Is it, in fact, a human right to NOT get beheaded for child rape and murder?
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-43639120091103
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What are human rights? Where do they come from? Who (what) has them? Do they exist? How and in what way? Who or what can NOT violate them? In what circumstances can they be violated? Or is it ever "proper" to "violate" a human right? Would it rather be correct to articulate a right in such a way as to not include within its scope acts that would otherwise be called "proper violation" of a human right.
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"Life" seems to be a fairly well agreed on human right, and yet it also seems to be fairly well agreed that soldiers can violate this right in war. What do we make of this?
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
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6 comments:
I was just thinking about this same topic the other day! Reason being is that my coworker said, "I can't believe that we haven't come to the conclusion that basic healthcare is just a fundamental human right."
Like most statements like that, it sounds nice, fun, and happy go lucky good. But then when you think about it you realize how such a statement is quite an assertion, perhaps even a way too broad statement.
I am not even sure what human rights are or if they exist. I know if they do exist then we certainly don't protect them because people are doing terrible things to each other throughout the world, all the time. We simply give them lip service.
I would have to disagree with my coworker that any service to be provided by someone else, say the government providing health care is ever a "basic human right." I think it has got to be more fundamental to personhood and individuals than say what would be good for us as a society to decide to do (like us deciding that basic medical care provided to everyone would be good for society, I think you are hard pressed to have someone disagree with this end, simply they disagree on the means.)
However, if I had to choose a few human rights I would go with Lockes right to life, to liberty, and to pursuit of personal property. (Funny how property was changed to happiness in America's version.) Whatever would be a human right though, it should be continually expanded. We should have a few very important human rights that we jealously guard. Just like other Constitutional rights just get expanded out (see privacy expanded to abortion) we should be careful to keep human rights very basic to what it means to be a human and not just expand them to our definition of what we should be doing as a society(providing certain types of services to individuals).
last paragraph should say "not continually expanded"
As far as the soldier example, I don't think that just because the right is not inviolable doesn't mean its not a basic human right. I mean the terrorist who battles the soldier still has a basic human right to live, its just that his actions cause another to kill him. For example, if you think humans have an inherent right to be free, to have "liberty" then that could be a basic human right. But that doesn't mean that if we lock someone up we are violating a human right. It just depends on the means by which we go about locking him up. That is we have to follow due process, guarding that basic human right as zealously as we can throughout the processes that will eventually take away the right. This perhaps means in your soldier example that nations need more restrictive means to declare war or to put troops in other countries or some other process that tries to zealously protect human life in all forms. But it doesn't mean that "life" itself is not a fundamental right.
Caleb, can you explain why the "means" (use of due process) of locking a person up determines whether the basic human right of freedom is or is not violated?
Well I suppose the human right will always be violated. I guess I just dont think that is wrong in some cases....
I think if freedom is a human right, we still have to have a society that will lock ppl up. If life is a basic human right, i wouldnt have a problem living in a society that killed convicted rapists etc... Maybe that means I dont value human rights as some ppl? Or that I believe punishment for the breaking of human rights is to take away human rights?
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