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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Natural Rights
Message-ID: <322@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 24-Aug-83 13:59:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: dciem.322
Posted: Wed Aug 24 13:59:03 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Aug-83 07:55:45 EDT
References: <117@hogpd.UUCP>
Organization: D.C.I.E.M, Toronto, Canada
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   I disagree with the thesis that rights are "natural".  The writer who 
claimed that rights are pervasive in animal societies, and that such rights
had survival value, is anthropomorphizing the animal kingdom.
=================

The attitude expressed by this comment represents an all too common
fallacy: that humans are not animals. No matter what differentiates
us from other animals, there is a lot more that we share. Most of
our behaviour patterns are founded on those that have developed over
the billions of years or learning how to get along, and I think it
rather presumptuous of any individual to think that his mind can
come up with a better solution - hey, presto - for particular ethical
problems that arise moment to moment.

Sure, we have cultural norms that differ among human societies. Sure,
we differ from most other animals in being able to string together
a few elementary concepts in a "logical" manner that includes conditionals.
We don't know to what extent other animals have that facility, but it
isn't enough to allow them to develop syntactically complex language
(although clever chimpanzees can apparently use rudiments of conditional
syntax sometimes).

There is a legitimate distinction between legal "rights" and natural
"rights". My claim is that natural "rights" represent our verbalizations
of survival patterns developed over the billenia. And if you don't
think that accepting the rights of others over your own (apparent)
selfish interest can be a survival trait, read the Metamagical Thema
essays on the Prisoner's Dilemma in Scientific American this Spring.
Even bacteria may well (operationally) respect each other's rights.

Martin Taylor