Are Human Beings Endowed with Objectively Identifiable Unalienable Rights?

Steven Cord

[Reprinted from Equal Rights, January, 1995]

Everyone has rights, but something more than mere assertion is required to provide proof, moral proof.

Moral proof is purely logical because it deals with general moral principle and is therefore completely unrelated to particular circumstances. Thus, empirical data is irrelevant to moral proofs, although it is completely relevant to the application of general moral principle to particular circumstances. We can't go from "is" to "ought."

We do not turn to moral philosophers for proper applications; rather we turn to politicians, economists, psychologists, etc. depending on the circumstances of the application. Since they are empirical experts for their specialty, they should know these empirical circumstances best. Moral philosophers can only help us determine general moral principles or goals (not means).

Let us now see what general moral principle can be proven:

• We should be consistent. Only then can we convey meaning. "This is white and it is black" is meaningless because it is internally inconsistent; a grunt would have as much significance.
  
• We should be accurate. Consistency requires it. Our statements about objective reality ("that which exists without our thinking about it") should be consistent with that objective reality. "The Eiffel Tower is in Florence" is inaccurate and inconsistent.
  
• We should treat reality as it is (according to the best evidence available and as an end in itself). Both consistency and accuracy require it; we can't be consistent and accurate otherwise.
  
• We have the right to be free to treat people as they are. "We have the right to be free" means "we should." People are an important aspect of reality. Surely, if we should do something, we have the right to be free to do it.
  
• Our right to be free is limited by the equal rights of others. This is a re-statement of the fourth principle above, since other people have the same right to be free as we do; that's how "they are." "We" is everybody -- not only you and I but the people we're treating.
  
• Our right to fife is limited by the equal right of others. We can't be free if we're not alive, and all others can make the same moral claim.
  
• Our right to property is limited by the equal right of others. If we have the right to be free, then we have the right to exert ourselves to satisfy our material desires -- i.e., we have the right to our labor, and what our labor can produce. If I morally own something, then I can sell it to you and you can morally buy and own it. Labor is therefore the only way to justify the ownership of private property.
  
• Land cannot be morally owned since it is not the product of labor. But since we must own land in order to securely own the buildings and other things on it, then morally, let there be private ownership of land, but let the landowner pay for his privilege by a tax based on the value of his landownership.
  
  This will be economically advantageous: all parcels of land will be efficiently used (within rational zoning regulations), thereby creating jobs and lowering prices, and the income from a land value tax could replace socialist taxes on labor and enterprises. Why should I (as a tax recipient) be allowed to share in your labor and property?
  
  
• The duty of government is to defend the equal rights of individuals. If individuals have rights, then it is the dutyof government to defend those rights; no other agency can be as effective in doing so.

Answering Objections

• "We all have a different view of reality." True, but irrelevant. Either we should treat reality as it is, according to the best evidence available, or we shouldn't, quite irrespective of what our view of it is.
  
• "Rights and duties can conflict; certainly we should lie to save a fife." We certainly should, because a life is more important than a lie; the right to life takes precedence over the duty to tell the truth (i.e., to treat reality as it is). Some rights and duties are more important and inclusive than outers.
  
• "Don't we have a duty to help others?'' Generally no -- why should other people's needs limit our right to be free? But there are exceptions, as when government is not present and we must act as the government in defending the rights of the oppressed.
  
  Take the case of Kitty Genovese. Early one morning in 1964, she was returning to her home in Queens, N.Y. when she was brutally attacked by a mugger. Neighbors heard her hour-long cries but did nothing; they didn't even call the police. They were morally reprehensible because there was no government at that time and place; they were the government there and then and they neglected their responsibility.
  
• "Logic is not the only source of truth; empirics and emotion are also sources of truth." Yes and no: logic is the sole source of moral truth, but consistency and accuracy are sources of descriptive or epistemologjcal truth, and the audience's emotion is the sole basis for aesthetic truth.
  
  If you're describing particular circumstances in objective reality, then you want to be consistent in order to convey meaning; you should be empirically accurate.
  
  When I prefer Beethoven to Bach, I say more about my own emotions than about these composers. Aesthetic beauty is in the emotions of the audience, not in die object. It is purely subjective. I cannot prove that a particular object is beautiful or not; I cannot speak for you. Aesthetic truth is only the sincere expression of one's own emotional reaction to the beauty or ugliness of objects.
  
• "Isn't it arrogant to say that you can determine moral truth for others?" No: First, this is an ad hominem argument and therefore invalid; second, if the above set of principles above is true, then so be it; third, we are all the time determining moral truth for others, as when we punish criminals; fourth, isn't it more arrogant to say that what we wish to do is moral because we wish it?
  
• "Moral truth is a matter of personal opinion only." No: See the principles above; this objection can't be proven. It is only Kant, or cant. After all, it asserts that there are no other standards for moral truth by which this moral assertion can be proven; thus, it cannot possibly be proven.
  
  But - "A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still "