| richardhutnik said: Actually, if you follow the reasoning of Locke, then rights are inalienable things given to humanity by God. It is not something that is given by anyone, but something that comes with being human. Of course, if one wants to define ethics in a context beyond rights, then you get freed of all the limitations and weaknesses of right based ethics systems. Right-based ethics systems do a poor job of prioritizing, because it will often come down to the person who fights the strongest getting what they want. Individuals who maybe shouldn't be harmed, who fail to defend themselves, get overrun. |
Well, being an atheist, I'm not all that concerned with Locke's opinion. But even if you believe that there are inalienable rights "given by god", I don't think any reasonable person is going to claim that the right to an attorney is a right "given by god". The rights I talk about are the ones given by society. The more elementary rights can be seen rather obviously to be inherent in the basic survival of society, and thus could be explained by logic, by religion, or by sociology - doesn't really matter, they're elementary in any case.
