What is a Right?

[Chris]

I've seen people argue that one has a natural right to self-defense (perhaps best understood as concomitant with a right to life) which does entail a right to an efficacious means of self-defense but I don't recall an explicit claim of a natural right to own a firearm. I may have missed it. I don't read most of the comments here. Obviously, there was no natural right to own a firearm in 1200 because they didn't exist.

Why should anyone consider removing or replacing the Second Amendment? What about the First? Better still, the 19th? Seriously, I think the Second has become a focus precisely because it is arguably under the greatest danger.

Everyone without exception on this forum believes human beings have a right to life. This is true without exception. The difference lies only in what we define as human.

Hasn't your country become a champion of universal human rights? What do you think is the underlying basis of this concept called "human rights"? I got bad news for ya...

Right to life or self-preservation is natural, right to bear arms is positive civil right, derived as a means of self-preservation.

[Axiomatic]

"natural law presupposes existence of natural rights" => "natural rights presupposes existence of natural law"

This is indispensable to the method I'm offering by which to discern a natural right. Certainly, a right is logically prior to a law, as we wouldn't really need the law except to protect the right. Remember, though, that the exercise starts from a first-person perspective. The first question to be answered is about the observer's perception of acts taken against other people. If the act is perceived as wrong, what is being perceived is a moral prohibition. The right can be discerned when the observer asks "Why do I see that act as wrong? Would I see the same act that way if it were taken against a rock or piece of paper?". When the observer sees that the answer is "no", he or she must conclude that there is something about the person that modifies the act so as to evoke aversion to it. That aversion is the only first order experience the observer has, and it is to an act. At this point, the observer has perceived what can be qualified as a law, that which stands against an act. From that, the observer can deduce something that can be qualified as a right on the part of the other person, as the explanation for the law.

So, logically, it's: act T law → right (that the act is wrong and that the law exists are tautological, and they necessarily imply the right) (the right is logically prior) ⊨ (which entails that) ¬right → ¬law (if not right then not law)

The way we come to know that is by perceiving the act as wrong, which is the law from our perspective, and then deducing the right as its explanation.


At this point, we still don't have anything we can call natural law or natural rights in the sense that they are natural to mankind. To get that, we have to go through the exercise of comparing our experience to that of others. Notice that I posited two ways we can do that. One is to survey other people to see where their experience conforms to ours, in search of common threads. The other is to look for common threads in written law across cultures and throughout history, assuming that written law reflects the moral sensibilities of peoples to some extent. Once we do that, the common threads we find can shed some light on natural law which, as we now know, betrays the presumption of natural rights. This is why I say:

"there must be something to which we can attribute the consistency of human laws, insofar as they are consistent, and the consistency of our respective moral experiences, insofar as they are consistent."

[Chris]

This is indispensable to the method I'm offering by which to discern a natural right. Certainly, a right is logically prior to a law, as we wouldn't really need the law except to protect the right. Remember, though, that the exercise starts from a first-person perspective. The first question to be answered is about the observer's perception of acts taken against other people. If the act is perceived as wrong, what is being perceived is a moral prohibition. The right can be discerned when the observer asks "Why do I see that act as wrong? Would I see the same act that way if it were taken against a rock or piece of paper?". When the observer sees that the answer is "no", he or she must conclude that there is something about the person that modifies the act so as to evoke aversion to it. That aversion is the only first order experience the observer has, and it is to an act. At this point, the observer has perceived what can be qualified as a law, that which stands against an act. From that, the observer can deduce something that can be qualified as a right on the part of the other person, as the explanation for the law.

So, logically, it's: right → act T law (that the act is wrong and that the law exists are tautological, and they necessarily imply the right) (the right is logically prior)

The way we come to know that is by perceiving the act as wrong, which is the law from our perspective, and then deducing the right as its explanation.


At this point, we still don't have anything we can call natural law or natural rights in the sense that they are natural to mankind. To get that, we have to go through the exercise of comparing our experience to that of others. Notice that I posited two ways we can do that. One is to survey other people to see where their experience conforms to ours, in search of common threads. The other is to look for common threads in written law across cultures and throughout history, assuming that written law reflects the moral sensibilities of peoples to some extent. Once we do that, the common threads we find can shed some light on natural law which, as we now know, betrays the presumption of natural rights. This is why I say:

"there must be something to which we can attribute the consistency of human laws, insofar as they are consistent, and the consistency of our respective moral experiences, insofar as they are consistent."

What you're saying ought to be the case for positive law. We the people have a right to form a government to suit our wants, whatever, and because of that right posit a constitution. But that natural right is derived from natural law.

[Axiomatic]

There are many cultures where the legal code is at odds with the social code and often the legal code is not enforced. Consider the places in the world where honor killings are common. There is no question that they are murders, but they are socially condoned murders.

(It may help for you to read my last response to Chris first.) I'll guess that you want to suggest that this would skew the data we gather from written positive law. I don't think it does to a degree that we should worry about. If such a culture has a written law against murder, we can't conclude that its people don't perceive murder as an evil. It does seem right, though, for us to give more weight to what they actually do than to what their laws say they should do. So when we see them carrying out honor killings with impunity, we have to conclude that there are additional laws in that culture, which don't make it into their legal code (if they don't), and are punishable by death. For instance, in many Islamic cultures, there seems to be law, punishable by death, against converting to another religion, and against being raped. These are obviously unjust. They also would not make it into our delineation of natural law, as they are obvious outliers.

[Axiomatic]

What you're saying ought to be the case for positive law. We the people have a right to form a government to suit our wants, whatever, and because of that right posit a constitution. But that natural right is derived from natural law.

That's what they do. Statements like

That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

in order to [...] establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution...

are all appeals to natural law. Here's the oldest one we know of:

to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak;

And of course they all say:

That all power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their peace, safety, and happiness; for the advancement of those ends they have at all times, an unalienable and in defeasible right to alter, reform, or abolish the government in such manner as they may think proper.

Only, when they go on to establish powers to tax or establish a legislature which can(will) be usurped by special interests, or even just write rigged legislation(as in Hammurabi's case), they undermine the very purpose of law that they appeal to when they establish their rule.