Ecurb wrote: ↑June 6th, 2022, 7:53 pm
It doesn't matter if obligations have a factual basis. Why would it? Whatever their basis, if an individual's rights
mean obligations on the part of other people, then Crusoe's "rights" on an insland where he is the sole inhabitant are meaningless.
Er, no. The term "rights" doesn't
mean obligations, in the lexical/definitional sense of "mean." They
imply obligations. Though I agree there is a sense of "means" which is equivalent to "implies." But that implication is irrelevant to defining properties of rights and to the truth conditions for rights claims.
(You're failing to distinguish between two distinct meanings of "means," a term which has many other meanings as well).
And, no, that Crusoe has rights is not "meaningless" in the absence of others. His having them --- the truth of propositions predicating those rights to him --- depends only upon whether he was the first possessor of the things to which he claims rights. He just has no occasion, while alone, to assert those rights, anymore than he would have occasion to assert that he is 6 feet tall. But he is 6 feet tall. When Friday arrives he will have occasion, and likely will assert the rights he held prior to Friday's arrival.
The Constitutional Bill of Rights makes this perfectly clear: Each right enumerated specifically lists the obligations:
1) Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.....
2).....the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
4) The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated....
I could go on and on. The founding fathers, at least, recognized that rights are no more than obligations.
Yes, rights imply obligations, in the examples you cite, upon the government. But no, those phrases don't entail that rights are "no more" than obligations. It is only because they exist that anyone has those obligations. As I said before, obligations don't arise
ex nihilo, but from states of affairs which logically precede them.