by Matt Barr

Rights are not laws of nature

After an interesting exchange with Jon Henke last night (see previous entry), today Dale Franks weighs in, also on Q & O:

In nature, the physical world operates according to a number of self-enforcing laws. We derive the law of gravity, even though we can't see, touch, smell or taste gravity, because we observe the effect of gravity on other objects. We don't fall up. Objects don't spontaneously hover. But we note that gravity has specific, predictable effects.

If rights are natural, then why do they not arise spontaneously? Indeed, for rights to even exist for any appreciable amount of time, they have to be reinforced with a massive hedge of social, legal, and political buttresses. We employ thousands of individuals as police, lawyers, judges, and politicians. That seems to be a pretty complex life support system for something that's natural....

Let's say you and I lived in a state of nature. What stops me from killing you? You have no recourse to the protection of the law. No community of fellow citizens who are pledged to protect you. There's just you and me in the forest, and I don't want you there. Where are your rights now? What protection do they afford you?

What you have is the ability to defend yourself. If you're lucky, the fear of your ability to protect yourself might deter me. It might not. But the only thing that keeps me from killing you and taking your possessions is your ability to defend yourself. Your "right" to live is irrelevant. The only "rights" you have in nature are those you can secure for yourself by force. Your "rights" certainly won't prevent me from bashing you over the head with a rock.

Franks is right as far as he goes, but I would change the question to this: Suppose he and a woman (of his choice, perhaps) lived in a state of nature. What prevents him then from beating her over the head with a rock and killing her? It's not chivalry, by the way.

Rights, as I argued last night, are (1) matters of choice, in that I may choose to exercise them or not, and (2) susceptible to suppression. If rights weren't those things, they would be... well, physical laws, like gravity. That something can be suppressed or disparaged does not prove it's not a natural right, it goes toward proving it is a right, and not a law with "specific, predictable effects."

Franks writes of "suppression of free speech," and is correct that that right is protected by "social, legal and political buttresses." Imagine though that the First Amendment didn't say "Congress shall make no law... abridging freedom of speech," but rather said "All citizens of the United States shall speak their minds." Do we now have a right to free speech, or an obligation? The latter: a "right" must be something we can choose to exercise or not.

Imagine again that you and Franks live alone in an impenetrable state of nature. Do you two have the "right" not to be interfered with by outsiders? That would be a nonsensical formulation -- you can't be interefered with. Everyone else is in another state (Ohio, perhaps). That's not a right, either -- rights can be infringed upon. That doesn't prove they're not rights, it goes toward identifying them as rights.

In sum, something I probably didn't make as clear as I could last night: A right is a right in part because others can infringe upon it. Your right is standing to say "you ought not do that," and be objectively correct -- whether because the laws say so, you have five bigger people than Franks in your state of nature with him, or because -- as I argued last night -- as a consequence of being born human, it is imperative to the prosperity of the species that your right not be infringed.

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