In a message dated 1/24/01 1:59:30 AM Pacific Standard Time,
charlie@antipope.org writes:<< If your theory of rights is derived from
human nature, then you are ill-equipped to do business with sapients that are
non-human -- unless you can coerce them into pretending to be human.
Moreover, the natural rights theory of the 18th century is infused with
religiosity: the US constitution reeks of deism, and the country that it
belongs to has a higher per-capita proportion of fundamentalists than just
about anywhere on the planet except Afghanistan and Iran. >>
Charlie,
You might like to look at Robert L. Humphrey's VALUES FOR A NEW MILLENIUM
where in he claims to have found a couple of basic natural rights that are
shared by all human societies and seem to be shared by some of our animal
friends. He also asserts that Thomas Jefferson's philosophy as having
derived from a member of the Scotish enlightenment instead the normal sources
for the other founding fathers.
Further Mihal Csikszentmihalye in FLOW and THE EVOLVING SELF asserts a
measure of happiness that can gauge all societies. He shares some
measurements from a number of different societies and they were at least
surprising and worth pondering.
Ron h.
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