Are Natural Rights a Fiction?

And I disagreed with this. The audience disagreed with this. And so you're out there on your own. Fair enough. Uh, yeah, I think this is one of those scenarios where you know, not to get pedantic, but we have to uh talk about what we mean by natural rights. Uh, but ultimately I think that traditional societies tend to be duty-based. They tend to understood that first and foremost it's about this roles that we're fulfilling in the society and what we're creating. If you go back and read something like Fastel de Collange's uh uh The Ancient City, one of the fascinating things about that book that he talks about is the emergence of property rights in Indo-European cultures. And what he says is that the reason that you got property rights was not that there was some idea that you had the right to economically exchange your land.

In fact, it was exactly the opposite. The reason that property rights emerged was that the ancient burial rights were based on this ancestor worship before the Romans adopted the pantheon. And the idea of ancestor worship was you had this plot of land, and when your parents died, you buried them there, and you had to bring them food and water and other sacrifices. And if you didn't, they would just like waste away in the afterlife in misery. And so the reason you had property rights is you needed to be able to go back to that plot of land, because if you didn't go to that specific plot of land and make that specific sacrifice, your family would waste away in the afterlife, and that was your duty. And so the right of property emerged from the duty of religious worship and flew uh piety. And so if you do not have that precondition of duty, then the rights don't emerge.

So it's not that I don't think rights exist, but the idea that there's a universal right, that there's a universal human right, is a historical. Those rights are grounded in specific specific societies and traditions. That's where they emerge from. And when we remove them from that binding, we end up in, I think the universal, you know, liberalism we find ourselves in today, which is so dangerous. So I think rights exist, but they exist in a very specific bounded context. And I think they tend to emerge from duties more than some kind of abstract imposition, you know, some metaphysical existence of the right by itself that applies to every human everywhere. So I can understand that perspective. You know, I was very torn on this answer myself, actually. And part of why I said that I ultimately, you know, disagree with this, it's it's kind of maybe a weak answer, but maybe it's also the strongest answer, which is I just feel it in my gut that it's true.

Uh, you know, and came to you in a dream. It came to me in a dream. Yeah. Well, it's like uh I I I don't remember. We had one of our our our previous speakers, it was probably Travis Corcoran gave the quote, which I'd heard before, you know, that that you know all models are wrong, but some are useful. That's right. And I, you know, that's sort of how I I feel about this one. You know, are natural rights real? You know, I I can kind of see both sides of that one, but I sure want to believe that they are. You know, like I feel better when they are. Uh, you know, I seem to, you know, this idea that, you know, I that because you know, I I and we'll and we'll talk about your you know, free speech and voluntary exchange and some of these things that people you know regard as natural rights. And and I agree that, you know, what's a right can get fuzzy.

To me, a right is like something like a a universal, universalizable moral ought, you know. Um, and so therefore, uh, you know, um uh it's uh well therefore you have to return the shopping cart. You know, it's just it's you're not you have a natural right to the only problem is that Kant is wrong. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I this this this does rapidly sort of get like metaphysical, uh, you know, what does it mean for for something to be real? But to me, uh stripping away the idea of natural rights and encouraging people to believe that they're fictional fiction, uh even as someone who has atheistic tendencies, it feels a little bit like encouraging atheism where it's like, well, this isn't gonna make anything better. And now you can't run for office. John Locke was very clear. Oh, I've never, I'm already I'm already bugged for it.

Especially this channel. You yell at too many FBI agents online. That's right. I just influenced the elected officials through podcasts. Uh, which is why they're all in the audience. Uh so uh yeah, I you know, I just I think I think society is better off. And maybe I'm making a consequentialist argument here when when this is a uh we're asking about realism, but like I do, I just think we're better off. And yeah, we do say that the they are real, you know. Uh and and can I prove that they're real? No. But but when I but they are, you know, we're just like again, I'm not I'm not making probably the best like epistemological argument here, but like I do think this is kind of the best argument. It's like, yeah, they're real. Uh prove it. No, they just are. So again, so the funny thing is I agree with you as long as we are contextualizing it in our society, right?

When when when Thomas Jefferson says all men are created equal and endowed with these rights, and like this is self-evident, is it self-evident to like random guys hiding in caves in Afghanistan? Yeah, no, right? It's it's it's it's self-evident to people of a particular uh tradition. So it is in no way surprising to me that you just feel that it's because those are the rights of an Englishman. When we're talking about is the rights of an Englishman, the rights that were in the English uh Bill of Civil Rights. That's what the American founders were fighting for. They were not fighting for some abstract, universal uh French version of rights. They were fighting for a very specific right they felt they were due because of their heritage, their lineage, their beliefs, right? And so I I'm not I'm not saying there are no rights.

That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm simply saying that those are historically contingent, they are bound in a tradition and a people and a way of life. And so I would never I I agree with you 100%. It's better if we as Americans walk around and say we have a right to the Second Amendment. We just do. And you know why the Second Amendment is the is probably the most defended right in America? Because it's the one we actually practice. It's the one we actually insist upon, no matter what people say or do. It doesn't matter what laws get written, we have a second amendment right and we believe that deep in our souls. That's what makes it a right. It's not it's not some transcendent right that's gifted to people in China. Good luck, right? It's a right here in America because we are Americans.

It's our right, it's not a universal human right. It's Americans' rights. And they're real, but they're real in the American context and the American tradition. Yeah, I I uh I'm I'm gonna take uh you know moderator privilege here and get the last word because I'm about to say uh but it does feel like you know and part of the reason I I I I want to believe the real is well, if they're not real, where do they come from? Because the the other alternative starts to, you know, rights come from the government, and I think that's also you know the idea that my the I only have a right to bear arms because of the American government or because of the Constitution, uh you know, I think that's like a questionable it it's not clear where we get to you know through that kind of lens and that we get to you know that we get to a better place.

You want to do free speech or the constitution next?