(no subject)
This is a post because it hot, and that makes me easily vexed. Also because I've been meaning to vent about something like this for a while.
Human rights annoy me. Human rights annoy me because of the way people use them. Like science. Love it to death. Except when people start to argue about it. When it gets annoying and people get stupid. Mostly, I think, because people aren’t that interested in human rights or science anyway.
In a general sense, rights are things that people are entitled to (and correspondingly responsible for providing others with, which is an important corollary), on the basis that they are independently good in such a way, and to such an extent, that there is no basis on which they should be ever be contravened, no matter what consequences result from the presence of rights. This last bit is something I think is particularly important to draw attention to, because one of the things that annoys me most about rights is that people use them as trumps. “You can’t stop me! I have a right to free speech!” That kind of thing. I think that, in order for this to be a valid statement, rights need to be non-contravenable. Rights can, of course, be framed as simply general guidelines that can be broken if the situation warrants it, I think that this voids trump status: if a person believes that rights are breakable, then they can’t simply state that they have a right to something, they must also give a rationale for why their right is applicable in the particular situation. In other words, they need to give a non-trump response. There are some great examples of this kind of thing. Take John Stuart Mill on the rights of women, for example. But it does require something a bit more in depth.
A resolute determination to hold to rights no matter the cost is much simpler to support by argument (because it’s less fiddly, largely). And it supports the use of trumps. So it’s arguable that it’s on this basis that a lot of people think of rights. The problem with this is that I don’t think most people actually believe in sticking to rights no matter the cost. Let’s take freedom of expression, for instance. Imagine you are given an envelope full of child porn by an anonymous person, whose identity you never discover. Now, let’s also assume that this means you’re not morally culpable for the production of this porn. Ought you be allowed to publish these pictures and then distribute them however you want? An absolute right to freedom of expression suggests yes (I’m also going to assume that there’s no right to be happy, or some kind of right to be looked upon well, because, really, they’re pretty ridiculous absolute rights, and so we’re not breaking anyone else’s rights by publication). Or again, have you ever deleted a comment from someone on LJ? Have you ever considered on how this impacts on your absolute obligation to allow people to speak freely? These are relatively contrived situations, and they make quite a few assumptions, but as it stands, I think it implies that there is something that can go gravely wrong with absolute rights, or at least some of the more intuitively plausible ones like freedom of speech, expression and association.
This is, on a related note, why bills of rights are largely unnecessary. Because if they’re absolute, then they’re actually probably useless (see people breaking them in basically every country in the world). And if they’re not, then they’re not really any different to any other kind of law. Which makes them also pretty useless. In the first case because I have doubts they’d be followed absolutely; in the second case because they’re redundant if you have a legal system.
The other thing that annoys me about human rights is how people claim rights, but I don’t usually see people sitting back and saying things like “well, because I’m obliged to provide you with water/shelter/freedom of speech, go right ahead.” Even though they’re the same thing.
More things that annoy me: people who talk about war and justice without paying any attention to just war theory (here’s a hint people: you can’t justly declare war on anyone who you, as a state, don’t recognise as a state); people who believe in holding the environment on trust for future generations, but are also pro-abortion because they don’t think that future people have moral weight; hot weather; photocopiers.
Human rights annoy me. Human rights annoy me because of the way people use them. Like science. Love it to death. Except when people start to argue about it. When it gets annoying and people get stupid. Mostly, I think, because people aren’t that interested in human rights or science anyway.
In a general sense, rights are things that people are entitled to (and correspondingly responsible for providing others with, which is an important corollary), on the basis that they are independently good in such a way, and to such an extent, that there is no basis on which they should be ever be contravened, no matter what consequences result from the presence of rights. This last bit is something I think is particularly important to draw attention to, because one of the things that annoys me most about rights is that people use them as trumps. “You can’t stop me! I have a right to free speech!” That kind of thing. I think that, in order for this to be a valid statement, rights need to be non-contravenable. Rights can, of course, be framed as simply general guidelines that can be broken if the situation warrants it, I think that this voids trump status: if a person believes that rights are breakable, then they can’t simply state that they have a right to something, they must also give a rationale for why their right is applicable in the particular situation. In other words, they need to give a non-trump response. There are some great examples of this kind of thing. Take John Stuart Mill on the rights of women, for example. But it does require something a bit more in depth.
A resolute determination to hold to rights no matter the cost is much simpler to support by argument (because it’s less fiddly, largely). And it supports the use of trumps. So it’s arguable that it’s on this basis that a lot of people think of rights. The problem with this is that I don’t think most people actually believe in sticking to rights no matter the cost. Let’s take freedom of expression, for instance. Imagine you are given an envelope full of child porn by an anonymous person, whose identity you never discover. Now, let’s also assume that this means you’re not morally culpable for the production of this porn. Ought you be allowed to publish these pictures and then distribute them however you want? An absolute right to freedom of expression suggests yes (I’m also going to assume that there’s no right to be happy, or some kind of right to be looked upon well, because, really, they’re pretty ridiculous absolute rights, and so we’re not breaking anyone else’s rights by publication). Or again, have you ever deleted a comment from someone on LJ? Have you ever considered on how this impacts on your absolute obligation to allow people to speak freely? These are relatively contrived situations, and they make quite a few assumptions, but as it stands, I think it implies that there is something that can go gravely wrong with absolute rights, or at least some of the more intuitively plausible ones like freedom of speech, expression and association.
This is, on a related note, why bills of rights are largely unnecessary. Because if they’re absolute, then they’re actually probably useless (see people breaking them in basically every country in the world). And if they’re not, then they’re not really any different to any other kind of law. Which makes them also pretty useless. In the first case because I have doubts they’d be followed absolutely; in the second case because they’re redundant if you have a legal system.
The other thing that annoys me about human rights is how people claim rights, but I don’t usually see people sitting back and saying things like “well, because I’m obliged to provide you with water/shelter/freedom of speech, go right ahead.” Even though they’re the same thing.
More things that annoy me: people who talk about war and justice without paying any attention to just war theory (here’s a hint people: you can’t justly declare war on anyone who you, as a state, don’t recognise as a state); people who believe in holding the environment on trust for future generations, but are also pro-abortion because they don’t think that future people have moral weight; hot weather; photocopiers.