The Life Principles
The following article summarizes the chapter on rights in the book, Healing the Culture: A Commonsense Philosophy of Happiness, Freedom, and the Life Issues (by Robert J. Spitzer, S.J., Ph.D.). This book provides the curriculum upon which our mission and activities are based.
Understanding Inalienable Rights
by Marie Harkins and Camille Pauley
How we view human rights plays an extremely important role in the way we treat other people and in the way societies and governments treat individuals. But, exactly what are rights and where do they come from?
Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic Rights
It is important to distinguish the difference between intrinsic rights and extrinsic rights. Intrinsic rights are those which we possess simply because we are human persons. That is, they are built into our nature. We do not receive them through a government order, a majority vote, or even the "consent of the governed." Often, intrinsic rights are called "inalienable rights" because, since they are inherent to our personhood, they can be never be taken away.
Notice that, although intrinsic rights cannot be removed from a person, they can be violated. Slavery, for example, is a violation of the inalienable right to liberty of every human being; but enslaving another person does not take away his or her right to be free. That right still exists, even if it is not respected.
Extrinsic rights, on the other hand, are rights that are conferred by a government or another institution and can be taken away for a just reason. For example, the right to drive, to drink alcohol, and to vote are all extrinsic rights. They are important to any free society, but they are not essential to human personhood, and can be withdrawn if necessary, without infringing on the ultimate destiny of the person from whom they are taken. Withholding the right to drive from a blind person, or removing the right to vote from a convicted felon, does not infringe on these persons' ability to achieve their designed purpose (Happiness Level 4). (If you have not yet read the first article in this series on the Levels of Happiness, click here).
A Hierarchy of Rights
When we talk about inalienable rights, we usually speak of them in a particular order: life, liberty, and property (or the pursuit of happiness). This, of course, is the order in which John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, and other philosophers and statesmen have placed them. But this ordering is not accidental or arbitrary. It reflects the fact that there is an objective ordering, or natural hierarchy, of rights. For example, the right to life is objectively more fundamental than the right to liberty. That is not an arbitrary statement. It is true by the very nature of the rights themselves. After all, if I am not alive, no other right is going to matter very much. In the same way, liberty is an objectively more fundamental right than the right to own property. If I am not free, I obviously cannot claim to have ownership over any property. The person who owns me can also claim all my property. Therefore, we must have life in order to enjoy liberty, and we must have liberty in order to own property (or "pursue happiness").
Resolving Rights Conflicts
This natural ordering of inalienable rights gives us an objective (non-arbitrary) way to resolve problems when rights begin to conflict with each other. The resolution is called "fundamentality criterion." It asks: "Which right is more fundamental?" In other words, "Which right is necessary for the other to exist?" Enslaving another person is not a legitimate right, because it places the property right of the owner ahead of the more fundamental liberty right of the person being enslaved. Similarly, infanticide (killing an infant who is born, or who is in the process of being born) is not a legitimate right because it places a claim to liberty ahead of the inalienable right to life of the child.
(Of course, if you have already read the article in this series entitled "Identifying True Freedom," you would begin to question whether being allowed to kill an infant is really an expression of liberty, or whether it is actually enslavement to a "freedom from" mentality.)
Now, what is interesting is that, the way we view happiness will be strongly linked to what we believe about rights.
Rights 1
From a Happiness Level 1 viewpoint, rights are abstract. They cannot be seen or felt or sensed; and therefore, if I am living for physical pleasure and possessions, I might have a hard time believing that rights exist at all. To the extent that Level 1 does recognize rights, those rights are not seen as intrinsic - belonging to persons by their nature, but as subjective - given to certain people by a state or a vote. Furthermore, if I am living on a Level 1 understanding of happiness, I will define personhood by physical appearance and ability to function; therefore, I will restrict rights to those who appear to be human persons, and will withhold them from anyone who does not seem to me to be a person.
Rights 2
Similarly, if I view personhood from a Level 2 notion (defined by the potential to achieve), I will only recognize the rights of people who possess an acceptable degree of independence, accomplishment, success, power, or control. When I do this, I deny rights to persons who are weak or vulnerable, such as the unborn, the elderly, the ill, the poor, the disabled, or anyone who is at all disadvantaged.
Rights 3
Level 3 recognizes that human rights attach themselves to any being of human origin, no matter how that person appears or how well he or she functions. If I have a Level 3 view of life, then I believe that every human person has an immeasurable dignity based on his or her capacity to participate in love, truth, goodness, justice, peace, beauty, or unity. I will recognize that inalienable rights exist in every person as a safeguard to protect each person's intrinsic dignity. (Intrinsic dignity means that every human person has worth simply because of being human. You don't have to prove that you have worth by being rich, or being able to do something great.)
Therefore, from a Level 3 point of view, I will respect and defend the inalienable rights of every person, no matter what. Additionally, from a Level 3 view, I understand that inalienable rights are ordered objectively, according to a hierarchy of rights. Life is the most fundamental right, followed by the right to liberty, followed by the right to property (or the "pursuit of happiness"). Therefore, when rights come into conflict, as they often do, it is evident that the more fundamental right must be respected first.
Rights 4
Like Level 3, a Level 4 view of rights also recognizes that human persons possess inalienable rights, which are ordered according to an objective hierarchy, and which cannot be taken away by any other person. However, when we get to Level 4 (faith in, and surrender to the unconditional love of God ), we also realize that everything we have and everything we are comes from God. He is the author of life. Therefore, in relation to God, our lives are not so much a right as a gift. From Level 4, I believe that God blessed us with the gift of life in the beginning; and only He can rightfully decide when it will end - when we will awaken to the eternal destiny He has promised us. In dealing with other human beings, then, Level 4 prompts us to recognize and respect the inalienable rights of every human person by seeing that every person is made in the image of God, and made for God. This allows us to see, and to want to respect the unconditional dignity of each and every human person from the moment of conception until natural death.
© Copyright 2005 Healing the Culture. All rights reserved. Marie Harkins is past Director of Administration for Healing the Culture and currently contributes to special projects. Camille Pauley is the co-founder and President of Healing the Culture.
The preceding article summarizes the four levels of love in the book, Healing the Culture: A Commonsense Philosophy of Happiness, Freedom, and the Life Issues (by Robert J. Spitzer, S.J., Ph.D.). This book provides the curriculum upon which our mission and activities are based.
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