Does every human being possess human right?
@headhunter525 (3548)
India
November 20, 2010 12:01am CST
I think it's now a fashion to talk about human right. But what do you think are included in human right, if you believe in it? And what is it that makes human being possess human right? Is it given by nation/state so that it can be taken away anytime whenever nation/state seems fit or is it given by a transcendent agency so that no human agency can take it away?
Please share your views.
2 responses
@urbandekay (18278)
•
22 Nov 10
What do we mean by right? We understand legal rights well, these are legal instruments decided upon by representatives or rulers of a nation and enforced by power of law. But when this term is used in the ethical sphere things are far from clear; Governments cannot legislate morals in to existence. As Thoreau once observed, the law never made a man a whit more just.
If I say I have the right to life, I am employing a linguistic short-cut to say only, that it is wrong for someone to kill me.
Right to live = Murder is wrong
Now there is nothing wrong with using such short-cuts, it is something we do all the time but we should be aware that is what we are doing and avoid reifying such rights. To do that leads to a multiplication of such rights and a conflict between them and far from helping to protect the innocent it can lead to oppression.
This can be witnessed in cases where one person's rights interfere with another's leaving no clarity in how such could be resolved accept by who has the most support or whose supporters shout loudest, thus is ethical matters reduced to fashion or a popularity contest.
all the best urban
1 person likes this
@headhunter525 (3548)
• India
22 Nov 10
Thanks for the thought.
I think right to freedom from torture is a matter of human right. And since it's a matter of human right i.e by virtue of being a human being we posses that right, I think, government should not take that right away, whatever kind of government it is. And in case a govt takes that way the govt commits a crime towards humanity.
@urbandekay (18278)
•
22 Nov 10
It is indeed wrong for any one to engage in torture but how do we possess such a 'right' who or what confers it on us?
all the best urban
@headhunter525 (3548)
• India
23 Nov 10
My view is that whenever such tortures takes places it's injustice done on the person. And injustice is done because she has the right not to be tortured. And she has such right because the right has given to her, not by government or any earthly authority, but by a transcendent agent called God. The idea of 'bearing the image of God' is that which confers a person such human right. This is the way historically idea of human right have developed. Outside of that idea I don't know how to account for human right. I think purely atheistic evolutionary account of life cannot account for human right.
