Difference between revisions of "Natural Rights"
From Critiques Of Libertarianism
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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. | 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. | ||
| − | Specific ideas of natural rights are inevitably parochial, because they vary from culture to culture. A huge amount of anthropology and sociology confirms the variation in ideas of rights that people call natural. | + | 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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