Natural, Unalienable, and Empirical: Part 1, Of nature and rights
(Author: G.
Creative Commons: attribution and share-alike.)
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men* are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” -Thomas Jefferson with input from Benjamin Franklin et. al.
Not only are those words inspiring, but as it turns out they also point to empirical truths as elucidated by science.
Jefferson and Franklin (as well as many others of the Founders) were well-versed in scientific literature, disciplines, and ways of thinking. Each also had numerous inventions to his name, some of which became the seeds of modern technologies and some of which are still in use to this day. If you read even abbreviated biographies of both of these individuals you will be in awe; for despite their human flaws, their greatness set standards to which we can aspire but which few today meet.
Created equal.
In the introduction to the Declaration we find the phrasing, “…the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God…” This wording is consistent with Deism, a religious philosophy common to many of the Founders and other Enlightenment philosophers of their day. In brief, according to Deism, God is the architect, Nature is the building contractor, and reason (rather than scriptural revelation) is God’s most important gift to humans for understanding the universe.
The statement “…endowed by their Creator….” could thus be paraphrased, “…endowed by Nature and/or God…” Whether one is theistic or non-theistic, believing oneself to be created by God or by Nature alone or by some combination thereof, the outcome for the present purpose is the same.
God and/or Nature are said to have created all persons as equal. Clearly this does not mean “equivalent” as in “identical,” but rather, of equal value and standing, and with equal rights. In legal terms, all persons are equal under the law.
As a matter of science, the existence (or otherwise) of God cannot be resolved empirically. Any entity having the characteristics of omniscience and omnipotence ascribed to a deity, would be capable of confounding any experiment performed to verify its existence. Since no such experiment can be performed without risk of this deliberate and undetectable confound, no such experiment could have scientific validity. (As it turns out, there is a way to get at this inferentially, but I’ll reserve that topic for a later essay; check back under the Consciousness Studies header when it’s posted.)
However there is no viable reservation with respect to the existence of Nature. As a matter of science we can say that Nature created us, via the process of evolution and natural selection, and proceed from there.
At that point the statement about equality can be seen in naturalistic terms. In an evolutionary sense, in the end we are not all equal: some organisms survive to reproduce (genetically, and in human societies, memetically) and others do not. Success at reproduction is only known after reproductive maturity, and the length of survival is only known at the time of death. In the big picture even such characteristics as appear at first to be defects, may under some foreseeable circumstance turn out to have adaptive value. An obvious example is the sickle cell gene, which can cause a life-threatening anemia but also confers resistance to malaria.
So long as an individual is viable outside the womb, there is a chance they may have characteristics that turn out to have adaptive value. At the beginning of life this cannot be predicted. Prudence as well as fairness dictates that we not attempt to second-guess the greater wisdom of Nature in this regard. Thus as of the moment of birth, all persons must have equal standing under law. Even those convicted of crimes do not lose this fundamental equality despite their loss of freedom as a foreseeable penalty for their deeds. Only following death may any difference from fundamental equality be assessed, and this is of no useful value in a legal sense since the individual who is dead is no longer within the scope of the law.
Finally, references to natural selection as a factor in the recognition of equality, do not in any way lead to the legitimation of Social Darwinism. The latter is a bastardization of science, whereby the desires of some for inequitable ends of their own benefit are used to justify unethical means, about which much more will be said in other essays to come.
Rights: inherent vs. negotiable.
By “rights” we commonly mean, legal guarantees of the ability to choose to act (or to not act), or to choose to obtain (or to not obtain) an outcome, action, thing, or recognition.
When we say that certain rights are unalienable, we mean that their legal basis inheres in the very nature of the individual, and can no more be rescinded than the color of someone’s eyes or the functions of their internal organs. Unalienable rights are not subject to the negotiation of a social contract. They are considered part of natural fact and natural law: part of what Nature or God or both have created, preceding and transcending any contrary act of humans.
While American philosophers, the Founders included, were writing about natural rights and about natural law as the basis for their emerging republics, European philosophers were proceeding in a different direction, toward what would come to be called social contract theory. In brief this is the idea that rights are not inherent in the nature of humans but are created by societies and assigned to individuals in exchange for specified duties.
The problem with this is that it gives us no firm place to stand: all is negotiable, has been negotiated before you were born, and is stuck to you like a “contract of adhesion” for the mere fact of existing. (Attorneys will recognize that term, and the point that contracts of adhesion, over which individuals have no choice and no power to negotiate, are legally null and void.)
As well, if all is negotiable, then whatever human or civil rights you may think you have, may be taken away from you at the stroke of a pen by whatever power claims to represent the will of society. For example if shredding the Fourth Amendment or even the right of Habeas Corpus was “deemed” necessary to protect our “safety,” we would have no grounds to protest.
Natural rights, and natural law, give you a firm place to stand: society, government, and other entities claiming to represent the will of society, cannot diminish your inherent rights any more than they can diminish any other facts discovered by science by simply “deeming” them not to be so. That some would try to diminish both is proof of nothing but their own foolishness; and to quote Aldous Huxley, “Nature goes along her way / regardless of what humans say.”
You and your rights are standing on solid ground. And as we will see in part 2, Nature stands with you.
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*Today of course we say “persons” rather than “men,” as a simple matter of accuracy, as well as modern grammar and usage, along the line of saying “pets” rather than “dogs” when we are referring to a group of animals that includes both “dogs and cats.”
Tags: Natural Unalienable and Empirical, Of nature and rights