RE: About "rights" again

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Tue Jan 14 2003 - 17:25:51 MST


gts wrote

"Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into
the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of
moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal
liberty, and is given him by the Author of nature, because necessary for
his own sustenance." --Thomas Jefferson: Legal Argument, 1770. FE 1:376

Thanks for that! It perfectly illustrates the error unmistakably.

It is patently false that humans are born free or with a
right to his or her own person.

Mike Lorrey writes

> > Mike explains
> > >
> > > The deist view is essentially that Natural Law
> > > is Objective Truth, embedded in the structure
> > > and function of the universe, and exhibited
> > > in our daily lives by much more than gravity
> > > and relativistic effects, but also biological
> > > evolution and the development of intelligence
> > > and individualistic generalist organisms such
> > > as ourselves.
> >
> > Oh! It suddenly dawns on me that you are explaining what
> > natural laws are, as, for example, Newton's. Well, of course
> > they exist! They are objective constraints on what can happen
> > in our universe. They are patterns that were here before us
> > and (heaven forbid) will be there after us.
>
> Yet the deist/Natural Rightist sees no difference or delamination
> between Natural Law i.e. the laws of physics, and the Natural Rights of
> Man.

Evidently not! As the Jefferson quote above perhaps illustrates.

> Our Natural Rights evolve specifically out of our evolution, via
> natural selection, as individualistic social primates with an
> inclination toward tool invention and use and exploration of new
> habitat.

It really surprises me that a number of distinguished
thinkers can believe in such a thing given the modern
discoveries in so many branches of science, but especially
anthropology. You're quite clear and correct about
"individualistic social primates with an inclination
toward tool invention", but what has this to do with
rights?

> Transhumanism is a further development of this Enlightenment
> philosophy. As Greg Burch and Max More have previous said, we
> see ourselves as a more honest and consistent evolution of the
> Enlightenment philosophers than modern humanists and self-described
> liberals, much as we see the US revolution as a more honest
> expression of that philosophy than the French Revolution.

I could agree more, but not by much. What the Enlightenment
philosophers achieved in my book is they described the ideas
(notions) that were being developed in their times, consciously
or unconsciously, and expressed two important other things:
One, that they highly approved of these new views, and that
two, such assumptions embodied into habit and legal precedent
*worked*, i.e., made societies more prosperous and resourceful.

> Both modern humanism/liberalism and the French Revolution
> tread down paths to tyranny, genocide, dehumanization of
> the individual, and pastoral romanticism/mysticism.

Well, their hearts are in the right place, and that's
one of the most important things to them.

Lee



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