where do rights come from?

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Rights are nothing more than legal authorities that can be enforced at law.

As such they are entirely and wholly creatures of law. When the rule of law ceases, then rights are, perforce, diminished or abrgated. Your right to life is meaningless then a warlord puts a bullet in your head. Your right to liberty is meaningless when the state detains you without power.

Those who seek to constrain the judiciary do so at the risk of the enforcability of their own rights.

The arugment about their origin is merely academic. Common law history is replete with examples of rights that have been recognized from natural law by both statute and by judgement, as well as rights that have been created by statute and by judgement.

To quote George Carlin "we made 'em up".

It is Freedom of Religion not freedom from religion...

However the 2nd Amendment is more important because it gives all the other amendments teeth.

Congress is prohibited from passing a law establishing a religion. That is freedom -from- religion.

ruveyn

They are also prohibited from establishing a law to outlaw a particular religion.

QFT
there's a third.

the one does not negate the other.

Rights evolve out of the complex material interactions between human beings and the forces of production throughout history.

Rights are rules that humans invent so society can run smoothly. They are influenced by personal values, logical reasoning, and instinctual prejudices. Actually, the concept of rights is not unique to the human species. Most social species have an instinctual concept of rights. For example, alpha males and females in animal packs are often allowed special rights. Individuals who break certain rules are often kicked out of the packs. Humans took their instinctual concept of rights to an intellectual level when they gained the ability to do so. You could say that the concept of rights isn't just an invented tool, but also an evolutionary adaptation in social species.

That sounds just about right. Rights were made up as we went along. They have an original in the practical matter of running a society that is peaceful enough to permit the specialization of labor to operate efficiently. That is why rights and markets go together so often.

ruveyn

All people are conscious, all people have the same basic existential fears and hopes, and, therefore, there is no reason why one individual should deny another person the right to live in peace and happiness. Consciousness is a very real phenomenon, and it only makes sense to limit suffering from war and starvation and maximize happiness through cooperation.

I would agree with the OP that a conception of rights doesn't exist outside the human mind.

I'm very interested, as an atheist- how can one assert that rights exist independently of human conception, in some objective way?

That beats making someone bleed to death.

ruveyn

Rights may not physically exist and may only be socially relevant, but that doesn't mean someone just woke up one day, invented them, and somehow got everyone to magically follow them. They're inspired by our nature. I hate when people say this and that doesn't exist just because they don't know where they came from.

Once again you have the culture versus organization dichotomy. Organization rights are clearly ephemeral and person-made.

Culture rights are harder in that you get the varying views of the basis. Logic, consensus, tradition, Solon, God per an amanuensis, God per oracle or other direct revelation? Whatever. Culture based rights are harder to change at the whim of Glorious Leader or the Perlement, and in certain cases can be a sticking point that breaks an organization that ignores them.

Hence the Tea Party [put the stones down, I am talking tge way back Boston one].

But at some point someone had to have woken up and invented them and for some rights like free speech we can trace it because there are political writings related to it. Of course they didn't just invent them and the ideas didn't just spread for no reason. They had reasons for wanting these rights and considering them appropriate.

Some very basic rights like the right to life I think are just naturally instilled in us. In terms of evolution instinctually recognizing other human beings to have a right to life is beneficial. But throughout history we see that this natural instinct is easily overcome by social norms that split people into different groups such as master and slave, native and foreigner, civilian and soldier, and law-abider and criminal.