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How does that distinguish rights from the concept of morality itself? Right and wrong as ideas are already not transcendental and grounded (at least in many worldviews). They are just language frames used to express commitments and to systematically boo/yay different types of behaviour. And we can't do without that.
My view on this is that the law is minimum of morals, while rights are just extra strongly worded form of laws. What I object is some wordplay - or equivocation - on the side of secularists, as if rights have some higher grounding and are to be implicitly followed. Let's use some example, most civilization have morality against murder encoded into their laws. Does then make any sense to say, that you have a right not to be murdered? I don't think so, murder is already prosecuted, stating it as a right does not add anything. And yet people talk about right to housing or free healthcare and other things as if they are stronger in this sense.
Exactly, that is my point. Rights is just a strong word aimed to provoke some emotional response, nothing more, nothing less. It is just strongly worded preference - you have right to abortion, you have right to body autonomy, you have right to free healthcare, you have right to freedom of movement etc. But there is no grounding for it other than that some people just feel strongly about this, and that they wish to impose it on society. Maybe Aztecs could have worded that everybody has right to be protected from wrath of Huītzilōpōchtli by sacrificing slaves.
Additionally even in in practice this is just a mirage - anybody who lived through COVID should already understand that this is all just fiction, the situation can change on a dime and former right is nullified just like that. There is no thunder from the sky striking somebody taking your supposed right away.
All this is to demonstrate, that there are no "inherent" or "inaliebable" rights especially from secularist perspective. The only way it would make sense is to describe some physical reality - e.g. you have an inherent "right" to fall when you jump. Otherwise it does not make any sense, there is no inherentness or inalienability for any actual rights as these are just some judicial constructs subject to change, indifference and all these kind of things.
I kind of agree that the language of rights is obfuscatory as to what is really going on, sometimes implying that a right is something metaphysical, though I suppose this is true of a pretty wide range of concepts. However, I think that rights talk does accomplish something real. I see rights as a legit expression of commitment to/hope that there are some core rules of human morality that transcend any particular legal system and that deserve to be incorporated into every legal system by one means or another. It is of course true that people then change their mind about torture being wrong, for example, and go ahead and do it. But at least rights provide a clear stake in the ground that countries, having signed up to a bill of rights, must renege on, proving that the values they once claimed are no longer/never were their true values. This should be at least embarrassing though perhaps we have entered an age where double standards and reversals of this kind no longer incur any shame.
I am not sure. Take my example with murder which is almost universally prosecuted across time and cultures. Do people think about murderers in terms of them acting against some inherent right? Does it add anything into the conversation above universally accepted moral stance of murder is bad? And even then there are some examples, where polity can actually define conditions around which killing us unlawful and thus constitutes a murder and which one is lawful and condoned - e.g. killing as part of death sentence or assassinating head of terrorist organization with a bomb etc. It is not as if we are talking about something inherent and inalienable, there are always conditions around it.
I think that what rights really represent culturally is a declaration of some secular or civic version of religious dogma. Politicians - either national or those sitting in UN - are akin to council of bishops or rabbis and theologians, who from time to time sit together and make some moral proclamation that abortions or something like that is now okay and in fact anybody stopping them is anathema to the church polity and will be punished. They have theological discussion about morality of current rights and how to do proper exegesis of the holy text of Constitution or Bill of Rights or even if to outright amend it. But the authority lies with them, the rights in this sense are given and not inherent and definitely not inalienable.
What I want to say is that I do not recognize this authority of rights as some universal morality, to me rights are just present set of laws or maybe as you said a present set of aspirations of lawmakers. I will for instance never in a million years morally recognize anything like right to abortion in this moral sense no matter how many wise men try to persuade me or how many people use it as a slogan on the street. Othere people let's say do not recognize right to bear arms or other rights.
Additionally I do not like the vocabulary of rights exactly because it is pure language of entitlement absent duty. Good society with good laws and even rights is result of hard work. If the society is bad then all you are entitledto is misery.
I kind of agree with you – yes, lawyers and politicians who decide on bills of rights are playing a role akin to religious councils. I would just say that there are those who do not interpret such a role as necessarily involving any metaphysical commitment. 'Ruling Passions' by Simon Blackburn is interesting on this, as an example of someone who is advocating for a quasi-realist position wrt morality (including rights), where we continue talking as if moral proclamations are 'out there' in the world, while also acknowledging that what is going on under the surface is fundamentally to do with our attitudes and sentiments rather than something we've discovered independent of us.
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