The battle for personal freedom is often stated to be a battle for individual rights. This, it seems to me, is as misleading as the Left’s cry for “social justice.” In neither case are we dealing with anything objective in any sense. “Social justice” is just another name for the socialist enterprise of stealing money from the well-off to pad the pockets of the apparatchiks and to distribute for votes among the poor. But, at the same time, there really aren’t any individual “rights” either. Neither are there any “natural” rights.
The most that “rights” can be are legislated abstract entitlements. This means that “rights” are legal fictions whose only existence is within some existing social and legal framework. Thus, we can, on the one hand, demand new “rights,” or, on the other, we can demand that ones already ours be respected. The arguments for new rights, however, are extremely difficult to make, since (and here’s the point) there is no such thing as a “right” to a right. Such a special “right” would have to be a “super-right” or a “meta-right,” a right that exists independently of social-cultural entities.
What I mean is that an argument for a new right would require appeal to a reason why a state ought to confer a new entitlement on its population or part of its population. But “oughts” only make sense in terms of “rights”, and thus an argument for a new right has to appeal to a such a “super-right” whose function it is to justify demands for ordinary, garden-variety rights.
For example, as a member of minority group X, I demand a new right: the right to preferential treatment in government hiring.
Why should we confer this new right on your group, ask the legislators.
Because, say the representatives of X, we have a right to this new right.
When this kind of argument is made, the super-right appealed to is “super” because it is actually treated as a right that would exist even if there were no societies or nations: it is a right embedded in nature. It is a “natural” right.
But quite apart from the fantasy worlds of philosophers and academic scribblers, where are such “rights” to be found in nature? Can our chemists find them? Can our physicists find them? These rights are no more than the hallucinations of over-wrought philosophers and so-called political “scientists.”
Ultimately, these rights come into existence within societies not because they are “discovered,” but because they are invented by sub-populations large enough to work their will on the whole.
When gays acquire more rights, it will not be because these rights will have been discovered, it will not be because this will have been found to be “just,” it will not be because gays have been found to “deserve” them; it will be because there will be enough people in the society who want them to have these entitlements. Period.
We can see this if we compare the social situation of gays with, say, the social situation of necrophiles. There aren’t many necrophiles, as far as I know, but, then, we didn’t really know how many gays there were until they started coming out of the closet. Right now, most people in the West would really prefer not having a necrophile living next door. If asked why, they would probably say that it “creeps them out.” Some might even say that they find it “disgusting.” But what if hundreds of thousands of necrophiles began to emerge from the closet like endless clowns out of a volkswagen?
It would take a few years, but ultimately we would begin to be taught that necrophiles are “just like us” and entitled to all the same benefits offered by the society to people who prefer their boinking partners to be alive.
The same would hold true for the polygamists, but also for the coprophiles, the people who prefer sheep, and so forth.
It’s just a matter of numbers.
And the rights derive from the preferences of the largest, noisiest group.
The implications of this are both broad and deep.
One implication is that most of the “arguments” for “rights” are beside the point; the point is only 1) how many of them are there, and 2) do they have enough votes?
Another is that our own preferences do not need “justification” (except in a court of law, where societal/cultures rules are made explicit).
Many might take this to be an argument in favor of Leftist-style moral relativism, but the argument is neutral, I think, in this respect.
While a person preferring a Judaeo-Christian society can no longer claim to “defend” his position by appeal to absolute values embedded in the very matter of the universe, it is equally true that he no longer needs this or any other defense of his preference. The same applies to the person on the Left.
And so, the bottom line is this: does each one of us have a “natural right” to what they have earned or made? No. Does anyone else have a “natural right” to it? No. But the good news is that societies can enshrine certain rights in their laws that reflect the preferences of their populations.
My own preference is to live in a society in which the powers of government are quite limited, in which the government must respect personal property, where the government’s ability to tax is controlled by law, where size of government is limited by law, where the personal finances of elected officials are subject to regular independent scrutiny, and where elected officials can be booted out of office by a democratic consensus. I have more preferences on these matters, but these will do for the moment.
I don’t claim that my preferences are given by God or by Nature, the most that I do is ask if there are others who share them and that they, like me, continue to speak and vote for a society like that.
Simplicius,
ReplyDeleteWhile we agree on many matters, this is one of the few areas where we diverge!
I don't think the notion that something is objectively true is incompatible with the notion that it flows from a subjective state (in this case, our preferences). We are all content to say that the sky is blue, notwithstanding that its blueness is not an objective fact, but is rather a function of our own subjective perception. And indeed, there are many who do not see blue - but we do not use them as evidence that the sky cannot properly be called blue. Rather we call them "colour BLIND". By referring to them as blind, we are essentially saying "there is something you SHOULD be seeing, but you're NOT." In effect we say, "For Humans, the sky is blue"
Similarly, I have no problem admitting that values such as "love for individual freedom" flow from my subjective preferences. But this ignores the question of why my subjective state is the way it is. It might be an accident of nature, or it might be given from God, or otherwise. But if we can talk about the nature of other animals and their general preferences as a species, why can we not do so with Man? Perhaps our nature is less discernable, and perhaps it applies to fewer of our activities, but that nature would still be present. Doesn't capitalism itself not rest on a cynical view of an unchanging human nature?
For whatever reason, in the long run the majority of human beings prefer pleasure over pain, freedom over servitude, etc. Moreover, history has demonstrated that we are most productive when we are left to our devices within a rule of law, and the majority of humans prefer productivity over stagnation. Are there those that don't? Of course. And there are others who don't see Blue.
You might argue that once you "rationalize" our rights, you hand the Left a bone, because they can always rationalize new rights. But I would argue the opposite. When we are in the realm of preferences, we are essentially in the realm of passion, and it is PASSION that has allowed the Left to gain so many converts, not reason or appeal to God. The Supreme Court has often interpreted the Bill of Rights (a Natural Rights document) to further liberal aims, it's true. But that's nothing compared to gains socialist populists have made in societies that are "democratic" with no Constitution, where everything is up for grabs because there are no Natural Rights.
You have often defended traditional Christian culture on your blog and I'm sure you realize that it is because of that culture that the West, and especially the Anglo-American world has prospered so freely. The Founding Fathers believed first and foremost in freedom, with democracy as a distant second. In the long run, the only way you'll be able to protect those precious liberties that are always under attack from vulgar populist rage, is if you can anchor them on something greater.
The best evidence of the objectivity of Rights, I think, is that almost no one disputes the value of traditional liberal rights (speech, religion, association, equality before the law, autonomy etc.). The disputes occur almost exclusively in the domain of positive rights (health care, education, etc.). Many proponents of positive rights are simply ignorant that those rights are 100% incompatible with the negative rights which they legitimately do cherish (at the very least for themselves). They simply believe, falsely, that they can have their cake and eat it too. Almost everyone now acknowledges the Soviet Union was a crappy society; but among liberals, few realize that the policies of the SU are slowly working their way into our own societies. This is, as you said, why the Left must deny the obvious. Because, were they to embrace the obvious, many of their beliefs would be shown to be demonstrably false. And they can't have that; because much if not all of what they believe and want requires them to deny human nature.
Hello Asher, Thanks, as always, for your thoughtful response. I have two comments on what you write, one major and one minor.
ReplyDeleteThe major point is the one made by Hume so many years ago: that “is” never entails “ought.” What this means in this case is that human nature can be whatever it happens to be, but this does not entail anything whatsoever about “rights,” which are “obligations,” things “owed” among people. It may be, as you argue, that there are universal preferences among human beings, but that they have those preferences is just a fact about them (an “is”) which does not imply anything about their obligations (their “oughts”).
Thus, what I say in post 41 is simply that I personally wish that the “oughts” made real through our laws be the ones that I prefer, that I am hoping that my efforts, as small as they are, will move others to also prefer the way I do.
I don’t believe that my preferences can be defended by appeal to “facts” any more than the preferences of radical islamo-fascists. I have my preferences, they have theirs. Surely, if I say to them that most human beings have “natural” dispositions to prefer a life other than the one they like, they will simply deny that, pointing out that a huge part of the world is muslim. But, more than that, they will say that human dispositions to prefer are wrong in most things, just as older Christianity argued. Nothing follows from the appeal to human nature.
The minor point is that I’m pretty convinced that human nature is extremely plastic, even mutable with respect to pain and pleasure. The flagellants of the middle ages sought out pain, as do masochists. Freedom? What of people who seek out bondage?
Best, Simplicius
I, of course, take your points with respect to Hume; and indeed I quote Hume to many people on this very topic. But be careful, because if you Hume me, I might Moore you. That is, I will pull the intuition card - of course there's human nature, and of course "normal" humans prefer life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (though things can get muddy in the details). Why do I care if there were some humans who enjoyed pain? Why do I care if there are entire regions of the world that favour backwardness? Ultimately, their people are miserable and are dying to move here!
ReplyDeleteIn other words, I completely agree that one cannot reason morality. You cannot create an abstract moral principles that says "You ough to do X". Totally agree. However, you reason empirically as to what humans as a species tend to prefer. Does it mean that they OUGHT to prefer this? No, it simply means that they do, that they always have, and are likely to keep doing so in the future. Why is our nature as it is? Some would say God, and some would say accident. But one way or another, I yam what I yam.