Difference between revisions of "Natural Rights"

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[[Category:Libertarian Propaganda Terms]]
 
[[Category:Libertarian Propaganda Terms]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
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[[Category:Rights|200]]
{{DES | des = Natural Rights has always been a propaganda term, from its first invention as an answer to the rights of kings.  Nobody has yet really answered [[Jeremy Bentham]]'s charge of "nonsense on stilts".  Most libertarianism ([[Nozick]], for example) is still behind the times here. | show=}}
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[[Category:Failures Of Libertarian Philosophy|100]]
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{{DES | des = Natural Rights has always been a propaganda term, from its first invention as an answer to the rights of kings.  Nobody has yet really answered [[Jeremy Bentham]]'s charge of "[[Anarchical Fallacies/Nonsense on stilts|nonsense on stilts]]".  Most libertarianism ([[Nozick]], for example) is still behind the times here. Also known as "unalienable rights" or "inalienable rights". | show=}}
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Natural rights are exactly as knowable as invisible pink unicorns: anybody can fantasize them any way they want. During the Enlightenment, when liberalism was invented, liberal natural rights were a propaganda tool used to undermine the equally fictitious natural rights of kings. But even among liberals there was no agreement about whether slaveholding was a natural right or not, because natural rights are really just words. Bentham famously dismissed the idea of natural rights as "nonsense on stilts". Unfortunately, most libertarians (including Nozick) start with this philosophical abomination rather than more factual alternatives.
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Natural rights have a terrible historical record.  Natural rights in the 19th century and earlier considered wives, children and slaves as property, as they had been for millennia.  Look at Patrick Henry, Mr. "Give me liberty or give me death": he was a slave owner, as were many of the other founders of the US who howled for their own liberty, but not that of their wives or slaves.
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Specific ideas of natural rights are inevitably parochial, because they vary from culture to culture and time to time.  A huge amount of anthropology and sociology confirms the variation in ideas of rights that people call natural.
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A few recent claims of n natural rights are particularly ludicrous.  "Natural rights is why you don't want me to steal your property, rape your wife and murder your children."  Well, if natural rights are simply individual desires, then there are plenty of people who desire to steal your property, rape your wife and murder your children.  History is full of that, and historically it has been claimed as natural rights, indeed virtues, of the powerful.  Plenty of animals do that too, if you want to commit the naturalistic fallacy.
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{{List|Natural Rights|links=true}}
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{{Quotations|Natural Rights|quotes=true}}

Revision as of 09:52, 10 September 2019