From: gts (gts_2000@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Nov 20 2002 - 09:06:16 MST
Jef Allbright wrote:
> Attempts in the past to create a scientific, rational moral code
> were based on observations of nature, such as "survival of the
> fittest", which in a sense may be the ultimate natural law, no
> matter what rules we may make. However this conflicts with
> (ironically) our evolutionary programming to be compassionate.
I see no conflict here. Nature has selected compassion as a valuable
trait in humans.
I count myself among those who believe in "natural rights." Our rights
as humans derive from the law of the jungle, so to speak. The most
obvious of these is the right of self-defense. Who can object to the
notion that a person has a natural right to defend his own life?
To those who would argue that rights exist only in a legal sense, I ask,
"Did blacks in America have an intrinsic right to be free before their
emancipation? Is slavery not wrong even countries where it is still
legal?"
To my way of thinking, slavery was wrong even before we understood it as
such and before we modified our laws to prohibit it. The Abolitionists
helped us "discover" the truth about slavery. Natural rights are always
discovered in this way. They are not merely fabricated. We discover
rights as we become more enlightened as a species.
I believe errors and confusion (and dismay, as seen here in this thread)
arise when people start assuming the reality of positive rights, for
example a "right to health-care" or a "right to an education." (If
exercising a right requires that others be forced to contribute to your
life, then it is a positive right.)
There are no positive rights under natural law. There are only negative
rights, which together amount to the simple right to be left alone to
pursue one's own life as one sees fit.
These negative rights are inalienable but not because they were handed
down by God. They are inalienable because they are simply part of what
it means to be alive. The "Creator" in the Declaration of Independence
is not a reference to some Jehovah-like God on High. It is a reference
to the God of Nature. Jefferson was a deist, not a theist.
-gts
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