
strain it is carrying on ten discussions in different groups at once?)

    In conclusion, the idea of rights need be nothing more nor less
than an abstract system used to resolve concrete problems.

______________________________________
The overworked keyboard of Tim Maroney

duke!unc!tim (USENET)
tim.unc@udel-relay (ARPA)
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill