Human Rights?

March 17, 2008

Man, I’m screwed. I have to pass a paper on applied ethics tomorrow and I still have no idea on what topic to tackle. I intended to write about humans eating each other, but I reckon it’s hard to write about. It should be fun but I couldn’t figure out how to tackle it. For me, it’s okay for human beings to eat other human beings if they really have to, and this is quite possible if everyone agreed to eat each other—human rights, for me, are not inalienable, self-evident, or natural, but rather as social constructs—but at this point in human civilization, I’m pretty sure that I don’t want to eat YOU. 

 

So I went for second best. I’d write about human rights and why I think they’re just an invention of men and women. Hobbes, Locke and Rosseau believed that our society is organized by social contracts—basically, an agreement to do this instead of this and giving the power to enforce such rules to a government. However, they seem to base it on natural rights, or rights inherent to human beings (if I’m not mistaken). 

 

For future reference (future being a few hours, when I start cramming this thing):

1. Where do rights come from? - God? The law? Where does law come from then? Human beings write laws according to their interpretation of God’s word. Or if they’re not much a fan of God, the drafters of laws write what they believe to be good. So, at one point, it is a right to own a slave. In some Muslim countries, it is in the law to murder one’s wife if she is adulterous.

2.Why do humans have rights? Rights contribute to the order of society by making people content, if not happy. I’m sure you’d be sore if you don’t have the right to live. I bet you’d be mad if you can’t say you’re mad. I think humans give rights to the things they care about—their life, their happiness, their freedom. 

3. Who can take away rights? - The right to live can be taken away by capital punishment. The right to free movement can be taken away by incarceration. Humans can take away rights they bestow themselves through coercive institutions, such as the government.

 

Well, the best of luck to me. It’s going to be a long night.