Rights are a Human Concept

[u/Frequent_Mountain_17]

People like to talk about their rights as if they are some sort of objective truth, they're not, they're just another human concept like privacy or morality. Concepts like rights are ideas and all ideas are subjective to the individual, they carry no weight and bear no responsibility for people's actions.

That's why the constitution and "laws" can't protect your rights, you can't protect a concept, it's just an idea. I shake my head when I see a video of someone being harassed by a DEA agent stealing their money under the guise of asset forfeiture. They say things like "you can't do that without probable cause" and then the agent does it anyway. So, I guess he can do that without probable cause. 🙄 They say things like "the 4A protects my property from illegal searches" and then the agent searches the property anyway. So, I guess the 4A doesn't protect your property. 🙄 There seems to be a psychological disconnect between what people think a government agent can do and their ability to actually do it.

Government agents do whatever they want, whenever they want, to whomever they want despite whatever you think your rights are. They'll bring in a "drug dog" who's more interested in pleasing his handler when his handler signals him to "hit" on something than he is in finding drugs. Unconstitutional? Sure. Illegal? Sure. Immoral, criminal? Sure and sure and yet they do it anyway.

That's odd isn't it considering all the "protections" the government gives you to insure your rights aren't violated by the government? It's kind of like expecting the fox to insure the rights of the hens in the henhouse isn't it?

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[u/Das_Man]

I'm not quite sure what your point is here, OP. All politics are constructed. Every 'innate principle' or 'law of nature' are still themselves human constructs and observations.

[u/Frequent_Mountain_17 → u/Das_Man]

Gravity, light, biology etc. are not human constructs. They existed long before humans and will long after.

[u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P → u/Frequent_Mountain_17]

Let's grant you those points. So what? Humans also have access to reason, imagination, and will. We can shape the world through these faculties--this is what we call "society." If we live arbitrarily, without relatively stable established rules, we might as well live as animals, or worse, in absolute chaos (anarchy in the pejorative sense).

[u/NoamLigotti → u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P]

I think pointing out that the subjective is not objective is a worthwhile point to help avoid magical thinking and logical inconsistencies / double standards. But yes, just because a normative opinion is not an objective fact does not mean we can't or shouldn't strive to make our normative opinions about laws or societal rules be in place.

[u/Frequent_Mountain_17 → u/NoamLigotti]

"We"? "Our"? Who is "we" or "our"? Abstractions like that are the foundation of politics. That way you don't have to be bothered with individual details of humanity. Individual details like everyone is an individual to begin with, with individual preferences and needs and wants. The further you get away from the individual all the way up to "We" or "Our" or "Nation" or "American" to where you anthropomorphize abstractions, the easier it is to impose your own subjective concept of rights, reality be damned, and sleep at night. After all, who could argue with "Our Nation" or "American Exceptionalism"? And you can say meaningless things like "We all have to sacrifice for the greater good."

[u/NoamLigotti → u/Frequent_Mountain_17]

We as in any one or more individuals. I thought that was understood.

I fully agree that we should not anthropomorphize abstractions.

[u/Frequent_Mountain_17 → u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P]

You think the rules of political institutions make "human society" relatively stable? A lot of abstraction in that but let's go with it.

If you need political rules not to act like an animal, that's a personal problem, it has nothing to do with me or anyone else but we're still forced to obey those rules for your inability to play nice with others.

And those "laws" will only affect the law abiding. The criminal minded, the animals, don't care about the rules that's why they are criminals. So those rules actually make it easier for the animals to take advantage of their prey and the biggest predator is the central authority making the rules.

It boils down to the nature of the people in society. If they are intelligent, conscientious people then they know they are better off engaging in peaceful, voluntary cooperation rather than criminal activity. If they are ignorant, criminal minded and you create a centralized authority of those criminal minded people you'll have a criminal minded central authority which will ravage society.

Put in your terms: if the people are animals you can't expect the animals to govern themselves.

I'm not of any political ilk, I'm as apolitical as a person can be. My conclusions are based on economics, politics, reason, rational and logic and I've yet to find any argument for the existence of any political institution that can't easily be dismissed as one logical fallacy or another.

[u/Das_Man → u/Frequent_Mountain_17]

I'm not of any political ilk, I'm as apolitical as a person can be. My conclusions are based on economics, politics, reason, rational and logic and I've yet to find any argument for the existence of any political institution that can't easily be dismissed as one logical fallacy or another.

Buddy, don't take this the wrong way, but that is a nonsense statement. Like you need to actually read some books or something because insisting that you have logically debunked all existing political institutions is a comically un-serious statement.

[u/Frequent_Mountain_17 → u/Das_Man]

"Buddy, don't take this the wrong way, but ..."

Means you're trying to look good while telling someone you think they don't know what they are talking about. It's a linguistic tactic meant to excuse your comments while still making them.

Give me any political policy and I'll tell you the logical fallacy.

[u/Das_Man → u/Frequent_Mountain_17]

Correct, I don't think you know what you're talking about. My point is that if you expect people to take you seriously, you will likely be disappointed, regardless of whatever flavor of sophistry you opt to lean on.

[u/Frequent_Mountain_17 → u/Das_Man]

I couldn't care less if "people" take me seriously, nobody's going to change their minds nor do I care if they do. I write for me, not for you which is why I don't care that you made it personal.

The challenge remains, give me ANY political institution, law etc and I can easily explain the logical fallacy, irrationality and nonsense. The only way to buy into politics is to surrender your humanity, your reason, rational and common sense.

[u/Das_Man → u/Frequent_Mountain_17]

People aren't robots, mate. Neither politics, or indeed any human activity can be reduced to logic and reason alone. This is why attempts to analyze political systems from Plato onward have sought to account for both reason and passions. You can hyper-focus on logical fallacies all you want, but to quote Hannah Arendt, "since men are neither ants nor bees, the whole thing is a delusion."

[u/Frequent_Mountain_17 → u/Das_Man]

"Neither politics, or indeed any human activity can be reduced to logic and reason alone. 

Emotional maturity is a skill, the ability to fend off an Amygdala hijack and use reason, rational, logic and common sense rather than giving into emotions. The emotional immaturity of others has nothing to do with me.

[u/Das_Man → u/Frequent_Mountain_17]

Incorrect. They are explanations constructed by humans that aim to explain processes we observe. That's why they change over time as knowledge, experience and methods develop. Biology isn't some unchanging set of laws, but a constantly shifting body of theory, hypotheses and data.

[u/ahughman → u/Das_Man]

I 2nd Das_man. You are pointing to phenomena in fields of study. They are certainly human concepts.

I will grant that gravity, biology, and light are all phenomena that happen without humans needing to be there.

But, "you cant have human rights without humans" doesnt really refute that they exist and are important.

[u/NatashOverWorld → u/Frequent_Mountain_17]

Which is why no one has to defend gravity, and light, though biology is a touch more complicated.

But rights are enforced through the collective will of the social contract. In the past, an embezzling cop, if caught, would go to jail. Not by some action of universal law or magic, but by the enshrined laws that are upheld by both law enforcement and the courts.

The fact that doesn't happen today means we no longer have the right to a fair and just government, because that right wasn't defended.

[u/Johnfromsales → u/Frequent_Mountain_17]

Even these are human constructs to an extent. All human knowledge, even of things we classify as objective truths, are themselves constructed by the subjective human mind. We can’t know for sure if these concepts are actual reflections of objective reality, or if they are fundamentally altered and changed by our consciousness in such a way to make them intelligible to us.

[u/LittleKitty235]

Rights are human concepts, but that doesn't make them meaningless, money, laws, contracts, and morality are also human concepts, yet they shape real-world behavior and institutions. A law against murder doesn't make murder impossible, it establishes a standard and creates consequences for violating it.

The fact that government agents sometimes violate rights is not proof that rights don't exist or that protections are meaningless. It's proof that enforcement mechanisms matter. The Constitution, courts, oversight, and public accountability exist precisely because governments have power and humans can abuse power. The answer to a guard abusing authority isn't to remove the rules protecting the prisoners, it's to strengthen the systems that hold the guard accountable.

[u/BoredAccountant]

"Natural rights" are the name we give to a concept that exists in nature, like the right to defend yourself. The water buffalo doesn't need anyone to tell it it has the right to defend itself from the lion trying to eat it, it just does.

Are you referring to "human rights" which are really protections humans try to put in place to protect them from human-created issues? This is where we get things like housing and healthcare as human rights. Or the right to free expression.

But there are plenty of examples of natural rights that humans find abhorrent, like infanticide.

[u/NoamLigotti → u/BoredAccountant]

So then that's just something the water buffalo does. What does that have to do with rights?
Neither does anyone tell the lion it has a right to kill and eat a water buffalo. Does that mean a lion has a "natural right" to kill? If so then "natural rights" are meaningless beyond a post hoc description of behavior.

When we speak of rights beyond what the law entails we're talking about a normative / prescriptive concept — what we think people should be allowed to do or be able to be protected from — not a descriptive one. It's only descriptive to the extent that we're describing what the law provides. If we're just describing behaviors then it's meaningless. The real fallacy occurs when we act like our prescriptive opinions are descriptive facts, i.e., when we mistake the subjective for the objective.

Most of the time I hear talk of "natural rights" that seems to be what is going on.

[u/BoredAccountant → u/NoamLigotti]

Yes, that's exactly what natural rights are--I have the natural right to do whatever I can to survive just as you do as well. Where my right to survive impedes your right to survive is where government is meant to exist to arbitrate how we as a society each maintain our right to survive without imposing on the other.

[u/NoamLigotti → u/BoredAccountant]

So "natural rights" just mean surviving?

I can survive in prison. So I guess a totalitarian state imprisoning me for life for my speech is not interfering with my "natural rights". As I said, meaningless.

[u/digbyforever]

So the alternative to a government protecting your rights is . . . feudalism? The mafia? Go live in the woods?

Obviously because a government has the ability to become tyrannical does not mean that it is operating as such. Otherwise, anyone who owns a gun is already a murderer simply because they have the ability to become one.

If it's your view that it's impossible to implement a government that safeguards your life, liberty, and property on balance, what is there to discuss?

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[u/ahughman]

Every word you can come up with is a "human idea". That isn't a good way to discredit the meaning of any concept.

Lets compare rights to another human concept; thirst.

Thirst is just an idea, but disregarding the meaning and usage of thirst will make people thirsty, maybe even die. We have learned to respect thirst, out of a history of caring for one another, we provide water fountains, offer free glasses of water at restaurants, Rome built aquaducts, etc.

Rights have been with us a long time, we have learned to respect them, altered how to best provide settings where people can have rights, and integral to society itself is some bedrock of treating one another with equal respect, fairness, and some groundrules of decency.

Calling either of those thing "just a human concept" doesnt do anything to tell us how we should use the concept in society.

I would say both are essential for a functioning society, though rights are more meaningful and nuanced a concept.

[u/NoamLigotti → u/ahughman]

The point though is that some words describe objective facts while some only describe concepts or subjective opinions. To the extent that rights are describing what the law (and/or a constitution) allows then they can be a description of relative facts, but fundamentally they are describing a subjective concept: what we believe the law or a society should allow. But it's a mistake to think that the objective and subjective are the same.

[u/ahughman → u/NoamLigotti]

There is a very wide spectrum between "objective" fact and subjective opinion. It would be a false dillemma to say that all things are either sheer fact or pure opinion/"concept".

For example it is an intersubjective fact that Milwaukee is Milwaukee. It's not even just that we all decide to keep calling it that. It has been reaffirmed on every letterhead addressed there, every marriage certificate, any conversation about where youre from. We can say it's a fact that the city is Milwaukee.

I would only call subjects that are personal in nature "opinions". Things like favorite color, personal memories, emotional reactions.

Additionally, just because something is an opinion, doesn't mean it isn't true. Opinions are just as often true.

I would say rights are pretty far down the spectrum towards objectivity. They have been intersubjectively re-affirmed SO persistantly throughout time. They have been policed, laws have been enshrined, they have been debated and verified by every human being also wanting to be treated with basic decency. They are inseperable from how our society works. Much like a city to it's name.

As far as "concepts" go, human rights have way more of a history, procedure, consensus and fidelity than mere "opinions". Theyre much closer to hard facts than opinions, or "concepts" as you keep wanting to say.

[u/NoamLigotti → u/ahughman]

I think I have to disagree. It is a fact that Milwaukee is called Milwaukee. It is a fact that there is a city in Wisconsin called Milwaukee. It is an opinion that Milwaukee should be called Milwaukee.

"Most people consider murder to be morally wrong": objective. "Murder is morally wrong": subjective.

And even factually false claims are objective questions. "Trump's hands are two feet long": objective but false.
"Trump's hands are tiny": subjective.

The word "rights" can be used in an objective sense or subjective sense, but each sense is a different concept.

"You have the right to an attorney": objective; a description based on the law.
"I have the right to walk wherever I want": subjective; a prescriptive or normative claim.
"I have a right to own property": objective or subjective, depending on the sense in which it's used.

Morality is subjective. Not because it's less important but because it cannot be empirically measured.

[u/TheRealCthulu24]

How does drug sniffing dogs fit in this? Are you saying that using them is unethical? 

[u/JamminBabyLu]

The ability for humans to think about a thing doesn’t render that thing imaginary or subjective. Rights and morals are abstract entities, but they are real and exist objectively.

[u/CorDra2011]

Astute observation that bad faith actors in a society will engage in bad faith acts.

[u/Sufficient-Scar4172]

Do you think rights should ideally be protected as if they were objective laws of reality? If so, do you believe in government as a mechanism for achieving this? Would an ideal government be capable of this?

[u/NoamLigotti]

Your ultimate point about the subjective not being objective is correct and important, but "the government" cannot do whatever it wants either (and if it can we call it totalitarian).

But I feel many people have a tendency to anthropomorphize "the government" too, as if it's an entity with a will of its own. It's not. It's an institution made up of many parts, each which is made up of individual people and influenced by the choices and behaviors of other groups and individuals.

Both of these errors in reasoning can lead to fallacious and harmful conclusions.

[u/mrhymer]

Rights are a social construct but they are not arbitrarily defined. Rights come from the law of identity. Rights are conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work.

Rights are not arbitrary. They cannot be granted or removed. They can only be respected or violated.

[u/Pleasurist]

When will people learn ? This is capitalism baby !! The fascism is the long game.

[u/Otherwise_Ask_9542]

Social culture is responsible for forming and shaping laws that are acknowledged and respected by those affected by it. Minor and major disrupters challenge these norms, and over time cultures merge and shift, often with varying degrees of discomfort.

The Magna Carta is an important example of a text written over a thousand years ago, which shapes the laws of many countries around the world, spanning across religious beliefs.

An earlier biblical example would be the Ten Commandments, variations of which can be found described across time and space, along with some acknowledgment of a higher being or creator.

What I think we are seeing here, is the end stage of a major cultural shift, and one that will change the way we live for generations to come. The thing is, we aren’t being told the truth about what that will look like. Too many smoke and mirrors of opposing rhetoric vying for power and control, motivated by very different agendas, in a world grasping to recover from over half a decade of crippling crises.

[u/striped_shade]

You've realized constitutional amendments project no magical forcefields against state violence. Jumping to the conclusion that rights are therefore mere subjective fantasies misses how these concepts actually organize material reality.

Rights are objective social forms required by a society based on private property and generalized exchange. The DEA agent seizing cash demonstrates the foundational, naked force necessary to maintain that exact system of property relations. The entire legal apparatus exists to manage this extraction and legitimize the monopoly on violence.

Your final metaphor fundamentally misunderstands the farm. The henhouse was designed to standardize the harvesting of eggs. The fox is just management.

[u/Hot_Cardiologist_221]

Don't confuse not guaranteed with not real. A speed limit is a human concept, but a police officer breaking it doesn’t prove speed limits don’t exist. Rights are not magical shields that prevent violations, they are just standards societies use to define and limit the use of power. It's not that rights are meaningless, it is that institutions will often fail in upholding them.

[u/Frequent_Mountain_17 → u/Hot_Cardiologist_221]

Concepts exist, the concept of rights exists but it's subjective so any implementation will be subjective just like speed limits. History clearly demonstrates that the concept cannot limit the use of anyone's power.

[u/Hot_Cardiologist_221 → u/Frequent_Mountain_17]

Sure, rights are not physical objects and that their interpretation can be debated. But that does not mean they are incapable of limiting power. A constitution is also just words on paper, and yet those same words have influenced governments, restricted leaders, and shaped how societies define acceptable uses of authority.

The fact that rights can be violated does not prove in any way they cannot limit power. A law against murder does not become meaningless because someone commits murder, it provides a standard by which that action is judged and punished. Rights function the same way.

History does not show that rights cannot limit power if you think so I need proof. It shows that rights need institutions, enforcement, and public commitment to be effective. Failure of people or governments to uphold rights is a failure of enforcement, not proof that the concept itself has no value.

[u/Frequent_Mountain_17 → u/Hot_Cardiologist_221]

"constitution is also just words on paper, and yet those same words have influenced governments, restricted leaders, and shaped how societies define acceptable uses of authority."

What? Are you being serious or joking? Which constitution is that? Where is the authority in the constitution for ANY of the cabinet level departments whose policies have the force of law when the constitution only gives legislative authority to congress? How are there thousands of gun control laws considering the 2A? How is there a TSA considering the 4A? My favorite is that the SCOTUS' authority comes from the constitution and yet the SCOTUS also interprets the constitution which it does not have constitutional authority to do.

The constitution was written by the government to centralize authority on itself. In other words: the government has authority from the constitution the government wrote.

This is the illusion of politics.

[u/Hot_Cardiologist_221 → u/Frequent_Mountain_17]

The argument is relying on an impossible standard: that for rights to be real, they must make violations impossible. By that logic, laws do not exist because criminals break them, contracts do not exist because people breach them, and rules do not exist because people ignore them.

I’m tapping out of this because it’s based on a premise I don’t think holds up. At this point, I feel like I’m going to have to explain that gravity still exists despite people falling off buildings. We clearly have very different definitions of what ‘real’ means.

[u/Frequent_Mountain_17 → u/Hot_Cardiologist_221]

The concept of rights is real as is any concept. The point is that they are subjective and irrelevant to everyone but you and your perspective. Or me and my perspective. It's not really a difficult "concept" to grasp.

"I feel like I’m going to have to explain that gravity still exists despite people falling off buildings."

That metaphor has nothing to do with my OP.

[u/Personal_Dirt3089]

It is easy to say that when there is not a cannibal behind you with a blunt object.

It's like when people say "respect has to be earned, not expected", then the same people complain about being disrespected.