Is it possible to think about a hypothetical creature that would have different natural rights than humans have? If not, why not?
Obviously animals (cats, dogs) are different creatures that have different natural rights than humans have. They, at least in relation to man, have none.
Well..Humans would have to recongnize the creatures as their equal to recongnize their rights?
It would probably have to be an intelligent species that we don’t eat. Because frankly, it doesn’t make sense to gives rights to our food source.
It is beyond imagination to think that they would have different natural rights than human have though. An artifical intelligence, for example, would have the right to life through the equvalience of “right not to be deleted”. They would also own properties like anybody else even if they’re immobile and stuck in one place.
Yes, one could imagine a creature that when eating another creature of the same specie, this one does not die, but merges with the other one. So that they would engage in eating each other without infringing their rights.
Do rights come about because humans give them? or, do rights come about by proclaiming them?
I ask this because we can define rights in the sense of ownership, first of individual, but how does one acquire these rights?
Generally, rights that aren’t proclaimed are very difficult to both enforce and still make up a free society. We’ve been having a discussion about children’s rights and consent in another thread. The thing is, if rights are proclaimed, the oppressed can buy/recieve protection from a 3rd party in some way. Otherwise, only state-like laws can make for reliable protection. Indeed, one can protect even stones he doesn’t own this way, which isn’t that great.
IMO, the concept of natural rights taken ad literam and proposing natural laws in free societies isn’t such a good idea.
I ask that because you always get the feeling that natural rights are just invented, they just chose them because they sound good. If we could imagine different creatures, which with different natural rights it would make more sense, or if we can’t think of them, have an explanation why is that so.
Remember ‘rights’ means ‘property rights’, which (in the libertarian understanding) are derived from a process of self-ownership, homesteading, and trade. So the best way to assess this question is to consider what ways the proposed creature might differ from a human in this process.
Some food for thought: it may be conscious of some aspect of reality that we are not and may be able to homestead that; something that is scarce for us may be super-abundant for it; its self-ownership may be contingent rather than absolute; etc.