Do natural rights exist? I don't think they do. No one really has any right to any thing. The only way a right exists is when two or more people agree to what those people can do in relation to one another.
The right to life. Basic needs (food, water, etc) To enjoy life and live in peace. Obviously the last one is a bit more subjective of course, but as long as each feels they are, and how they are so does not impact on someone else's ability to do the same, it works for me.
All animals have killed eachother including there own species in order to survive. How is it not a wolfs right to kill its rivals?
Is it its right or just its instinct? Was your original question aimed at Human or animal, or just generally?
Its exactly what it has to do to survive so how can it not be it's right? What about organisms that can only survive by killing another animal? Certain types of parasites only exist by eating there hosts alive.
There needs to be an understanding by what you mean by right. Is it a wolf's right? No, I don't think so, only if you're looking at it from our perspective. There is only what happens naturally, and naturally, instinctively, they kill to survive. But not all animals or wolves for that matter do this. Some have learned to cooperate more easily, so there is less need for such things. They are conscious, sentient, but not mentally active as we are. They don't think about things as we do. Then they are not strictly parasites as I understand it, as the aim of a parasite is to keep the host alive, or perhaps I'm thinking of symbiotic. Anyway, if something needs to kill to survive, then it is what it must do. Is it a right, no. It just is. It is also not a wrong either.
Thers not much info on what those individual natural rights may mean without imposing on someone elses. So I see where your coming from. I thought this was a reasonable take on it. According to Ernst Cassirer, There is, at least, one right that cannot be ceded or abandoned: the right to personality... They charged the great logician [Hobbes] with a contradiction in terms. If a man could give up his personality he would cease being a moral being. ... There is no pactum subjectionis, no act of submission by which man can give up the state of free agent and enslave himself. For by such an act of renunciation he would give up that very character which constitutes his nature and essence: he would lose his humanity.[35]
There's no natural rights, you could murder, rape, steal, enslave and torture, the universe wont care.The world will keep turning, the rivers will keep flowing and the animals will keep grazing. But as humans we feel empathy, so we create our own rights and freedoms to protect ourselves.
BTW, this is one of my favorite topics of philosophy to contemplate and discuss... How are there not natural right's, i.e., life & liberty??? In the jungles, animals manifest their life and liberty, with their only impediments being their own stamina; so, yes, naturally, all creatures are born "free" to live, to traverse through the lands, without physical barriers... Long live natural rights!
Exactly, so I'm free to kill... free to augment my own organism, by way the ways of nature. This right to do anything to survive is natural: the first law of nature is self-preservation -- a natural right to be free to preserve my being, no matter how I go about accomplishing this.
What about all the animals (and other organisms) getting killed so others can live? What about their rights?
They have the right to defend themselves, they're just not strong enough to do so, which makes them a "victim of circumstance"... but, that doesn't mean that there aren't natural rights. What your arguing here is -- why is there death on this planet? Not if there are natural rights or not?
How can I agrue a question? Of course death exists on this planet. An arguement involves proposing a thesis and supporting it not asking a question My thesis is natural rights do not exist or what we call natural rights is a bit of a misnomer. People say life is a natural right. Well that right is violated constantly in nature, so how can you claim it as a natural right? My answer would be you can't.
Right now, you are not truly philosophizing (you need to slow down, bro); you're muddying the waters with words and irrelevant concepts -- entangling everything together, so now the knot seems impossible to disentangle. I never said you question the fact of whether or not death happens; but, what you seem to be missing is your own point. Your argument against natural rights is basically this... If we all are born free, then how come some have thee ability to take away my freedom? This is a nonsensical idea. If someone is trying to take away my life, do I have the right, by way of my freedom, to defend myself? -- that should be the question, not will I be able to, but can I? So, the question of natral rights isn't about the innate ability, but about the natural possibility.
Oh sorry didn't realize you get to decide what is and isn't philosophy... So then you could say the only natural right is the ability to undertake any action possible, except others all have that right. So we all have the right to do anything then. I still think its dumb to call it a natural right when you (or whoever is claiming X as a right) are the one asserting it as a right. Others would assert that you don't have the right to do X. Its all just opinions being slapped with the label natural rights to make it seem more important. and sorry read the sentence about death wrong. I understand why there is death because individuals have conflicting goals
If I have all the power in the world, and I'm equipped with my intrinsic freedom, whose to say I don't have the right to do that, or this? Only when someone more powerful than me comes along, equipped with his or her intrinsic freedom, can he or she tell me anything different...
Who are you to say you do have a right? What I'm getting at is rights are just some word people created to make there opinions and assertions about the world seem like they hold more weight when really it's just that persons opinion. And what are you implying you believe in social darwinism then?
Yes... but this assertion is natural itself!!! And that's what your missing, friend. A fish will naturally swim... never worrying about if it's allowed to swim. It just swims, freely and naturally...