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.’
So Christmas is just around the corner, which means that millions of people the world over will be exchanging gifts. This has made me wonder, what constitutes a really good gift? If we look at the good gift from an economical point of view, it seems to me that all good gifts have at least one thing in common: A Good gift is more valuable for the receiver then for the giver of the gift. If person A goes out and buy something, for himself, he would evaluate the price of the product and compare it to his own evaluation of the product. We do this everyday, and it is second nature for most people regarding most products. But, the picture changes immediately after person A is going to find the perfect gift to person B. Now he can’t use his own evaluation of the products value since he now just acts as the middleman in the transaction between the sell and person B. Therefor he is forced to try an anticipate how person B will evaluate the value of the product and if that value is higher or lower than the actual price of the product. Since it is a gift, and the content of gifts are normally intended to be a secret he cannot just ask for the information from person B, so he is left with two options: either he can ask for a wishing list or use his imagination and risk not being able to anticipate the needs of Person B. These two different approaches to the art of gift buying are roughly comparable to two different approaches to how a company does product development. It can either do an existence market research, the wish list, or the company can approach the market as an entrepreneur and look for the gift that is equivalent to the creative destruction of the gift-giving-market. Another perspective, of the perfect gift, is how the gift is a medium in a communication between the giver and the receiver. The gift tells the receiver different things, such as how well the giver knows her. Finding the perfect gift is all about information and market signals. The more information the giver has about the receiver, the greater the chance is that he will be able to find that perfect gift. Creating some common rule for all gift-giving scenarios is of course, imposable but I would suggest that this year everyone should challenge him or herself and ignore the wish list, try something new and look for that perfect gift that will create more value for the receiver then what they paid for it.
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