I saw a little discussion today on Twitter about "inalienable" rights and natural law. Where one side was stating that these rights are rooted in nature, and the other side was saying something along the lines of:
"Well no, surely they're just invented by man like all laws."
My view is somewhere in between. My thinking goes like this.
All humans have an innate sense of 'good' and 'bad', and this stems from our sensory experience of the world - i.e. pain = bad/wrong, and pleasure = good/right.
So notions of good and bad are hardwired into our worldview.
However, sometimes our own pleasure comes at the expense of someone else's pain. If I take someone's food I'll get the pleasure of eating whilst they will get the pain of hunger. As our own pleasure/pain is more immediate than another person's it often takes precedent. Still, given our own experience of these things we can at least empathise with the other person. This doesn't necessarily mean we won't take the food though.
So, we have this innate appreciation of good and bad, and understand that others experience good and bad too. We then calculate the balance of our good/bad versus the other person's in a very vague way. Naturally weighing our own interests more heavily in the balance.
If I have a lot of food and see someone who's hungry I'll alleviate that 'badness' in the world by giving that person some of mine, but if I'm starving I'll prioritise my own hunger and not care so much about the other person.
This all sounds incredibly selfish and uninspiring, and reduces us to Darwinist animal/machines somewhat, but it's important to look at things in this crude calculated way to get to the root of natural law.
People often debate if there is a true right and wrong - some fundamental rightness and wrongness that we can all universally recognise.
I would argue that there is, and that it simply lies in this intuitive understanding, based in sensory experience, that pain is 'bad' and pleasure is 'good'.
The universal baseline..
So, for example, if we take something truly heinous like torture.
Though most of us deem torture beyond the pale, some people will argue that in certain circumstances it's permissible - because the good outweighs the bad.
e.g. If torturing one person stops one thousand people dying in a terrorist attack.
It's a similar equation or calculation as before. It's good because the bad stopped outweighs the bad caused. (And again, what's good in this instance is no doubt somewhat biased by the position of the person making the decision - their own pleasure/pain/danger being more immediate to themselves).
However, even though someone could make this argument they still wouldn't argue that torture was good full stop.
Everyone - even the person arguing that torture is good to stop a terrorist attack - wouldn't argue that it was good to torture someone for no reason. As this would be a net addition of suffering in the world with no beneficial gain.
So the infliction of needless or pointless suffering is something that all humans would agree is bad. No one would argue in favour of it.
We all agree that bad is bad and that good is good. The problems only arise when we try to balance the good against the bad from our own particular viewpoint.
I would say natural law, in its true organic sense, is simply this vague common acknowledgement that good should be aimed for and bad should be avoided. Anything more than that is subjective.
Natural Law/Common Law
The notions of natural or common law rights do naturally follow on from this however. It's sensible for humans to agree upon basic principles - the most simple being "I'll leave you alone if you leave me alone." What we call "live and let live".
Most people at least try to follow this concept because it's reasonable and they intuitively understand it's not good to cause harm to another person for no reason. People naturally understand this.
This is why basic common law rights simply protect us from direct infringements by others. They don't state what we can or can't do ourselves, just what we can't do to others. We can't punch someone or murder someone, etc.
Again though, life isn't always this simple, and sometimes people may feel they have good reason to punch someone.
So specific written laws enshrining these notions of right and wrong aren't the same as our intuitive appreciation of the concepts. They're not inalienable or "God-given" in quite the same way, though they arise from this same basic understanding.
When we codify and express such laws we're choosing to try to articulate these concepts; and when we do we partly do it for selfish reasons, and we always risk introducing our own particular bias because of this.
Animals
If we take animals for instance. We don't extend these rights to animals in the same way. People who espouse that human rights are "inalienable" will still often kill an animal for food. The reality is people are simply valuing their own health and happiness over that of the animal's when they do this. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with this - in fact, it's part of nature - but people rarely recognise it for what it is: an act of self-interest. People much prefer to create a narrative that paints over this self-interest.
Animals were put on Earth by God to be eaten; Or, animals are less sentient than humans; Or, if it wasn't for me eating these animals they wouldn't get to have a great life being looked after in a nice green field; and so on..
All these things could be true of course, but they don't nullify the underlying self-interest.
It's in our self-interest to have human rights - we're human, but animal rights less so. As we, being humans not animals, don't need them. We need to be honest about this self-interest. It's perfectly natural and it doesn't mean we're fundamentally bad. We can't help but want to live and thrive and survive. We should acknowledge our impulses and biases though.
[I explain this conflict much more lucidly here: please read.
Personally I don't eat animals. However, I do eat dairy. I don't want to cause suffering to animals - I have empathy for them. Still, at the same time I continue to eat dairy for selfish reasons. I felt unhealthy and unhappy not eating dairy, so I started eating it again. It's hard to admit to myself that I'm being selfish by doing this, it would be much nicer to create some feel good justification for it, but this is the truth. I'm trying to balance my own self-interest with the interest of the poor farm animals.
We all balance the interests of ourselves (and our loved ones) with the interests of other people and creatures. Hopefully we try to do this in a fair and reasonable way, but none of us are perfect, and life isn't always simple.
[Incidentally, and mirroring the above point about torture, all humans also believe that animal cruelty is wrong. Even the most ardent meat eater. Again, because we recognise that pointless suffering - i.e. suffering with no positive benefit to someone - is fundamentally wrong. Once more illustrating that there is a baseline moral starting point of agreement for all people.]
Conclusion
So in conclusion it's important for us to recognise that we have concepts like 'inalienable rights' partly because we have an innate sense of right and wrong - but also because we have an innate self-interest. We shouldn't hide behind wishful thinking or ideological belief. It's only by honestly understanding these things and where they come from that we can explain these notions to other people. It's no use just screaming the word 'inalienable' at someone who doesn't share your worldview. They equally have the same sense that good is good and bad is bad - but they believe what they're doing is in the greater good. You have to explain to them that it's not in the greater good to have basic rights abused, and that it's beneficial for them too to have legal sovereignty over their own body.
The honest acknowledgement of your own self-interest also makes you realise that you do need to stand up for yourself. You don't need to apologise for defending the rights of yourself, your friends and your family. Likewise if you recognise your own failings and acts of self-interest you'll be more forgiving and understanding of the failings and self-interest of others.
