Hello and welcome to classical stuff. You should know a podcast about Philosophy and books and history and things that we have found interesting recently. My name is Thomas Magdi I'm joined as always by mr. Graham Donaldson hello and mr.
AJ and today we are you know I'm you know we've talked about I have two kids and you know I've been teaching my kid about you know which way is right in which way is left and so today Age is gonna walk us through the history of directions. I'm really thankful for you to talk through humans Yeah, our human rights human rights very excited for this episode. I want a belabored pun. Hey, I got there eventually.
We arrived Okay, so yeah, I'm talking about human rights today And the reason I decided to do this is because people are often clamoring for their rights, right? They say education is a human right free health care is a human right forgiveness of student debt is like there are there are all sorts of demands for a specific set of human rights and I was wondering where they came from and what exactly they are so I have not yet Found their source material like exactly where they came from but I did study up on what they are and how we currently see them And the primary source I used for this was it's gonna sound bad, but the online Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy It shouldn't sound bad. The resources in Places is amazing thing is it's the real deal and I've talked to philosophy professors And I said hey is this is resource that I can use when I'm investigating philosophy and attitude And they say yeah, it's awesome I think the people who keep it up are themselves philosophy professors and so go check it out if you ever want to find out something about say Relativism I use it all the time, but it is sort of a good codification of current views on this topic right? I could read one specific philosophers view and get one attitude on it, but I decided to get sort of a current overview And so I used the Stanford Encyclopedia philosophy go check it out.
It's great So we are again talking about human rights today So feel free to pipe up when you guys have questions or comments I'm gonna start with the four defining features of human rights. These are the like parts of the definition What is a human right? So first human rights are rights Kind of a silly beginning Yeah, but basically it's a claim that impose duties or responsibilities on their addresses or duty-bearers So I have a right now someone is going to have to give me those rights. Does that make sense?
I'm making a claim against some outside body Okay, I've given the right but sort of recognize them or if they are doing something that is in fringing on that They are bound to stop it. Yes, if they have if they have the power to influence rights, they're supposed to stop Well, if they are morally bound to still a question why exactly we have to recognize these rights will get to in the future So they focus on freedom protection status or benefit for the right holders Weirdly some human rights seem to do little more than declare high priority goals and assign responsibility for their progressive realization of that goal For example the right to public education There are some countries that simply do not have the resources to offer public education And so if you call it the right to public education Well, that's more a goal than it is really a human right and so often these are still included in the list even though They are not really feasible for some places to actually affect right? I can't like I myself could not establish public education for people right? It has to be someplace that has the resources and ability to do so and that means that they probably can't be a country in much poverty So this is hard for some countries that don't have access to a lot of resources Which isn't really fair that it might mean that you as a listener might say okay These ones are not really going to count as a human right but that line seems to be shifting right where you're like Just because I you don't have the resources to affect it doesn't mean that it shouldn't be accorded to the populace you guys are doing so far Yes, okay, okay They may exist so your human rights may exist as a shared norm of actual human realities a justified moral norm supported by strong reasons a legal right at the National level or a legal right at the international law level so it could be an international human right a national human right a Justified moral norm norm that has strong reasons or a storm shared norm of actual human rally We'll get a little more into the support and reasons for rights as we sort of so it doesn't matter if it's just like an accept a culturally acceptable norm It can be just a culturally accepted norm as opposed to making some sort of claims on objectivity or some sort of claims on like Teeliological virtue we're getting there.
So that's a discussion we'll have in a second like exactly what our rights based on that's sort of I think What we are big discussion for today, so right now I'm just kind of giving you the four things that the basic tenets of human rights and then a few things that aren't really included that You may have thought were included. Okay, so thing number two So thing number one was human rights are rights thing number two is human rights are plural there's more than just one right You can't say humans have a right to life and no more and that's it There's there's a lot of things that come along with human rights and some people who say there's only a single human right Well, what they really mean is that under that single right are a whole bunch of things are listed right? So if I have the right to life that means I have the right to liberty I can pursue happiness, right? So basically, there's not just one there they are plural there are many human rights not just a single thing It's kind of catchy life liberty and pursuit happening I've got my head About the tongue, yeah Some philosophers advocate for short lists of human rights and we'll get to why that might be but they are plural right there's more than just one Right thing number three human rights are universal all living humans perhaps even persons for all living persons have human rights Basically, you are an independent living creature meaning that as you exist independently and this kind of reminds me of Kant Right, you have an independent mind and because you think you have that sort of self-realizing independence You are according certain rights just because you are rational.
I think that's why But there are caveats Sometimes they are only held by adult citizens in a country for example, the right to vote Right, we're not letting three-year-olds vote even though three-year-olds do get other human rights They can be taken away temporarily because maybe you committed a serious crime or have done something that deserves your rights to be infringed upon By the country this reminds me of Rousseau who said you know I give my rights to the country I alienate them to the country so they can be given back to me in a fuller sense and a more secure sense But that means that occasionally they can be taken away if I Are there some other some that can be taken away and others that can never be taken away? We'll have that discussion When we talk about inalienable bring up, okay Okay, so they they can also focus on small groups for example women and children right so women have a certain set of rights children Have a certain set of rights maybe minority groups have a right not to have genocide committed upon them There are some rights that focus on smaller groups. So human rights are rights. Are they discovered?
How do these how are they like generated? Okay, that's when the what they're based on so just wait for a second. You got all kinds of questions. No, yeah We're gonna arrive so they're right they're plural they are universal meaning they apply to everyone usually And they have high priority basically they need to be able to compete with national stability and security right because the nation's motive is always to preserve itself Right to be secure in its nationhood and human rights need to be of high enough priority that in the international sphere They actually have some claim right and so as far as countries are concerned as far as the UN is concerned and governments in general human rights should have high priority meaning that We as a country may need to advocate for them in other countries right they need to have some sort of footing on the world stage And if they don't well, then they're just not We're just not recognizing them as as what they should be the priority that they actually have Right here things that we're not added to the definition but could have been okay So the first one Graham yet questions about this are they inalienable meaning that the user cannot lose it permanently or temporarily by bad conduct or by voluntarily giving it up So some are inalienable rights now this reminds me of Russo talked about alienable rights Those are things I give to the country to receive back in a fuller form Like owning property I let the country tell me if I own this piece of land and because the country can tell me and has control over it When I actually own land it's recognized by everyone in my country rather than me just sort of guarding it with shotgun Sorry, but because the grams already made a joke about this But if the inalienable rights of life liberty in the pursuit of happiness those aren't actually inalienable right like you can be killed by the state If you commit a certain crime, you can be locked up in prison if you do a crime Yeah, which is weird and that's why I'm still wondering about sort of the definition of inalienable It's it's supposed to stop me from having a good time while yeah, and also probably limit your happiness I guess if you alienate your life, you're dead, so that's inalienable But it's supposed to mean it can't be taken away or given away by the possessor of that right But like those three seem to be things that can take life the one is pursuit of happiness You can't tell me not to try to be happy and I can tell you I'm not gonna try anymore, but I'm probably still gonna try I mean again Jill's not a great place to be so probably dampen your happiness But that's not gonna make me stop trying that's right so the pursuit of happiness is still there That one truly does seem inalienable whereas like I could conceivably give up my freedom So why because it wasn't the original formulation life liberty and property wasn't that the third one but property can be taken away I wonder I wonder if the freedom one liberty like even if I tell you that I'm your slave I have the liberty to try not to be anymore.
Yeah, like I literally cannot give up my freedom of choice Right, I can say that you were in charge of me, but at any point I can decide not to let that happen anymore Yeah, um, and maybe at the moment that I really do give up my life I'm dead like I can't conceivably give that up and still be a living person So those things are kind of inalienable in a sense. I guess they can be taken but again the same like suicide Then would be the giving away of ones right to life, but you know what I mean? Yeah, so it is an alienable I don't know it's probably a distinction I just don't know much about but okay So the the reason it's not included in our definition right that all human rights are inalienable is because not all human rights are inalienable Some of them are very hard to lose right? That's so this is a quote from the Stanford's like a PDF perhaps sufficient to say that human rights are very hard to lose Like you can still lose them and not certainly not all rights are inalienable right the right to say public education That one's not inalienable right that one I can give away for sure that can be taken really easily So that one is not included in the definition probably for that reason right?
Okay, second thing not including the definition is a minimal list There there is a lot of philosophers who say that we should maintain a small list of human rights because if we let it balloon too much It becomes kind of burdensome and clearly there's some that just aren't a high priority And so if we disregard those we start disregarding others and so best to keep it simple and small advocate for a few that are really important and leave the rest A small list means we can avoid the worst But Really human rights are not really trying to achieve the best right we're trying to avoid the worst that can happen to a human right? Let us live let us pursue happiness don't take my liberty, but we're not trying to like create utopia That's not what human rights are all about. We're just trying to stave off the worst offenses that can happen to a human We're establishing lowest limits on tolerable human conduct rather than great aspirations and exalted ideals There if we find out that some small nation is not providing public schools We're not gonna like invade it and force them to yeah exactly right and But there is no inherent contradiction in the idea of an expansive list So this is not part of the definition right it could be an expensive list right human rights could be a huge long three page four page 100 page list of things that we should accord to human but but really human rights are just trying to avoid the worst Right and maybe set up some goals for the future, but we're not necessarily trying to establish the perfect world. Okay, okay Do they mirror moral rights?
Like should this be mirroring a specific morality? It has to right like how would you make a claim to a right outside of a moral claim that it is just that people have a certain right? It is just they have a certain standard of living like so you can identify it as a legal right and say human rights are things that have been accorded to men by governments And say simply that is it. There's no contradiction in saying that you're passing the book Then you have to go like okay, what what framework or what criteria then is government going to do use to determine what they're going to do is it just The capricious will of the government and then or are they ascribing to some sort of other natural law or some sort of idea of morality?
Well, that's the hard thing is we're gonna talk about this even more is that if we just identified as a legal right then what is the impetus for government to establish and recognize a new one yeah Basically we're saying whatever you have decided is a moral is a human right is a human right and we'd also like this one And they say no because that's not human right you're trying to find by what we've already said Right, so you just say it's then just power things like whoever's the most strong in a society can determine it Exactly and there's no impetus for a country that isn't recognizing our legal rights as human rights So they did because we established them but they didn't and so why why should they when can we get into criticisms of the idea? Yeah, human rights and general look at their there would be time there'll be a moment for your hackles to find no his hackles are raised Yeah, I'm being very good Okay, so they don't have to be able they don't have to be minimal they do not have to mirror moral rights even if grandstands they should Well, they don't have to according a big division they can just power structures Really really just recognizing that this is what humans have done We have established these as moral as like human rights legally and therefore that's what we define as human rights It seems circular to me How humans did it? Oh, well, we know it's just they decided it doesn't really allow for progress in oral rights, okay Do they have to serve some sort of political function human rights rather than moral reality are a highly useful political practice that humans have constructed or evolved might include standards the hackles are raised But human rights can exist in a world with only one state So it's not just an international law for example if every country were still destroyed New Zealand was the only one left They'd still have human rights so it's not just things that are Politically useful on the international sphere, right where we can say oh your country isn't really doing this our country is And we can advocate for your country to get better because human rights would still exist in a single country world Do they exist within a family? Oh, it seems.
Oh, yeah, it was just a family not a country So the question is are they required to serve a political function and the answer is not really right We can we can say that they happen in a family if you it was only your family left on the planet You'd still have some sort of human right they would still be accorded to you even though there's no politics to serve But we can still recognize that they do have political functions, right? So it's not required like a human right to be a human right has to have political function drutcher It's human right nonetheless moving so far. Yes. Okay, so things they are They're rights.
They are plural universal and they're high priority. Okay things. They don't have to be inalienable minimal mirror moral rights I think that's where our hackles are being raised and defined as serving a political function Okay, and here's where we get into the part where I think Most of our discussion will happen. How do human rights exist?
How have we come to recognize these things? So what are your first inclinations as far as how do we establish a human right? Graham doesn't believe in human rights. So maybe I disagree with the question I'm no my post my point is that it's an attempt to have like a transcendent ethical morality But saying we just get to it through reason and not having to and not having to sort of posit some kind of like tell us I'm not the human person.
Okay, this is this not my entire critique of it in after virtue is that they are that it's it's An enlightenment it is trying to come to some sort of ethic some sort of moral ethic Spinning completely out of just human reason from the enlightenment as opposed to depositing some kind of like Transcendent moral framework like a like a like the tell-offs of the of the ancient world or the Christian theological God is good framework any That kind of stuff so in that sense I think I agree with the thought with the critics who say that it's ultimately a bankrupt idea Like it's you're gonna get to that problem And this is the problem which it is which is how do you generate new ones? Is it just like? You know a Twitter what we want? Yeah, it's just the ones everybody wants or is there Like what is the stress test of whether or not some new thing is a right or not?
Well, here's my question to you Do we have human rights? Do you think we have human rights? We have rights afforded that should be afforded to us as humans. Yes Okay, where do you pull that from?
Being made in the image of God. Okay, ah-ha. That's possibility number two. So how do you write exist?
Possibly number two is they are god given. Yeah, they are innate We are born with a certain set of human rights. Okay, so there are some things that come along with this definition first They must be general and abstract enough to apply to thousands of years of human history If you think they are innate they were innate for all ages not just our modern so like a right to public education is one That's harder to justify with that. Exactly.
You would look back and you would say okay Well in you know in rural France in the year 900 where they just like totally offside when it came to human rights because they didn't have public education Exactly. That's the thing is that yeah We would lose anything that references say a modern stance modern resources modern sensibilities right because it has to be large enough to go thousands of years That maybe it would be better to reward things to say the opportunity for education right human rights should be afforded the opportunity to educate themselves would apply in France, but now it's so generalist to perhaps not have teeth Because then we're unclear on what we mean by education. Exactly. Okay, so that's one problem with saying that they're god given an innate It does secure them on a metaphysical level But there's another problem lots of people don't believe in the Abrahamic God Persuading them to believe in that Abrahamic God and then saying we should do rights is probably harder than just honestly persuading them In the first place right saying that humans should have rights It's probably an easier task if you're trying to convince a Hindu person then trying to convince them to believe in the Abrahamic God and then convince Them of human rights so it puts us on shaky terms with countries that are not Christian Islam or but you've The thing is you've had those nations for thousands of years have moral frameworks That they used that they appealed to like you're gonna use the idea of the towel that have appealed to some sort of objective morality Like it's not like you go to Shinto Japan in the in the 13th century and they're like they've secretly held onto this idea of human rights No, they have some sort of idea of a transcendent Ethical framework like what Lewis talks about in abolition man, right?
Okay, so that's option number three. You're just talking right along So we have option number two is one do we have a guy's not a three how many are there there are four? So number two is their god given an eight that's how we establish human rights But that's tough when you're talking to a country that doesn't believe in the Abrahamic God or believes in many many gods Right, so you have to appeal to their gods, but then doesn't that undercut you if you're trying to say that's where human rights come from So that's the that's the first little problem. So the second option is they are part of actual human moralities So this is what you say so yes Shinto Japan has a morality that they are appealing to Hindu person does as well Buddhists do like there is a groundwork of human Reality that you can appeal to independent of the Abrahamic God, right?
Yeah So but the problem they say that the problem with this is that worldwide unanimity about morality doesn't exist and rights laws should change existing norms Not just describe moral customs So for example in a country that say doesn't give women a lot of basic human rights, right? Involves say genital mutilation or child marriage like six years old like human rights is often aimed at changing those customs Not just recognizing the morality that's already there and that's the problem If you're saying it's part of like a university human morality there are places where we really like the rights to change these But the morality doesn't really line up. So what do we do that? Colonize I don't know like that's not that often is not often but that's that's sort of the hard way of saying it But there's this idea that was then like the values of the international order need to be brought to bear on the backward nations or whatever and That then in that sense, it's just like a power game.
Yeah, so that we end up back in that three place Or like you know like Afghanistan gets invaded and we kick out the Taliban and we start sending girls to school But in the Taliban comes in and girls aren't going to school anymore and and that's the That was you know, that's the justification the justification for For you know one value system encouraging on another one is that it gets to elevate that systems Human rights, you know, then you have these human rights violators that that some people would think that gives Powers that be the the moral justification for like war, okay? So you know, so you're saying that invasion is maybe the solution? No, I'm saying that I'm not saying that I'm saying that that Oftentimes oh we can do good by promoting human rights in the place where human rights have not been promoted And you can give those examples of you know women are going to school or the general regulation these sorts of these that human rights violation is used as the precursor for as a thing that needs to be a corrective not quite a false flag but like a a way of Taking over like a power grab I suggest vacation Yeah, that's a justification for for you know, so really enough that moves us to wait Number four is option one just like we assert them We just sort of assert them based on like crowdsourcing of people's tastes or opinions sort of you guys really close They exist because they have become part of a country's law Sure, this is a circular definition human rights are rights because we say they're right. Yeah, and that is to me not a great one When they're in national law, we talk of them typically as civil or constitutional rights not right so there's civil rights The rights of citizens whereas human rights are rights no matter what country you're in It makes them vulnerable right contingent on current policy and it makes it really hard to enact new ones If human rights are only rights because we have said so in our laws that doesn't mean we it precludes us from establishing a new ones Right, then it's just whimsy we establish new ones.
We're like now This one's a right because we said so that's really it's a really flimsy way of putting it So that's option number one is human rights exist because they're part of the law. They are rights as like saying a rock is because we call it a rock Next one is it's God given an eight, but that presents problems because it has to be good enough for thousands of years And it's hard to convince countries that don't believe in one God to follow them It's part of actual current human morality's but those don't always agree another problem And at number four it is based on true or justified ethical outlooks So there are strong reasons for believing in a thing It is attempting to formulate a justified political morality for the whole planet not just describing moral consensus Trying to create one with plausible moral and practical reasons that requires good to objectivity and good and the problem is that good reasons what might call good reasons is like a Thin form of human rights. I have a good reason for this. They might say we have good reasons not to right But this kind of escapes the pluralism or moral relativism of saying everybody has different rallies We're saying look we have good reasons that we shouldn't be marrying children to grown men We have good reasons why women should be educated and not mutilated right?
These are these are like actual good moral things that we can appeal to politically good reasons and honestly moral good reasons And whether or not you currently agree doesn't really matter We have good reasons nonetheless and so it's like formulating almost a worldwide Morality that applies everywhere. Does that make sense? This is the fourth one correct number four How is that any different from talking about like an objective morality? This is I mean it is you have to be committed to the objectivity of it This is talking about objective morality is objectively wrong to marry child women to grown men.
It's different from religion though Is that the is that what the decision? I'm just wondering about how that what why it's distinctive? Distinctive from God. Yeah, because it's it is trying to I think it's trying to distance itself slightly from saying It's because of the image of God because not everyone ascribes to that saying look this is moral no matter who you believe in How ah?
Great question. No, it's a good question. It's like you're wanting so just by saying it because I know just because Abudis doesn't believe in the Abrahamic God means that you've got a massive philosophical problem I don't that like you can say that there is a an object like the towel the objective right and wrong out there that all cultures have Some that people that is an innate part of the human person is that we have a spiritual under we have this like innate Sensitivity and understanding of rightness and wrongness that can get modeled and get confused and different parts of it can get amplified in cultures and ignored in other cultures But it's from that that we can make value claims about the right what what is appropriate for a child was appropriate for a woman What is appropriate what is it seems like you're just talking about option before it's based on justified true ethical Yes, but that is But you're saying it raises the question of where that justified ethical outlook Yeah, and if you're wanting to play the game that you're wanting to say well You don't need to posit some sort of transcendent in order to have those those those views of the ethical I think that's a really hard position to hold and I agree I think it's a hard sell to say look this is the morality that we have all said is the good one Let's say I'm the UN and I put forward my set of rights Yeah, and I've got a country that is practicing child marriage and has for hundreds of years and I come and say look We have this is this is a true morality that we are imposing upon you right is ethically right There's good international reasons you get lots of trade and stuff and the retort is no, it's not it's not true I have morally ethically we've been doing this for a thousand years and you guys just put that document out last week like Without that grounding and this is where I'm in agreements with you Graham is I think Grounding it like you do need some sort of metaphysical grounding or else it's free game Right that else everything kind of like it sounds like great footing to say we have true ethical moral reasons for this And then the next question is which ones what are your ethical reasons? Well, you need to have a standard through which you can mediate those sorts of ethical disputes or someone says it's better for the community that We married children to adults it is a good for the community for these five reasons We've been doing for a thousand years and people come forward and say but it is bad for the individual because of these five reasons You need to have some sort of standard that can mediate between those two claims of goodness And if the if the standard is just where the UN we've got the bigger bombs Yeah, or you could say human reason but sometimes use human reason can't easily parse those things or is ineffective Yeah, I mean that is the great hope of the enlightenment is that human reason can parts those things right?
But it didn't necessarily succeed. I don't think so yeah, okay So that's kind of where we're at is how can they exist? Well could be God given could be just that they are because we said they are could be part of our generally except the morality or it could Be like we have actually justified true ethical outlooks, but that raises the question I'll say begs the question because that's a fallacy raises the question okay What what exactly are your good reasons the encyclopedias says the best form would be a robust legal existence? So they do exist they are like internationally codified and said yes These are human rights that comes with right widespread acceptance based on strong moral and practical reasons So the encyclopedia bases it on these like practical and moral reasons, but didn't seem to give in my opinion much really good basis for those Right, especially if you come up against someone who has a morality that seems slightly different.
Yeah practical for who right? Yeah, and moral for who right? I mean you just sort of run back into the question that that's essentially trying to solve which is that our Realities sometimes are a little bit different. What are you saying that one of those other four options is better?
They're basically saying we want the best of all four options Are you saying there's another way of it? Well in my opinion like you have to ground it in it in the innate like immago day of the person right? So I'm sorry for our non-Christian listeners like I think it is easiest to Make a claim to human rights if you say we are accorded these rights because we are created to be a certain thing right if I say I am the result of millions of years of evolution and honestly my personhood is accidental and completely chaotic I don't know that I can make any claim or an illusion of consciousness or whatever Yeah, and I don't know that I can make any claim on anyone else's behavior towards me when really it's just the existence of the species that matters Me personally, I don't necessarily matter. You can kill me like the species will be just fine I can of course advocate for my own existence, but the the ultimate virtue here is Competition right so I can't claim that you should accord me anything equally we should compete and let the best man win I mean granted in evolution their examples of communities You have a sense of league probably like that where we exist better as a community But then the question just seems to lose all its footing right and we still have the question of why we think survival is good Or there's still the notion of good out there that must be standing on something firm or else you just say good is good And we can't really appeal to anything else.
Oh and bees will still kill the queen if she stops laying eggs Yeah, so so there is a good and just where exactly how you ground that is the question And I I think the easiest way is with the godhead right and then from that you can say well here That's why I have these true ethical reasons is because they're true and there is a morality that's built into us by a deity And there is where I draw my human rights from I understand I think What that sounds like saying is it's easiest to come up with human rights if we agree with people on religious topics in that I think that's the major kind of pitfall there. I know religious topics but on an overarching human morality correct, but based on the Christian You have to base it somewhere. I mean that doesn't necessarily have to come up Like if I'm a delegate to go to the UN and write if we're gonna say okay You've got to have good moral reasons for these they don't necessarily have to ask me where I base them I can say here are the things that I think are rights and everyone else that might believe in a different God can agree And if they really want to get to the nitty gritty of why I believe those things I can say well I believe we're created in the image of God everything you're saying is why I know we first one on the like whatever we Encoden law is what becomes a human right? I think there's more of it.
There's just more of a case there of how do we know what people agree on it's what we can get public support around and pass and actually codify into law and That's where you I think it skips over the moral questions of like why people are proposing things Which is what you're talking about, but we would know a thing is a law We would know a thing is a right based on we passed the law that says this is a right So I think it's an unsatisfying answer, but it's like I think it's a more straightforward answer of where we live in a country As many different kinds of people the things that people support is this thing that we were able to pass well to me It seems like the things they've listed listed as how thing how how rights can exist are actually a progression of how rights exist Yes So the final step there is that they are codified into law and they can point to the law and say these are human rights because we all agree They work right but they have to be based on something Yeah, for me, that's God and then from God comes a justified true ethical outlooks now There might be somebody else who believes in a different God that has their own justified in quotes justified true ethical outlooks These become part of actual human morality's which in turn produce a set of human rights that we've codified into law right? So really they're describing these is seemingly four things well springs from which human rights can come when to me it seems like a progression Yeah, sure you use all of them does that make sense like there's a little bit of each in there Their ultimate answer combines multiple of those fours Yeah, I think I think even what you're reading from is doing what you're talking about until you jump a gun and you pronounce something Something gets passed as a right in law that doesn't pass The moral or ethical test you still have a question of how did it pass though, right? Like why was a thing called a right and passed as a right presumably with the agreement of those Either the elected officials or the people who put them there. What are they believing that you're saying on the right because then that that gets to This fourth issue of this disagreement over what is a good system, right?
We're just back to philosophy again, right? I mean so you see this you see this sort of clash when you're talking about sort of sexual ethics and and and You know as as a right You know and then you get those issues where like you have the World Cup and the you know the team from Belgium Wants to wear the rainbow armbands and the team from guitar like refused to play the game and now you've got this big This big kerfuffle and and people are like well isn't it you know well it Sexual identity is enshrined as a human right in the UN guitars like fine, but we don't care and then For us that doesn't pass the the moral test But it has been sort of written you know they become say like you just wrote this document a year ago like you know so then And then and then that puts the powers that be a really precarious interesting spot Do they turn the screws on those who are not abiding by they now sort of agreed upon right or if you do that You just sort of end up undermining your credibility because the only way you're holding up certain rights for people that don't agree with it It's by those moments yeah With force and power and then if you play that game you can sort of end up undercutting the sort of this what you wanted You've lifted one right and treble others you've lived in one right and treble and others and you've ended up Delegitimizing the good thing that you wanted out of the UN to be which was a unifying force in the world But you've actually ended up turning it into sort of like a power game between yeah Anyway, so that's that's kind of the difficult spot that an international organization that is going to talk about rights makes as that list gets more Expansive to the more controversial points for its members It also I think it is already reference rights can depending on which of those viewpoints are taking rights can exist at different levels as well You have a right within your nation that doesn't extend internationally Yeah, you can ever write that you know there are ways that you behave in your family that don't relate to how you Interact with coworkers, you know, they're just different levels of these rights as well Yeah, I mean there are different speech rights speech laws in France and there are in in the US I actually think there was a coach who made something racially insensitive in France about players and is with jail for it Which is I don't know if saying racially insensitive think and jail you in America with free speech, you know, it's just that so I'm saying this out of yours. I don't know the story well enough to be able to look at it But my ultimate point is is that yeah, then you have these regional legal Interpretations over speech versus, you know, what is hate and that kind of stuff. Yeah, I'm just keep thinking like I think anyone can assert rights But we don't know it's actually been become a right until there's something behind it to back it up And that's that's the point that has been passed into law, right?
Yeah, there's some force behind it So that's what I had in the back of my mind while you were going through this what happens when you have a 19 year old kid whose entire sort of existence is in some sort of online community and that's his whole identity and he puts like a game or it's a community or it's a subreddit or whatever and then begins to assert his right to the internet because that's his sort of Entry point into this community that doesn't exist in you know rule, Iowa where he lives. Is that right? You can say I mean it probably feels pretty strongly that it's right So this is this is where this is like why I raised the question in the first place It is people are always like we have the right to say free health care I know that was right right and it's especially because you're demanding a service from someone else right health care You want someone else to do a thing for you. Yeah, and that seems like it's never been a right in the past I've never seen it codified anywhere It's not as far as I know in the bill of rights and when people declare that it's a basic human right the addition of basic By the way, I don't think does anything.
It's it's just a little rhetorical flourish Yeah, it's a rhetorical flourish just like a like a fundamental human right same thing Maybe they're just talking about those rights that maybe are more like lofty goals. There's luxury human rights And that's the thing there are some like right education Which is more of a luxury and the right to liberty which is more of like a I would call it a foundation human right but as far as I know There's no actual real distinction between fundamental or basic human rights and human rights human rights and so declaring that free health care Is a human right? I don't know that anyone agrees on that and it's certainly not necessarily within Every nation's ability to give free health care to its denizens Right. That's why I want like then is it the wealth of a nation again based on which you point you take maybe human rights do change over time So as a country is wealthier they have more of a capacity to provide things for their citizens Then therefore health care should be on the table because it extends human life.
So really this hasn't solved anything for me What do you mean? Well if someone's I always thought it sounded silly when someone said free health care is a human right, right? But the truth is if rights are just what have been codified into law and then it's not yet Right because it's not caught well It's not yet a right but it could become a right because it has there seem to be good practical moral reasons for it not let people who are sick Die, that seems like a pretty good thing. Yes But really this has solved nothing for me as far as what exactly I can say as a human right and what's not human right?
But it sounds like it's just a system that If it's if it's true, it sounds like it's a system that only exists in terms of Agrivenous appeal from one wrong of society to a different wrong of society Like for example if you are on a desert island and you're sick and you are saying like oh man I have no access to health care. This is such an infringement on my human rights to whom do you make that appeal? No, there's no one on the island. Okay, but you're living in in you know Can I just take that example though?
If someone if AJ put you on that desert island to go out your food and all your water If you violate one of your rights by putting you there. I mean I guess so Okay, can I do a couple things that might help eliminate our discussion sure I guess the point is what I put a cap on the point is that it sounds like this is only a situation that exists in Because it's only situation exists in society which is another way of saying like it just exists But yeah, it sounds like it sort of bases its existence on like grievances I can't I can't afford health care and the rich art should be taxed enough that I can maybe I don't know So there I wanted to offer some of the normative justifications for human rights So as people say like I have good true reasons for accepting these they give sort of a list one of them is particularly interesting So I'll listen and then say the one that's interesting So they have prudential reasons practical reasons moral rights human well-being fundamental interest human need and the interest one is agency and autonomy So we must recognize human rights for the following reason you are an autonomous person, right? You probably have make some sort of Prudential right claim to freedom and well-being, right? I'm an individual I'm gonna move around the world I'm going to try to claim freedom and well-being for myself, okay?
Because you do that you recognize that everyone else is probably doing the same thing Right, so in that way if you want your rights you have to recognize their rights So that's one way that they sort of try to establish some a jerk human rights unless you're a jerk right in which case Then like you don't have to marry dignity fairness equality and positive freedom all all like lifted up as reasons But again all of those have seemed to me to have to be supported somewhere, right? You can't just say these are the things we appeal to you have to show me that those like are part of some moral system Anyway, so those are some of the things that are positive There are political conceptions of human rights, which of course describe what human rights are by describing what they do This seems to be when we've codified them into law like here's what rights do and that's what human rights are There are a few pretty common documents that that sort of attempted to codify human rights one is the US bill of rights It's pretty good. It's pretty good There's another one that is the UN only get the name right here universal Universal declaration of human rights the UN has codified its own list which is pretty good and that's not the last one There's also the European Convention on human rights European Convention seems to go a little bit deeper into things like Trials and tribunals and that sort of thing so if if you are looking for sort of a scale here You have the American which is what like lowest rung up the ladder and then you have the European which is a step up the ladder And then you have the UN which is trying to say these are rights that are available to all peoples There are Canada has one a charter of rights and freedom sure yeah, there are six families of rights within this universal declaration Number one security rights that protect people against murder torture and genocide so safety is person do process rights that protect people against arbitrary and Accessively harsh punishments and require fair and public trials Liberty rights that protect people's fundamental freedoms in areas such as belief expression association and movement Political rights that protect people's liberty to participate in politics by assembling protesting voting and serving in office Equality rights that guarantee equal citizenship equality before the law and freedom from discrimination and social rights that require governments ensure all the Availability of work education health services and an adequate standard of living so I looked up health in the UN One and it says everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family including food clothing housing and medical care and necessary social services and the right to security in the event of unemployment sickness disability widow hood old age or Other lack of livelihood and circumstances beyond his control This seems to be a lofty goal one. There are a lot of places that simply cannot provide that for you If you lose your job, there's not not everywhere can say here is money for you You know what's behind the like so if the UN makes a declaration of human rights are they then?
pushing countries toward but yeah, I think this is sort of setting a thing where we have a definitive list where if a country is not Providing rights or infringing upon human rights. We can use it as justification for sanction or truth. Yeah, yeah Is that a bad thing to set an aspiration or you're just saying it's no right because it's there are there's a sliding scale of rights Right, there's fun. There's human rights that are like these ones are the ones that we absolutely must have like no torture and genocide that kind of thing Like that's great, right versus things that's a progression right you might not be able to provide all your citizens with a fantastic You know standard of living right food clothing housing and medical care not every country can do that But you can certainly as a country aspire and try and have the government that have that be one of the goals and functions of the government Even if it can't quite do it right the moment it starts seizing people's housing is when we would say okay Well now you're infringing upon a different right yeah exactly I mean that's the because all the you know I think there are 30 articles in the universal declaration like you have to do all of them right Yeah, and so maybe maybe it's actually shifting my mind where people are saying free health care is a fun I mean right maybe not free but the availability and to some of us you don't really have a lot of money It's not really available Yeah, that could be a part of it right because even your language of providing implies that there's like one party giving it to another As opposed to like the goal of universal or global wealth right allowing people to do these things for themselves to avoid Unemployment sickness disability all that you know all those things Yeah, I guess I don't Is it still something you were pushing back against though like I'm not sure if you come into this thinking human rights are a terrible concept No, I thought human rights were a thing I thought they needed to be more firmly based in some sort of outlook because it seemed to me that a lot of people who were clamoring for human rights We're also saying that there is no standard of morality.
It seems to me that you cannot let's try to have your cake I needed to right where you're saying morality does not exist, but you must accord me these certain things in all fairness It doesn't seem like you can appeal to fairness and say there's no morality right a moral relativist cannot Climb the can try to climb for human rights, but in the end it doesn't matter the government can choose what they want Yes, I don't know but and so I certainly believe in human rights You know, it seemed to me that free health care was not in the list right because I'm asking for something from someone else But maybe the availability of health care like the accessibility of it is a thing But it's weird to think of it as sort of a lofty goal that one may aspire to to me human rights seem to be just that the avoid avoidance of the worst Right, so maybe my my my meals being shifted here I don't know because even like just that concept of avoiding the worst like even from just a self-interested perspective Like I want to live in a world where I you know, I'm not in pain all the time and uh, yeah like Are you in pain? No, just like I can have health care or like whatever like thing, okay, but it gets tricky because like Some people could say okay, let's use birth giving a birth for example Every birth should be everybody should have the capacity to have an epidural because that is health care and any any sort of Place where there is no availability of an epidural for having a baby is an infringement on health care Like you're not you're not giving adequate health care enough for anyone to write where there's lots of people there like listen epidurals are pretty controversial Practice when it comes to the to bearing a child even the modern medicine practices of Taking somebody of bringing the woman to the hospital into you know, like there's just so much Tradition there's just very different points of view is what is constituted as something that's healthy Some people might look and say the modern way of giving birth to a child is not as healthy for the mother or baby And lots of people say like that's just crazy folk talk like of course it is This is modern medicine, you know, and so when you have clashes of that Those are those are tricky grounds if you're going to start saying like one of those and not the other one is going to be Held up as a right and the other one is going to be seen as like fringy woo woo woo You look and say like unhealthy for like the how the fact that there's lots of Of unhealthy food in our modern life is an infringement on our ability to live healthy lives Other people may look at it and say the fact that we can genetically modify crops and make vegetable oil has like Allow the planet to sort of overclock its ability to bury people in the beans. Yeah, exactly so you know, which one is Yeah, is one more luxury or is one more like a per I want a perfected life as opposed to a Passable life. Yeah, so here's some fun stuff.
I found another thing It's uh, it's an exercise from the Truman library So if it's got a couple of things slightly wrong, you know, take it up with them But it was compared to between the US bill of rights and the UN bill of rights So things that are just in the US but not the UN the right to bear arms Freedom from housing troops and the right to a jury trial That's all the US has uniquely the UN has a whole bunch of other stuff that's unique right to remedy the right to be innocent until proven guilty The UN the right to free movement this one is actually really interesting It talks about your ability to leave a country you should be able to get out if you want Which is interesting because there's some places that won't let you Write to asylum write to a nationality you have the right to be part of a country Write to family write to social security to desirable work and trade unions here's an interesting one The right to rest you deserve leisure time That's provided for in the UN Right that you you get some time off right to education right to participate in culture adequate standard of living and then there's a bunch That are in both right freedom of religion speech press assembly and association unlawful search and seizure due process Arbitrary arrest right to a fair trial freedom from cruel and unusual punishment freedom from slavery Freedom from discrimination and the right to vote so there's a it's interesting right it's kind of cool I like the one that struck me the most was probably the right to rest Everyone has the right to rest and leisure including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay Yeah, the joke or the meme is that this is just like very European sure right like Well, or people people in Europe may look at the right to bear arms like how barbaric Remember this is the UN one not the EU you as a different animal right? I guess but I mean the UN and the EU like pretty closely tied. Yeah, pretty closely tied, but they would have had delegates from all over I guess again using it as an aspirational document. I don't necessarily see problems I think we we still have the question of like who enforces this or who is making this making this change happen Or what do we do where there's disagreements on some of those rights?
Obviously like you know though, don't kill people if there's a disagreement. They're that's one thing if there's a disagreement on what leisure times look like Like those feel like different scales. There's definitely a scale on on human rights and so when say a despot despot despot? Yes for Frenchie style is, you know, tear gassing or just gassing his denizens, then that seems like a pretty serious infringement on human rights, right?
Where some of those things are more severe than others that require action on the international stage. And I think that's part of why this document exists. It's not just here's what we should do. It's, we actually need to enforce this, which is interesting to me.
Okay, so has anything sort of formed in your mind as we, before we say goodbye? That's true. I mean, yeah, I, I still hold that. It's like a severed branch that you're trying to bear fruit.
Okay, let's unpack that in the in between time. Yeah, that's perfect. This has been classical stuff you should know. Thank you all for listening.
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So for. And crone, we see you. You got some crocs coming your way by the way. Come in your way.
That's exactly right. So, yeah, thanks everyone for listening. See you next week. Bye.