Natural Rights or No Natural Rights

Questions of Sovereignty

“THE right of nature, which writers commonly call jus naturale, is the liberty each man hath to use his own power as he will himself for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life; and consequently, of doing anything which, in his own judgement and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto.” Hobbes “Leviathan”

Most Americans believe in Natural Rights. The belief in Natural Rights is a part of what is called our Civil Religion. It is enshrined in documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution which we treat with a religious reverence. The belief in Natural Rights has come under fire in recent decades because of the multiplication of Rights and a confused basis for deciding what is and is not a right.

Before the existence of Natural Rights can be determined, the term Right must be examined. If someone pays someone else money for the right to hunt deer on that second persons property, then we say that the first person has a right to hunt. If everyone has equal rights does that mean that everyone now has the right to hunt on that property?

This may sound ridiculous, but this is exactly the reasoning of many on many issues in the US today. Many demand that if one person pays for something everyone else should have the same things without paying for them. Words have different meanings in different contexts. It is easy to confuse a debate or discussion by using a word with one definition in one part of an argument and using it in a different sense in a later part, thus creating a surface appearance of logical validity while subverting truth. Many people seem to do this without even realizing it. This practice is one of the basic techniques which gave Sophistry a bad name in Classical Greece. Aristotle spends a lot of time isolating this kind of error in his various works. John Locke in his “Essay on Human Understanding” attributes most disagreements between experts to this kind of problem. An example of this kind of spurious use of the word right in modern political debate can be found in protests over American Indians right to fish for salmon when such fishing is forbidden to non-Indians. The right to fish salmon is a contractual treaty right like the right to hunt deer in the above example. It is not a natural right and others do not have an equal right to do so because the terms of the contract gave them the benefits of the land the Indians relinquished when the treaty was signed. It was bought and paid for with land. If people want to break the contract they should return the land.

Another kind of right is based on social status and hierarchy. The Divine Right of Kings in various manifestations in society. It is plausible to suggest that the psychology underlying this kind of right is related to pecking order behavior. Persons higher on the pecking order having the right to abuse those lower on the pecking order. This kind of behavior being instinctive and feeling ‘right’ emotionally, most societies have had class structures in which such rights were strongly enforced by law. They are specifically forbidden by the US Constitution in Article 1 where it states,

“No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States;”

Still, pecking orders exist, and rights conveyed by pecking order status feel like ‘natural’ rights because they are harmonious with instinct. Such rights are unequal giving one person a right to abuse or oppress or command other persons. They cannot be natural rights in the sense that that phrase is meant by the Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights. Nor are they natural rights in the sense in which that phrase is used here. There is a constant tendency for persons possessing pecking order ‘rights’ to attempt to have them institutionalized as legal rights in the same sense that Natural Rights are institutionalized. Combating this tendency is one of the major challenges facing any society which desires to remain a free society.

This problem becomes especially acute as different groups who may have traditionally been denied equality under the law strive for equal rights. Groups which have been held in a servile status have not lived in an equal rights environment. Their culture is a pecking order culture and they do not have the cultural background to emotionally feel the difference between a legitimate human right and a status or pecking order right. The natural tendency of all liberation movements is to climb the pecking order to as high a status level as possible. No learned ability to feel when they cross the line from claiming natural rights and start claiming status rights is inherent in their culture. Thus all liberation movements inevitably cross this invisible line and start to claim status rights which allow them to abuse others. Such abuse leads to a backlash.

It has been one of the fundamental principles of political philosophy since classical times that the excesses of liberty always lead to tyranny. Again from Plato’s “Republic”,

In the 50s and 60s there were a number of liberation movements. Black Liberation, Women’s Liberation, Gay Rights, etc. in the time since those movements were begun virtually all the legitimate legal goals of such movements have been achieved and all have progressed to claiming the right to abuse others in one manner or another.

There is a thin line between race pride and racism. Many elements of Black culture in the US jumped across that line a decade or more ago and have not looked back. The relationship between men and women was far more egalitarian than a simple look at the laws concerning them would reveal. Women have claimed all the privileges and special treatment traditionally accorded them while claiming rights and privileges that have become increasingly abusive to others. Gays have crossed the line from claiming legal equality to insisting on what amounts to a license to sexually harass straight persons in a manner that would get any straight man fired from a job or expelled from an academic institution. It is now time for these movements to reevaluate themselves, discard those behaviors which are abusive of the rights of others and concentrate more on goals that will overcome the remaining institutionalized problems they face.

Individually as citizens they are now essentially equal before the law. Spitting on and degrading whites will not increase black rights. Abusing men will not promote women’s rights. Claiming a license to sexually harass straights will not promote Gay rights. Putting other people down is not the same thing as raising yourself up. Though they are frequently confused in the minds of mankind. It is necessary to remember Hobbes’ emphasis on deliberation,

Frequently liberation does not feel like freedom for it includes assuming the responsibilities of free citizens rather than exercising License. Liberty requires deliberate consideration of behavior. These issues are discussed in greater detail in the section of this book concerned with the 20^th century liberation movements.

What then are Natural Rights

It is popular among idealistic philosophers to maintain that a human being has a right to anything that they have a need for. On this basis they maintain a natural right to food, shelter, clothing, education, medical care and many other things.

Some conservatives hate this reasoning, and counter by saying that Natural Rights are just a political dogma without any factual reality.

If Natural Rights exist, then there must be some empirical reality underlying their existence. Some kind of Natural Law, like those of physics, aerodynamics, chemistry, etc. must support their existence. If they are required by Natural Law, then they must be necessary in a practical sense. If a Natural Right is not a necessary Right, it cannot be a Natural Right in any meaningful real world sense of the term.

Nature obeys certain laws. Birds and Bats are very different creatures with very different genetic histories, but the laws of nature have forced them to do the same things to accomplish the same tasks. Though the original limbs that evolved into wings were very different, the wing structures are quite similar. Though their genetic history is very different both have evolved streamlined genotypes which decrease cell size and increase cell efficiency. They had to obey Natural Law to survive. Natural Law shaped their Natures.

Natural Law also shaped human Nature. If Natural Rights exist, then they must be rooted in Natural Law and Human Nature. People who maintain a whole plethora of Natural Rights like those to a basic standard of living, etc. will turn around and say that Humans are Blank Slates and that Human Nature does not exist. Both cannot be true. Others will deny the existence of Human Nature because if it exists, then there must be some prescriptive standards of behavior, and they do not want any prescriptive standards.

To quote Hobbes “Leviathan”,

If Natural Rights exist as a product of Natural Law, then they are Prescriptive and must be protected. If Human Nature does not exist then Natural Rights cannot exist. If Natural Rights exist as a function of Human Nature then a society which ignores them will have problems as inevitably as airplanes designed without considering the laws of aerodynamics will have problems. To hobble Hobbes with Hobbes substitute state for man in Hobbes quote above,

Thus the preservation of Natural Rights becomes an obligation on the state from it’s own interest in it’s continued existence. This is also a thumbnail sketch of evolutionary theory and survival of the fittest. That which is strong survives, that which is weak perishes. To quote Spinoza in the same vein from his “Political Treatise”,

This could be a rationalization for totalitarianism since a state must act in its own interest if it is to survive. History teaches that free societies are stronger and out compete totalitarian ones. Here is an example of how practical arguments can lead to short term actions which are self-destructive of the state as they are self-destructive of individuals.

To quote Hobbes again, “Leviathan,

Hobbes derives his natural law that all men must be equal before the law from the fact that if they are not it is an invitation to revolution, a state of war, and the destruction of the Social Contract. This is possibly the most fundamental line of reasoning in Hobbes. The Social Contract must act to preserve itself. Anything which violates this is a violation of Natural Law. A Law dictated by the Nature of the Contract which is dictated by the needs of those who formed the Contract.

Hobbes clearly sees his concepts as being determined by reason about what is necessary,

God’s role in the existence of Natural Rights is optional in Hobbes discussion. Reason is sufficient to demonstrate the necessity of his Natural Laws and Rights. Natural laws and rights are also necessary, if not then they are not Natural Laws and Rights.

It is useful to look at this idea a couple of times. A Contract has a Nature according to the reasons for which the Contract was created. Any action which violates that Nature is a violation of the Natural Law implicit in that Contract. Thus, if a Social Contract is created to better the lives of its participants, any action which systematically makes their lives or a significant portion of their lives worse is a violation of Natural Law. The Natural Law dictated by the Nature of the Contract. Human Nature exists as a product of evolution. If the Social Contract enacts laws which abuse Humans due to their Nature, it violates Natural Law by risking its own destruction by injuring its most fundamental component the Citizens, and it violates Natural Law by making life worse rather than better for the participants in the Contract.

A law can violate Natural Law by making life systematically worse for participants in the Contract than it would have been in a state of Nature. A law can violate Natural Law by acting in such a manner as to produce the destruction of the Social Contract. While stated differently these all reflect essentially one reality because violations of the first type must by definition also be violations of the second type. As Hobbes says, “It is a weak sovereign that has weak subjects”. Those laws made by the State which weaken the Citizens weaken the State. Saddam’s Iraq is the most recent example of this principle in world history.

Discussing Natural Rights requires a real world approach to the origin of the human species. It must look at humans in a ‘State of Nature’. This approach is very old, Hobbes is one of the most famous proponents of this approach. It underlies much of the reasoning in Locke and our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Federalist Papers, and the Bill of Rights. The definition of a ‘State of Nature’ has changed with the development of the Theory of Evolution, some will say that such a state never existed. Again this argument is fallacious. While man was always a social animal, the accumulation of wealth and institutionalization of power that technological developments like agriculture, banking, factory manufacture of goods, capital investment, etc. allow did not exist in primitive Hunter Gatherer societies. The State with its developed institutions of power, such as standing armies, police forces, etc. did not exist in a State of Nature. These institutions create a potential for the systematic oppression of human beings that did not exist in a State of Nature. As the Bible is a collection of moral and ethical guidance helping humans adjust behaviorally to the changes in our environment that technology and culture have made, our body of political beliefs and standards including Natural Rights is a similar adaptation in terms of political culture.

Arguments against Natural rights are frequently couched in the same language as arguments against the Bible. They are tied to phrases like “In accordance with Natural Law and of Natures God” used in the Declaration of Independence. Evolution provides the same defense for the existence of Natural Law and Natural Rights as it provides for respecting the traditional values taught by the Bible as presented in the section of this book on Evolution and Ethics. Cultures compete with each other, the more successful destroy the less successful. If a set of standards produces a more vital culture, it will survive while less vital cultures die. As noted above, God’s participation in the existence of Natural Law and Rights is optional in Hobbes. As objective rules deduced from Nature, these Natural Laws and Rights are closer to the nature of Law as used in Science than to statutory laws. They cannot be violated without negative consequences. You cannot make pi = 4 by passing a law saying that it does, and you cannot violate Natural Laws without suffering the consequences.

Very often historically and in political discourse today, reasons advanced for believing in things have no relationship to the things proposed or promoted. Very frequently the reasons can be wrong and the conclusion right. Dismissing the conclusions because of the source is invalid reasoning. It is commonly called the genesis or genetic error in logic. Political argument is rhetoric not reason, logic, or science. (A great example occurred with Roosevelt’s New Deal. A noted English historian Macauley, writing about 100 years earlier had criticized the US system of government saying as soon as there was widespread unemployment the people would vote themselves jobs and welfare. Roosevelt quoted this letter in his campaign and said Macauley was wrong, that we were better than that. Of course, Roosevelt’s policies were exactly what Macauley had predicted. Basically Roosevelt was saying that we could prove Macauley wrong by doing exactly what Macauley had predicted. This political argument was accepted by all right thinking Americans because only a disloyal traitor would agree with someone critical of our system of government. Roosevelt was elected.)

It is apparent that the US system with its collection of Natural Rights has produced a vital energetic creative culture. It is equally apparent that Communism with its selection of “Natural” Rights failed to compete successfully with that culture.

A reasonable assumption is that the US did something right and the Communists did something wrong. An analytical inquiry into what makes something a real Natural Right can begin with an analysis of the differences between these systems. Since we are looking for things rooted in Natural Law and Human Nature, it is reasonable to assume that these rights will be related to the environment which shaped Human Nature. If you examine the Constitution of the USSR and compare it’s Bill of Rights to that of the US Constitution you will find that in addition to the Rights enumerated in our Bill of Rights it had another section of Socialist rights and a Bill of Duties about what the subjects of the USSR owed to their state. Since the US defeated this system after about 75 years of competition, it follows that our “Natural Rights” are probably more obedient to those natural laws which govern human society than the USSR’s were. This Bill of Duties and regimentation of the Citizens is a return to the error of making the State the moral authority, a violation of Separation of Church and State which cripples human initiative by destroying human liberty. An atheist State as in Communism simply makes the Atheist State God, violating separation of Church and state as completely as making the Church the State.

Again it is not necessary to believe in Natures God to believe in Natural Rights. Evolution provides just as strong a rationale for believing that they exist.

If you break Natural Laws you suffer the consequences. If a Right is truly a Natural Right, there must be a cost involved in breaking it. If there are rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, then a society which fails to protect these rights will be less vital, weaker, than those which do.

So a Natural Right must be a necessary Right and it should be related to the environment which shaped human nature. Something present in some form in the State of Nature which we can define as small tribal units of hunter/gatherers. In this sense, rights which all humans possessed in a State of Nature which do not violate the rights of others are Natural Rights. Those things which humans possessed in a State of Nature only after working to achieve them are not Natural Rights. A real world definition of Natural Rights in this context looks at whether or not something was inherent to a person in a State of Nature.

Greed or Self-Interest the Basis of all Natural Rights

To investigate this question it is necessary to attempt to define Human Nature. A fairly cynical view of Human Nature was generally accepted at the time the US government was formed. One thing was assumed to be a constant predictable element of Human Nature and that one thing was self-interest. No one really questions the existence of self-interest as a part of Human Nature. In the 17^th century two very different men reduced all human behaviors to self-interest. De la Rouchefoucauld was a French Aristocrat who had many mistresses and spent his time in the Salons of Paris. He produced a book of Maxims cynically reducing all human behaviors to selfishness. Spinoza was a philosopher who lived in Holland, lived virtuously, studied various classical philosophers and attempted to produce a perfectly logical metaphysical description of reality. His system of metaphysics is still read by people who read metaphysics, but in his description of human nature he is almost word for word the same as De la Rouchefoucauld.

Spinoza’s 7^th Proposition in his 3^rd book reads,

Which is quite reminiscent of Hobbes definition of Natural Law above. Adam Smith based his system of economics on this predictable psychological element of human behavior. This attitude is reflected in “The Federalist Papers” it is evident in the debates of the Constitutional Convention. It is the basis of the practical elements in the US Constitution.

To quote Hobbes “Leviathan”,

The Social Contract is the tool or implement for creating peace between men. It’s existence cannot abrogate the absolute natural right to self-defense.

To quote Hobbes “Leviathan”,

This fundamental principle of law, the golden rule, was stated by the Greeks and by Confucius 500 years before Christ. Confucius summed it up in one word, Reciprocity.

Rabbi Hillel’s assertion of this principle is quoted in the section of this book dealing with hate laws.

Communism is far more idealistic, (which is to say stupid and impractical) it included ideas like “From each according to his ability to each according to his need”. This is not reciprocity, it takes without giving in return. It assumes that you can build a successful economy without taking self-interest into account. It assumes that humans are perfectible in some impractical, adolescent, moral sense of the word. It failed.

Evolution actually paints a nobler picture of humanity than Spinoza, Rouchefoucauld, Hobbes or Smith. We can say that humans evolved drives to behave in certain ways, that they are not cynically planning every action for their self interest. When they are brave they are brave from a real concern for the things they defend. When generous out of a real concern for the less fortunate. When loyal out of a real affection for the object of their loyalty. These are feelings that evolved. They evolved because they promoted social interaction and success, so you can model them all as selfish, but the feelings are real.

So, this idea that all human actions are ultimately selfish is both true and false. The feelings and motives we call noble really exist. The people we admire for acting in a fashion we consider noble really act on those feelings. Evolution created those feelings and instilled them in people for selfish reasons. This means that you can analyze and describe them all as serving some selfish purpose, but it does not mean that all human actions are done from selfish motives. Feelings are the motives for action more often than reason and the feelings are real.

Out of respect for truth it is wise to take a nod to this real, noble, aspect of human nature, but for the purposes of analyzing Human Nature an assumption of self-interest as a fundamental reality is a worthwhile tool. It is possible to reduce this principle of allowing individuals natural rights necessary to guarantee them the freedom to act in their own self-interest so long as they do not violate the rights of others to a more fundamental level. This is feedback. In order for a person to figure out a way to act in their own interest they must be able to connect act and result in a meaningful fashion. Society must guarantee a valid level of feedback to its Citizens with regard to their actions. This allows people to be motivated by their own desires to act in their own interest. Feedback is negative as well as positive.

This principle of feedback relates to psychological theories concerned with the origins of schizophrenia in people.

“Bateson et al. (1956) argued that schizophrenia is a response to mutually exclusive demands made upon a child. This is called the double-bind theory. These demands cannot be avoided, nor can they be satisfied and therefore schizophrenia is a learned response to impossible demands. Laing (1959) argued that schizophrenia is a sane response to a distorted environment. He further argues that the self becomes divided between the person’s internal and external world and that schizophrenia is not an illness, but a response to the world that is aggravated by ‘pathological’ families.”

http://www.northern.ac.uk/online_learning/psychology/lifespan%20folder/Schizo phrenia.htm Northern College Wentworth Castle Barnsley online learning website.

Societies which create a false relationship between action and result create an environment throughout the society which is similar to that postulated as the environmental cause of schizophrenia. Communism, Socialism, et al, do this by providing goods without work and denying goods to those who work for them. This disconnect between actions and result forces Citizens to adapt their behaviors in manners which are emotionally or mentally unhealthy in proportion to the degree and nature of the disconnect. Societies based on principles which violate human nature create environments which damage the mental and emotional health of their Citizens regardless of the proclaimed nobility of their motives. The greatest evils in history have almost invariably been committed for the noblest of reasons.

It may seem odd to begin defining Natural Rights a Noble, Good thing by adopting selfishness or self-interest generally held to be bad things as a basis. Nature is complex. Nature does things in unexpected ways. Still, all the things we consider Good are things we want, this is self-interest. Our noble drives and instincts demonstrate that evolution found that behaving nobly sometimes served self-interest better than behaving selfishly in a simple direct manner. (Here is a great practical moral truth. Behaving selfishly is not always the best way to serve yourself. Frequently behaving in a Noble apparently selfless manner is frequently the best way to serve your long-term interests or those of your fellows.)

Still, noble drives are referred to in “The Federalist Papers” as the weaker springs of Human Nature. From The Federalist #34 by Alexander Hamilton,

Self-interest is the more consistent and reliable motive.

To quote Spinoza’s “Political Treatise”,

This being so, it is probable that all Natural Rights can be related to a freedom to act in one’s own interest limited by a respect for others possessing a similar freedom. Though at times it will be necessary to define details of what is one’s own interest. Maslow’s hierarchy or pyramid of human needs is a widely accepted management tool and artifact of the social sciences. It serves admirably as the basis for such discussions and will be brought into the discussion where it is relevant.

Is your understanding of your own interest and protecting your rights enlightened or not?

Given this assumption that Noble motives are less reliable on a daily basis than self-interest when designing a state, Aristotle’s analysis of the various perverse forms of government is applicable,

Since human nature will pervert any system, Democracy is the best of all possible forms of government, or as Churchill is said to have said, “Democracy is the worst of all forms of government ever tried, except all the rest“.

Is it necessary to begin the search for real Natural Rights in complete ignorance, assuming that all things asserted as Natural Rights before this were falsely assumed to be such? Is it possible to take much of the foundation of Natural Rights long accepted as true and as a starting place? Evolution would tell us that much of what we already consider Natural Rights will prove to be Natural Rights as our knowledge of the specifics involved becomes more sophisticated and precise.

The basic observations of what stars were located in what part of the sky taken by Babylonian astronomers remain accurate and useful today. Our entire system of astronomy has changed. All the theories about what stars are, are different. The stars remain. Scientists say, “Models come and go, a good dataset lasts forever”.

Similarly the theories about why a Natural Right is such may change without changing its reality as a necessary and truly Natural Right. The observations about human behavior in the Bible, about politics and ethics in Aristotle, and about Natural Rights in our political system remain observations. Things that brilliant men saw to be true and then explained in this or that fashion. Frequently the explanations become outdated, but this does not render the observations necessarily false.

The Persistence of Human Nature

Human nature is the product of evolution and is constant historically. If you compare Maslow’s pyramid with Dante’s Inferno there is an interesting correlation. Abuses of needs lower on Maslow’s list are punished less severely than abuses of needs higher on Maslow’s list. Maslow’s pyramid ends with self-actualization. The list of needs goes something like this, though different versions exist; body needs, security needs, social needs, ego needs and self-actualization. Another version runs like this;

1) Physiological: hunger, thirst, bodily comforts, etc.;

The upper level of Dante’s Hell are concerned with incontinence or a lack of self-control. Included here are sins against the self. Overindulgence in sex, food, anger and despair. These sins became possible only when technology produced an environment where the overindulgence in food and pleasure became possible. Diabetes and other problems related to diet are relatively rare among hunter-gatherers.

2) Safety/security: out of danger;

Tyrants and marauders occupy the next part of Dante’s Hell. These are violent threats to the safety and security of others. This guarantee of physical security is the only area of human needs which the Social Contract a peace treaty between Citizens is directly concerned with maintaining.

3) Belonginess and Love: affiliate with others, be accepted; and

Seducers, flatterers, hypocrites, thieves, evil counselors and falsifiers occupy the next area of Dante’s Hell. These are sins of deceit which betray the needs above which a concern for personal reputation would have made impossible in Hunter/Gatherer societies where everyone knew everybody else.

4) Esteem: to achieve, be competent, gain approval and recognition.

Treachery is the sin which causes people to occupy the lowest part of Dante’s Hell. This is a betrayal of the closest of personal bonds. Pretended esteem and then treason. Betrayal of the trust that others esteemed the traitor worthy of. Like most successful writers Dante had a good instinct for human nature. He arranged evil behaviors in terms of seriousness of their betrayal of human relationships. Betrayal of the self was the least evil, betrayal of casual acquaintances next and betrayal of the most serious bonds the most grievous sins. Writing from his heart he managed to closely parallel Maslow‘s hierarchy of needs. Human nature is constant through history. Dante’s sins all prevent the healthy satisfaction of Maslow’s Needs in ways that would be difficult or impossible to do in a hunter/gatherer society. They reflect a hunter/gatherer adapting through culture to an artificial environment.

Maslow’s Hierarchy also relates to the Declaration of Independence. Life and Liberty are included in the first 2 groups of needs, the Pursuit of Happiness in the last two.

Since Human Nature does not change rapidly, those things which are real Natural Rights must have existed long before the US and its doctrines of Natural Rights. They must exist in all previous times and all human history. They must be evident in the success of cultures which protected them in one form or another and evident in the failures of cultures which failed to protect them in one way or another.

To quote Aristotle in his Ethics, possibly his most famous general principal, “Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e. the mean relative to us, this being determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it. Now it is a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect; and again it is a mean because the vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while virtue both finds and chooses that which is intermediate. Hence in respect of its substance and the definition which states its essence virtue is a mean, with regard to what is best and right an extreme.”

The Principle for the State is that of Self-Preservation, violating those Natural Laws which create Natural Rights will create a weak population, a weak economy, and lead to the destruction of the State by stronger powers. The principle for the Citizen is that of Reciprocity or The Golden Rule, never give the state an authority over others you would not want it to have over you. Never let the state give other individuals or organizations an authority over others you would not want such organizations to have over you. Never claim a right over others that you would not want others to exercise over you. A Citizen’s Sovereignty is limited only by the Sovereignty of other Citizens. In order to protect his Sovereignty he must protect the Sovereignty, the legitimate Rights of others. Men must protect the rights of Women. Free Persons must insist that Slavery be illegal. Catholics must protect the free practice of religion of Protestants. The extremes are Citizens claiming personal authority to abuse others or allowing the State an authority to abuse its Citizens.