Mandatory paternity testing at birth?

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They don't have to be written as law. But they do have to be agreed upon by other people. A right is merely an agreement amongst people for how to treat each other- what is required, what is forbidden. It's a social contract.

No.


He didn't. Since rights are the ways people agree to treat each other. Without speech (or at least some form of communication), there is no such thing as a right.

Added on:

I am speaking evolutionarily. I am not saying babies or non-verbal people have no rights. But rather that the capacity to communicate enough to form social contracts had to have evolved in the human species before rights could come into existence.

Last edited by Janissy on 02 Mar 2011, 3:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Does a low functioning autistic who is unable to communicate have no rights?

I edited my post because this question shows I wasn't clear.

The individual doesn't need speech or any form of communication to have rights. The species does. It was the ability of the species to communicate with each other to form social contracts that made the concept of rights come into existence. For all I know, social pack animals may have a concept of rights too, which they communicate with each other. Who has the right to the best food and so on. Once the society has created rights, the non-verbal members of that society are included in the social contract. But the social contract- which requires communication to develop- preceded the rights.

So, you mean that my right to live can be taken away if society agrees to amend the "social contract"?

Actually, yes. Look what happened in German society vis a vis the Jews.

ruveyn

As I see it the Jews still had rights; the Nazis simply chose to ignore and violate them. Are you claiming that they no longer had the right to life simply because Hitler said they didn't?

The notion that you have rights once you have been disarmed, wrecked and ruined is a charming delusion. How many rights does a dead man have?

ruveyn

The notion that rights can be given, taken away, or modified by a group of individuals that are subject to those same rights creates a mob rule scenario where anything can be viewed as right or wrong so long as the majority agrees. Rights cannot be given or taken away, only recognized or violated.

Read the news papers. Read the history books. You are dead wrong. People are deprived of their rights every day of the week. I do not approve of it but I cannot deny the fact of it.

ruveyn

I am not denying that rights are violated. My claim is that violation/denial of rights does not strip the individual of his/her rights. The denier simply fails to recognize them.

I think relativism is very mentally lazy, especially when people call things social constructs as if they have absolutely no basis in nature. We don't pull rights out of our asses, it has to have come from something established by our nature.. We are social beings, so therefore we must have a way of conducting ourselves to functionally co-exist. And that's what inspired us to come up with rights.

Inuyasha, atheism is NOT a system. I dunno why people assume there are strings attached to atheism. I don't believe rights come from God or a piece of paper. Well it is relevant to a piece of paper, but rights have been established by our social nature rather than a piece of paper. The piece of paper is simply a reflection of our nature.

Last edited by AceOfSpades on 02 Mar 2011, 4:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

An interesting point. I think it is reasonable to suggest that some basic rights could have been established in prehistoric man without the ability to list them, but some form of communication that resulted in mutual understanding would have been necessary. Mutual understanding is not possible without some form of recognition (the result of the action was postive in the past, so I will try it again). Internal dialogue would not be necessary; visual memories along with positive or negative consequences of the action would be enough.

Normally social animals behave in ways that are consistent to avoid the negative consequences of not following the social order among the species. Alpha males gain the ability (or if you want to call it right) to mate above and beyond what is available to inferior males. A challenge to this social order can result in violence. Up until the challenge the Alpha male enjoys the mating rights established by its dominance.

I don't think the ability to list the rights are necessary. This kind of mating right only requires the recognition of physcial dominance between two animals. I would think this kind of social contract was evident in the humans species from the start and more than likely evident in whatever primate the human species (as we define it) evolved from. I don't know of any primates that are not considered social animals to some degree.

[quote]AceOfSpades wrote:

I think relativism is very mentally lazy, especially when people call things social constructs as if they have absolutely no basis in nature. We don't pull rights out of our asses, it has to have come from something established by our nature.. We are social beings, so therefore we must have a way of conducting ourselves to functionally co-exist. And that's what inspired us to come up with rights.

I agree up to a point. Rights are a metaphysical reality, just like gravity. No one came up with rights, just like Newton didn't come up with gravity. Rights, like gravity, were already there; man simply chooses to recognize or ignore them

I don't think rights can exist without the consent of others to uphold those rights. The rights don't exist in a vacuum. They have to be agreed upon. Disturbing though that is, both history and the news bears it out. This is (on of the reasons) whyI'm not an anarchist. Rights can only exist so long as people are willing to uphold them. Anarchy threatens that social contract.

Think of what you consider the most fundamental and inheremnt right. Is it the right not to be killed? (That's just my guess.) That seems to be a core right that societies form themselves around. And yet what societies actually do is not say that this right is inherent, but rather make a list of who this right applies to. As modern westerners, we frequently judge current and past societies by how broad the list of "right not to be killed" is granted to. Even so, we don't grant it to everybody. For instance, "right not to be killed" isn't never granted to people in a war zone. If they happen to be standing near where the bomb is dropped, they are "casualties of war", not people whose rights have been violated. This stands until the social contract gets re-written. Social contracts are always in flux. Mostly this has been to expand the pool of people who have the right not to be killed,which I think is a good thing.

Here's another can of worms. Abortion (into the fray......)

The current dispute over abortion centers around whether or not a fetus shall be granted the right not to be killed. And "granted" is the right word. Whether the social cobntract favors the woman or the fetus is something that has to be hashed out by a society. It isn't inherent. It has to be decided as a group. And it is in flux.

I agree. I think my post(s) leaned to heavily on speech as a tool to formulate rights but on reading more posts it's simply any sort of social communication. The example of "right to mate" shows that speech isn't necessary, just a way of communicating who is the alpha. And winning a fight communicates that.

A right is the sanction of independent action. A right is that which can be exercised without anyone’s permission.

If you exist only because society permits you to exist—you have no right to your own life. A permission can be revoked at any time.

If, before undertaking some action, you must obtain the permission of society—you are not free, whether such permission is granted to you or not. Only a slave acts on permission. A permission is not a right.

Do not make the mistake, at this point, of thinking that a worker is a slave and that he holds his job by his employer’s permission. He does not hold it by permission—but by contract, that is, by a voluntary mutual agreement. A worker can quit his job. A slave cannot.

-Ayn Rand