Another comment I want to memorialize in the main text

[morsefan]

The thing about discussions about "human rights" (let us now bow down and worship at the altar!) is there actually is something called the law of human rights that has content. There are procedures for unpacking questions like "What is or should be recognized as a human right?" "Who has authority to enforce a human right and when?" "How do we know

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[morsefan]

I have no idea what philosophers think positivism is. I thought what I meant was clear in context, but I come at this from a legal context, so I could be wrong. It is, bluntly, that might makes right; winner take all under the voting rule; that 6 may tell 5 what to do; that we justify the law by the process of creating it, not by its substantive content. In this I am thinking of a way of making some jurisprudential debates that go on before some of our Supreme Court justices accessible. Bluntly, majority rules, and if they protect the minorities, that's nice, but the only protection for minorities is if the majority feels like being a bunch of nice guys about it. There is no other principled reason for so doing other than utilitarianism.

If philosophers reject positivism, good! A lot of political entities supported by philosophers claim to, but in practice don't. In that sense, we are really discussing not what human rights should be, but what we are going to choose to protect in a world of scarce resources where people do not agree. The justification for their adherence to human rights documents is that a majority voted for them in the moment, but not that an objective standard supports them. Not that there is some principle of morality from an authoritative source to which we all consent to that requires our adherence. No: it's that in a grossly flawed system 51 percent plus one voted for them and then later on, in a nondemocratic (read: even less "consented to" situation), a court or other adjudicative body decides it means something slightly different from what people thought. I am thinking here of Europe, not the U.S., partly because the more flagrant examples of this kind of judicial activity come from there.

But here's the rub: Where's the principle of morality from an authoritative source that requires our adherence from an atheistic perspective? That's the question -- and I don't see an answer here. Do you have one? Can you find one? And if there isn't one, where are we left? Bluntly, with a world in which we can't identify any human rights to protect even if we could protect them. So human rights discourse mostly boils down in fora like this into making tedious political points and pointing fingers at people we don't like.

On the other hand, in my hometown, we could come up with the authoritative documents probably everyone would agree to be bound to and we'd enforce it. It would be Biblically related, but we could do it. Easy. It is that we are creatures. There is a higher authority to which we submit. We do not have certain types of defined authority over our fellow beings. That would be true in lots of places. Small groups: greater likelihood of success on agreement. My vote: let every little group do it their own way, vote with their feet and be done with it. Everyone has consented; everyone's happy.

Could those who don't believe get there so easily? Maybe. Look at San Francisco. But atheists don't believe in creaturehood, which takes away that obvious source. You may have a good answer, because you've taken the time to unpack these things, but I note that in general conversation with the average Joe who throws human rights violations in my face: that guy doesn't.