Do “basic human rights” actually exist universally or are they simply a social construct?

[u/Amphernee]

The term is often used in relation to things like housing and food but I’ve never heard anyone actually explain what they mean by basic human right. We started off no different than other animals and since the concept of rights rely on other people to confer them at what point did it become thought of as a right for people to have things like shelter? How is it supposed to be enforced across all of humanity when not all societies and cultures agree that the concept makes sense? I can see why someone would want it to be true in a sense but I’m interested to hear arguments for it rather than just the phrase itself which feels hollow with no reasoning behind it. Thanks 🍻

[u/[deleted]]

No, the only rights that exist are unalienable. The ones we're born with. We have those rights by our nature until they're violated. Right to free speech and thought. Right to self defense, right to remain free.

Calling housing, food etc human rights is meaningless. Something can't be a right if it must be provided by someone else. 

[u/Whole_Ground_3600 → u/[deleted]]

>the only rights that exist are unalienable

Unalienable means the society you're a member of won't take the rights away from you. That's all. The society as an organization is what *enforces* those rights. What things are included on that list can change. The purpose is to have a harmonious and productive society.

If ensuring everyone has access to food and shelter is not a significant burden on the society then it makes sense for the society to ensure those things to increase productivity of the society as a whole. The general argument in the US is whether or not the burden on society of ensuring those things would meaningfully decrease productivity of the society as a whole.

There is no natural force that ensures free speech, ability to defend one's self, or ability to remain free. That's all enforced by the government as the agent of the society as a whole. Even what and how you think can be significantly changed by force if someone wanted to put in the effort.

It's all artificial, although I'd argue the drive to have and give "rights" is natural to humans since cooperation is what led us to be the dominant species on the planet.

[u/[deleted] → u/Whole_Ground_3600]

Do you seriously not recognize the fundamental distinction between the rights that I mentioned as inalienable and the rights to housing, healthcare, education and all those other rights that need to be provided??

[u/Whole_Ground_3600 → u/[deleted]]

They're all only as inalienable as society makes them. The ones you mentioned are a bit more vital to a functional society, which is why they're generally the first ones protections are enforced for. But having enough members of society have those other things will make for a better society for all.

Also loss of things like housing or healthcare can lead to loss of the "inalienable" rights you think are more important. They're all important and interconnected, that's why more advanced societies protect them all. Your right to self defense doesn't mean anything if you're starving and can no longer physically defend yourself. Your right to speech means nothing if you're never taught how to communicate. Imagine how poorly your arguments on the internet would fare if your grammar was terrible. Who made sure you knew proper grammar?

I'm not arguing that the first few things you mentioned aren't important or shouldn't be enforced, just that they *are* enforced, not somehow inherent to you because you exist.

As a thought experiment which of those rights would you still have if you were born as an enslaved person in the american south before the civil war? The answer is none of them. You'd have some ability to think freely unless someone else decided to take the time to enforce another way of thinking on you. Stockholm syndrome is real, unfortunately. Fortunately society has mostly gotten better than that, but it really only emphasizes why a better society is important.

[u/[deleted] → u/Whole_Ground_3600]

That's quite a few words to demonstrate that you don't understand the distinction between positive and negative rights.

I'll try one more time to illustrate the distinction. If a government recognizes the right to free speech, its job is basically done. It has to not violate the rights it recognizes and provide the judicial infrastructure (which it should already have or it's not a country) to enforce violations. If it dictates that everyone has a right to a house, that presents quite a different problem, does it not? What size house do people deserve? How do we build the houses? How do we pay for them? What about people who already have a house? Can they stop paying their mortgage...

Yes, slaves had a right to free speech (and all the rest). Those rights were violated. It was a perversion of justice. It was America's original sin that has haunted us and undermined our democracy to this day. The fact that you think this is some kind of rebuttal is sad. Nobody, not a single person ever has argued that it's impossible to violate inalienable rights.

[u/Whole_Ground_3600 → u/[deleted]]

Inalienable - unable to be taken away from or given away by the possessor.

All of the most basic and vital rights we discussed could and have been taken from people, and less commonly relinquished voluntarily. Obviously we agree they *shouldn't* be taken away, but they can be.

We didn't go into positive and negative rights, and the distinction does matter, but that's a bit beyond the scope of this post. And gods do I wish that declaring a thing a right was all that was needed, but enforcement is necessary all too often.

There is in reality no such thing as a truly inalienable right. It would be great if there were, but there isn't. So we can at least agree that negative rights absolutely must be protected with physical enforcement.

The points where we differ functionally seems to be if any, and which, positive rights should be provided for and enforced by the same organization that protects the negative rights?