The concept of natural rights is a topic that I have wanted to address for some time now. It all started when my friend Jacob Hedegaard challenged me to address the rational behind the concept without referring to a deity in the end as the source for the natural rights. The quick and dirty definition of natural rights is the right that human beings have that are not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and therefore universal and inalienable. Therefor natural rights are something that any given person can claim regardless their status in society. Some examples of classical natural rights would be ‘The right to not be enslaved’ and ‘ The right to not be killed’. Natural rights in contrast to legal rights should always be stated as negative rights because only then can they truly be universal and not contingent upon others. For example, if we sad that ‘All human being has a right to life’ instead for ‘the right not to be killed’, then it would be implicit that society then should preserve every human beings life or else they would violet their rights.
In an effort to answer the question of where human beings does get those rights, philosophers tent to end up by pointing to either a deity or some type of social contract. But do we need a deity to argue for natural rights? Well Murray Rothbard tried to solve this “problem” by pointing too property rights. He’s reasoning goes to something like this: ‘I own my own body, and therefor it would be theft to either kill or enslave me’. At first glance, this only postpone the question to ‘Why do you own your own body?’ or to ‘Whom have given you your body?’ To the question of why Rothbard would say that ‘I own my own body because I am inalienable from my own body’. To the question of who bestowed human beings their body we again end up at either a deity or at Nature, and therefore not solving the dilemma.
The reason for why we can’t solve this dilemma of the need of a deity, I believe, is because we deliberate the issue of natural rights as an ontology issue. When rights are analysed as an ontology issue rights become an object that can be transferred between subjects. One individual can give some rights to another individual. This might be the affirmative way of addressing rights when we are talking about legal rights, where society, thought the laws, provides individuals with rights. Therefore, I suggest that natural rights should not be considered form an ontological point of view but rather from an epistemological point of view. By doing this, natural rights become a matter of knowledge, a matter of something that can be judged to be either true or false. And we don’t need a deity to enlighten us with what is true and right, and therefore neither what our natural rights are.
An epistemological reasoning for natural rights could be something like this:
‘I am a human being’
‘I find it to be true that I have the right not to be killed’
‘Therefor I find it to be true that all human beings have the right not to be killed.’
This post is inspired by a reason debate on the Mises Scholars list about ‘is money a consumer or producer good? Or does it fall into a third category?’ which has gotten me thinning about: What IS money? This is not a question that allows an easy answer, and probably something I need to address again in following posts. But for now, we can look at money in two basic ways: Money is either a physical object produced either by man or by nature. Or money is an immaterial object that serves specific objective in human society. If we first contemplate money as an immaterial object then the question is: What specific objective does money serve in human society? – I would argue; and so would Marshal McLuhan, Murray Rothbard, and Ludwig von Mises, that money is the medium in which human communicates value. In this view money is, despite its physical representation, a form of language in which human society coordinate the individual consideration of value and what is valuable. Then, the answer to the opening question then would be that money is neither a consumer nor producer good, since it is a medium for human communication. But, what happens when money takes a physical form; for example, as a gold coin? First, we get an elucidate distancing between what is and what isn’t money. Secondly, when money takes a physical form, then whatever material chosen would have alternative uses and therefor there will be a trade of between that uses as money and endless alternatives, in it self is this an economical determination. But since the physical characteristics of money do not change the role that money plays in the economy, the physical form becomes irrelevant for our examination of what money is. What is important though is what role money plays within the economy and the production of goods? William Barnett II and Walter Block Argue in their paper ‘Money: Capital Good, Consumers’ Good, or (Media of) Exchange Good?’ that since money provides value to the production process itself, but starting it, we should consider money to be a producers’ good. If that were true then would it not also be equally true that language then also is a producers’ good, since one individual would use language to communicate the desirer of transfer value, as money, to another in exchange of a good? Without knowing it I am sure that both Mr Barnett II and Mr Block would Concord with me in the considering that to be absurd. If the conclusion that money is the signal that the market sends to the producer that it requires more goods produced and therefor is money not connected directly to the production process, is not satisfying then I am sorry, but it is the best I can do right now, but I am sure that I will advert to the question of what money is, later.
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