July 25, 2005
Response to DJ on Natural Rights
The post I made on natural rights stirred up some serious opposition, and from a very worthy adversary. Unlike past bouts, I’m not willing to cede defeat here. Below is a response to a post he wrote, in response to my post, and my counter was too long to relegate to a comment on either mine or his blogs. I suggest before you read below, you read my post again, as well as his response.
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DJ,
First, (and this is probably going to make you shake your head in disgust), I’m not following pure Hobbesian, Lockean, arguments. And the flat truth is because I haven’t read them. I actually read The Leviathan a long time ago, and thought Hobbes was full of it, because I believe that individuals and markets are much more efficient at solving the problems he brings up than central planning. But considering the times he lived in, before the great American experiment, I can see where he fit. I do, of course, need to read some Locke, to get a better sense of him.
As such, I specifically did not want to try to quote something like Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, and thus I think my use of the term “natural rights” might be a bit deceptive. For me, this post was my definition of natural rights, and the use of a “state of nature” was used as an illustration of man, as opposed to a literal idea of how wonderful things were before society formed.
My use of the term “state of nature” is one where there is unfettered liberty. That state is one where the right to life, liberty, and property ownership exist, but are limited to your own ability to protect those rights. In essence, by our current understanding of “rights”, there’s not much to them. Unfortunately, that liberty also includes the liberty to kill, steal, rape, pillage, etc etc. In reality, a true state of nature would be that Darwinian hellhole of “eat or be eaten”, or Hobbes view of life as “nasty, brutish, and short.” As you bring up, however, a “state of nature” doesn’t exist. From the earliest cavemen, there has been always some sort of cooperation/collusion, at least within a family or tribe. In addition, there were some sort of rules and customs by which disputes were settled. This wouldn’t necessarily be considered “government” by modern standards, but served that purpose. I certainly don’t see the “natural law” in the Lockean sense, although I do understand that reason and an understanding of human nature should result in government’s laws approaching what Locke would consider to be “natural law”. As it is said in the Declaration of Independence, men institute governments to protect these rights in a socialized manner, to ensure that the people unable to protect them on their own are not trampled.
In your post, you summarize my argument as such:
a) Humans fare best with natural rights
b) natural rights exist in the State of Nature, and so,
c) the best government is that which is closest to the State of Nature, i.e., the government which governs least governs best.
Where my argument differs is this:
a) Humans fare best in a condition where the rules of society is consistent with human nature.
b) Natural rights do not exist *on their own*, but are a construct used to understand human behavior.
c) The best government is the one that most closely balances the needs of society (protection of the weak and infirm, etc) with human nature, i.e. that work to protect natural rights
I don’t believe, a priori, that the government that governs best governs least. It is my understanding from what I have seen of human nature, from what I have seen of collectivism, that leads me to this point. It is my study of human history which reveals that freedom in both personal matters and markets tend to lead to both amazing growth in the standard of living as well as increased personal liberty and civil rights.
By natural rights, I talk of life, liberty, and property rights. I do so for several reasons. Life is self-explanatory, as a government that does not respect (and protect) your right to life is a government shirking its primary responsibility. The other two, however, are less simple. A government that doesn’t respect the rights of property is also not respecting the right of liberty. A simple part of liberty is the right to do what you will with what is yours. A government that controls your means of obtaining and using income, likewise controls the primary method of liberty that an individual has, his own pocketbook. The only check on the liberty of what you do with your own personal property is when what you choose to do with your property harms the life, liberty, or property rights of others.
FYI, the right of property is not limited to, or contingent upon, the right to own land. Property rights, in the sense I support, certainly include property ownership. But a general reading of “property rights” is not constrained as such. You mention hunter-gatherer societies, where much more thought is given to “shared territory” than land ownership. But I would say that in that society, if another member steals your teepee, you’re going to get pissed. If you’re both threatened by a bear, and your cohort has no spear and you have only one, you aren’t necessarily going to give yours to him. There is a natural human desire for ownership, regardless of the society in which one lives. That may not be land ownership, but I would say that the concept of ownership is as old as humanity itself. I think that land ownership, in a modern society (last time I checked, we’re not hunter-gatherers), is highly important.
Natural rights doctrine, at least to me, is not the firm philosophical construct that it might be to a Locke or Rousseau. For me, natural rights is a way of explaining what I see around me, as the theory of natural selection was Darwin’s explanation of the wonders he saw in the Galapagos. Natural rights is a way of looking at societies across the world that have succeeded and failed, and asking what the common threads have been. And I’d say that government being a protector of live, liberty, and property rights is crucial. In some cases (such as current Europe), they are pushing a third way, democratic socialism. I personally believe that this will end up biting them in the ass, as they acheive a wonderful equality while watching investment and jobs flee their countries. The question of laissez-faire capitalism versus democratic socialism may not be completely settled as of yet, but we’re getting there. And democratic socialism typically occurs in countries that were built on strong foundations of life, liberty, and property rights, and still hold mild foundations of private property rights. As opposed to places like Zimbabwe, anyway.
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Nicely written. I think there’s some notable hypocrisy in the typical leftist response to natural rights (not sure yet, since I haven’t read it, whether DJ’s post contains this hypocrisy, or not).
1. The typical leftist illustration of how good socialism is by hypothesizing 100 people marooned on an island. This is no different from the Lockean “state of nature” argument. If you don’t accept the state of nature argument then the 100 people on an island argument is not valid.
2. Falling back on hunter/gatherer or agrarian societies to try and prove “how things should work” is a total cop out. We do not live in such societies, we cannot live in such societies and the left has spent years idealizing them into something they are not. The reality, according to the archaelogy I’ve read, is that the North American aborigines had solid concepts of property ownership. It may not have been land, but it existed, as you point out. And, in many cases, it was land.
Well, this is much better. If you think property rights ought to exist because a society works better that way than if it didn’t have property rights, I can respect that as a difference of opinion and not a faulty argument. My beef was with the idea of the State of Nature and the idea of ‘natural laws’ outside of those of physics and chemistry, et al. If you concede that natural rights are a construct and not, say, a divine birthright, I think we have sufficient common ground to call this a cease-fire, even though we disagree about how a society would work best. Just call them something other than ‘natural rights.’ (As I was explaining to someone about this tonight, I prefer to think of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly ‘good ideas’ as opposed to inalienable rights, since they are clearly alienable.)
However, some small distinctions remain:
a) Between ‘use’ and ‘ownership’ (a.k.a. exclusive title);
b) Between governments’ responsibilities toward protecting an individual life and protecting individual’s lives–is every death under every regime a breakdown of governmental responsibility? Is a government allowed to choose to save many lives at the cost of sacrificing fewer? How much ought a government do to stave off the untimely demise of its citizens? (I recall you saying there was no ‘right’ to healthcare, for example);
c) Between “is consistent with” and “closely balances the needs of society with” human nature.
…and most importantly to me, d) between ‘democratic socialism’ and ’social democracy.’ Perhaps this isn’t a big deal to you, but as a democratic socialist, I bristle at European countries being called socialist when they’re actually social democracies (the way many Communists bristled at the state capitalism of, say, China being called Communist). Without delving too deeply, true democratic socialism has never been attempted, while social democracy (e.g. the welfare state and so forth) is much more popular, but retains the essential struggle between the interests of the wealthy and the entitlement programs necessitated by these countries’ capitalist mode of production and subsequent inequalities.
If you want to hear an alternative account of how American and European prosperity functions, you should check out Emmanuel Wallerstein’s world-systems theory and its concepts of ‘core’ and ‘periphery.’ It’ll change your whole outlook. Don’t bother with Locke unless you’re interested in his influence on our legal and political traditions.
By the way, Eric, since you didn’t bother reading my post, I won’t bother responding to your strawman arguments.