Quote of the Day!

"The world needs open hearts and open minds, and it is not through rigid systems, whether old or new, that these can be derived."

-Bertrand Russell, from the Preface of "Why I am Not A Christian and Other Essays on Religion" (published in 1957)

Michael Shermer Lecture "Why People Believe Weird Things"

I had the pleasure of attending a lecture by Michael Shermer at the University of Toronto last week and thought I would post the shorter more concise version of the talk that is posted on ted.com. He is a wonderful speaker because he talks like the audience is a group of close friends and brings some passion and life to talks that can sometimes be, well, boring. Click here for a profile on Michael Shermer. Enjoy!

CFI Lecture: Human Rights as a Modern Myth

I went to another CFI lecture back in April called "The Modern Myth of Human Rights" with David Stamos, a professor of Philosophy at York University. The title of this lecture really struck a chord with me as I plan to pursue a career/further education in the specific field of Human Rights. And if, as he suggests in the title of his talk, they do not exist, they are a delusion and a myth, then what am I doing with my life? After thinking about this for awhile, I started to hypothesize what Mr. Stamos would talk about in his lecture and I thought I knew what he would argue. However, as you will see, I left the lecture feeling as though he was just lost in semantics.


Here is a summary of the lecture:

• There are two types of 'rights': conventional rights which are man-made and can be given and taken away, usually by governments and institutions. Since there is no world government or institution there are therefore no universal human conventional rights. The second kind is natural rights which are rights people are born with and which cannot be given or taken away. This is the type of rights people are talking about when they refer to universal human rights (rights one has because they are a human being).


• We see written examples of these natural universal human rights in such documents as the Declaration of Independence (all men are born equal; rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; equal and inalienable rights of the human family) and then later on in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (right to marry, join unions, free education, freedom of religion, etc.). We see an obvious increase in details about what exactly constitutes a human right. So, what is a human right and who decides what is and what is not?


• The idea of universal human rights stems from memetics, meaning the spread of cultural ideas. Ideas have us, we don't have them. One example of a meme complex would be religion as well as universal human rights. Just like religion, human rights are a virus of the mind, a mass delusion.


• To explain this, look at our cultural history. Do we see universal human rights in Plato, Aristotle, the Bible, etc? Not really, in these works men are seen as higher up than women, there was human slavery and on and on. (Here, Mr. Stamos proceeded to give many examples from the Bible illustrating violations of supposed universal human rights - rape, murder, etc.)
  
• We first see the idea of universal human rights in literature during the European Enlightenment of the late 1600's. Thomas Locke was the first to write about life, liberty and property and that men are all born equal (obviously a huge influence on Jefferson). The idea of universal human rights was born (invented) in a particular culture at a particular time: 17th century Europe. However, we somehow all believe that other cultures 'discovered' human rights on their own and this is what is called presentism. Presentism basically means looking at history through a present-day lens and seeing what we want to see. This arises from wishful thinking, ethnocentrism and gerrymandering (picking and choosing certain ideas or passages for a particular purpose).


• An example of presentism and ethnocentrism in relation to the idea of human rights is the notion that Syrus the Great (539 BC Persian philosopher) was the first real proponent of human rights. However, he was actually a proponent of conventional human rights, ones that can be given and taken away (by a government or institution). This is an example of viewing the past, and historical figures, through a modern day 'universal human rights' lens.


• The meme complex of 'universal human rights' piggybacked on the meme complex of 'democracy' during the Enlightenment.


• What are human rights and how many are there? Anyone can claim anything is their inherent right, for example a bodybuilder saying that using steroids is their innate human right.


• Humans are 1 of millions of species on the planet, so why do we have rights and not the others?


• When did human rights begin? Did neanderthals have human rights? What is a human and what is a person?


• Universal human rights comes from 'creationism' and 'essentialism', the idea that God created everyone equal.


• Basically, universal human rights talk is arbitrary.


• So, what are we to do if we give up the idea of universal human rights? Well, one alternative is "negative utilitarianism". Utilitarianism is the maximization of happiness and pleasure which John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham propounded. These men were social reformers who called the idea of natural human rights "nonsense upon stilts". Peter Singer introduced the idea of "negative utilitarianism" meaning minimizing pain and suffering and not just for humans. He suggests that people can fight for minimizing pain and suffering without claiming universal human rights are being violated (ie. sweatshops, women's oppression, etc.). If you make injustice visible to the world you can fight it, simply based on the ideas of empathy and sympathy.
• All sentient beings are morally equal, meaning humans and animals.
• He is not offering any concrete solutions here, just offering another way of looking at things. The key here is to promote and encourage critical thinking.

Now, admittedly, I came to this lecture already a little upset and prepared to defend 'human rights' to the end. However, as I sat there listening to this man talk I saw the benefit of listening to someone with opinions different from my own. It is true that many lectures at CFI are given by people who think and believe the exact same things as the attendees and it is more of a display of mutual praise and pats on the back. Of all the main tenets of CFI, including secularism and humanism, I think the absolute most important is 'freethought' (a fancier word for critical thinking). This center is the supposed hub of the freethought movement and with this lecture that statement was true. I really enjoyed being challenged and offered a different perspective. That is essentially my main impetus for creating this blog, and for that I thank David Stamos for his lecture.

Here are the things that him and I agree on: universal human rights are a modern invention. They were cemented into modern history with the creation of the United Nations and are continuously adjusted. Universal human rights are a list that a group of people wrote one day and that people have since clung to in order to justify or condemn certain actions or behaviour. People can claim property because it is their 'right', they can claim a woman because it is their 'right', they can sell drugs, beat their kids, walk around naked, etc. because it is their innate human right.

Why are humans so privileged? Who says we are born with any rights at all? When we come out of the womb, is there a letter in our tiny hand informing everyone of our inherent human rights (I will cry as loud and as long as I want, it is my right) ? We are championing and throwing around these words in order to justify anything and everything.

With that said, the human rights movement has been an incredible galvanizer for good (gay rights movement, women's suffrage, etc.). So here is where we come to the points that Mr. Stamos and I disagree on:

Mr. Stamos outlined the many instances in the Bible where obvious human rights were being violated. Passage after passage he read aloud trying to prove a point, however I don't think it was made. Obviously, in that time (2000 years ago) there were many violations of what people today call 'human rights'. And it is those exact instances throughout our history as a people (slavery, imperialism, war, torture) and in the culmination of World War I and World War II that we finally said enough and created a statute that would try and reduce, even stop, the incredible atrocities we have inflicted on each other since the beginning of time. Yes, human rights are a man made invention, but they are a necessary one. It is our way of trying to reduce the pain and suffering in our world. Which is the exact definition of 'negative utilitarism'. This is where I feel Mr. Stamos is simply caught up in semantics. If the main purpose of 'universal human rights' and 'negative utilitarianism' is to reduce pain and suffering, then who cares about the words we use to get to that end? Universal human rights talk may be arbitrary (yes this I agree with), but it is all for the purpose of making this world a better place to live.

The idea and power of 'human rights' is not going anywhere, but the main thing I need to take away from this lecture is to not just accept ideas (memes) at face value. I was a strong proponent of human rights and fought for things simply based on that idea, but I need to look deeper. People are not born with any rights, they are just born. We have created this entire system based on the idea that somehow being born a human we are more righteous than all the other creatures we share this planet with. Maybe we need to start treating each other (animals, plants and all organisms included) simply based on the idea of kindness and love.