The last posting, relying on the work of
Charles Taylor,[1] made the
argument that a radical or near radical belief in rights – that one can do what
one wants to do – is relatively short lived.
This is due to the disposition of people holding this view. That is, especially in societies where such
beliefs become common, those people have license to behave in ways that
undermine or prove to be destructive of societal institutions that protect or
advance rights to begin with.
For example, people so disposed might very well
undermine family ties for selfish ends which in turn seriously weaken the
emotional bonds that a family would otherwise have. If that became common behavior, the
institution of family would be threatened and not able to function as a caring
and nurturing relationship.
One can think of other societal arrangements
that could similarly be threatened such as businesses, educational entities, and
governmental agencies and their authorizing statutes. People, since these connections are mostly
preserved through norms, don’t give them much thought until they are threatened
and then are left with a “what’s going on here?” sort of reaction.
To take up Taylor’s argument, he cites Thomas
Hobbes and Hobbes’ point out that people seek life to basically prolong their
desire to be agents of desire. And here is
an extension of what life is or why it is sought to be continued. Taylor explains:
Social theories require a conception of the
properly human life which is such that we are not assured it by simply being
alive, but it must be developed and it can fail to be developed; on this basis
they can argue that society or a certain form of society is the essential
condition of this development.[2]
So, what is meant by a right to life that is
not a list of detached rights (speech, religion, movement, employment, etc.),
but a holistic state. A state where the societal
arrangement exists in which a sentimental life – a life in which one can have
the cherished right to feel both physically and emotionally – can exist and
prosper?
To
be clearer: If one restricts this
concern over rights to the right to merely continue breathing or staying alive,
then addressing the more life defining concerns – how one socializes, how one
expresses his/her talents and proclivities, how one seeks importance and
fulfilling one’s social ambitions and obligations – one is limiting such
concerns to manifestations of specific rights being supported or by being threatened. By doing so, one dismisses their
underpinnings, i.e., the social mechanisms and structures that promote such rights
and what supports them.
But
when the emphasis is on societal processes geared to identify and promote such
concerns, the wherewithal by which the necessary social mechanisms and structures
not only are recognized but their continuance becomes more likely by assisting
them to function viably. If ignored or
even debased, they go wanting to the extent they become nonfunctional, at least
to a level where societal health is affected negatively.
One can even visualize, if not cite specific
examples, where such dysfunction becomes fatal to a polity or system of
governance (for example, one can argue, the former Soviet Union of Russia was
such a case). And here one can
legitimately consider the apparent dysfunctions of the American system that
many commentators are warning has become of great concern or worry.
A
more encompassing view of rights strays one away from emphasizing rights individually,
such as property rights (e.g., right to contract), but toward quality-of-life
rights (e.g., right to profess independent convictions). As a matter of fact, the former type of
right, irrespective of John Locke’s view, is not essential to viable living.
See, for
example, communal societies from all the way back to the paleolithic hunting
clans to the Inca empire, and even to commune living in China today. Ironically, the right to life is better
secured in these communal settings than in many individually based societies
(Taylor compares China with Chile or one can compare it currently with El
Salvador and Jamaica, ranked one and two in murder rates[3]).
But before one lists Taylor as a defender of
collectivist countries such as Communist China, he adds:
But the real point is this: supposing a proponent of the right to
property were to admit that the above was true – that the right to property
does not as such secure life – would he [or she] change his [/her] mind? And the answer is, in the vast majority of
cases, no. For what is at stake for
[that person] is not just life, but life in freedom. My life is safe in a Chinese commune, he [or
she] might agree, but that is so long as I keep quiet and do not profess heterodox
opinions; otherwise the risks are very great.
Private property is seen as essential, because it is thought to be an essential
part of a life of genuine independence.[4]
That is, not as an independently considered
right. And in this, such a defender of
natural rights might recognize the irony involved. Generally recognized rights – however they
might be viewed as separate qualities – ultimately rely on the social landscape
where they are manifested and possibly challenged.
And
even more contextualized as to what the immediate environs are – in a family, at
school, at the workplace, in the town square or the shopping mall – it becomes
a question of capacity. Can one exercise
rights within these settings? The
answer, it turns out, they cannot be limited to those settings, but “only
develops within an entire civilization.”[5] Taylor goes on:
Think of the developments of art, philosophy,
theology, science, of the evolving practices of politics and social
organization, which have contributed to the historic birth of this aspiration
to freedom, to making this ideal of autonomy a comprehensible goal men [and
women] can aim at – something which is in their universe of potential
aspiration (and it is not yet so for all men [or women], and may never be). …
I
am arguing that the free individual of the West is only what he [/she] is by
virtue of the whole society and civilization which brought him [or her] to be
and nourishes him [or her]; that our families can only form us up to this
capacity and these aspirations because they are set in this civilization; and
that a family alone outside of this context – the old patriarchal family – was a
quite different animal which never tended these horizons. And I want to claim finally that all this
creates a significant obligation to belong for whoever would affirm the value
of freedom; this includes all those who want to assert rights either to this
freedom or for its sake.[6]
So, the final message Taylor puts forth seems
clear.
That is, if one wants one’s rights respected,
one needs to depend on a healthy social environment. In the modern age, that would be a healthy national
polity that enjoys its ability to carry out functional processes and sustain
functional structures. That, in turn,
relies on a populous that is willingly satisfying the norms, duties, and
obligations upon which a healthy polity relies.
Further, in a system which honors individual
rights, most of those duty-bound behaviors count on voluntary compliance. So, the irony lives on to the extent a populous
is willing to “play ball.” Or as Taylor
states it: “… we exercise a fuller
freedom if we can help determine the shape of this society and culture. And this we can only do through instruments
of common decision.”[7]
[1] Charles Taylor, “Atomism,” in Communitarianism and Individualism, eds. Shlomo Avineri and Avner de-Shalit (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1992), 29-50.
[2] Ibid., 39.
[3] “Murder Rate by Country,” Data Panda, n.d., accessed
January 25, 2024, URL: https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/murder-rate-by-country.
[4] Taylor, “Atomism,” in Communitarianism and
Individualism, 41. Emphasis added.
[5] Ibid., 43.
[6] Ibid. 43-46.
[7] Ibid. 47.
