Wednesday 19 June 2019

Human Rights


Continuing yesterday's thread of thought regarding Azimov's Laws of Robotics as pertaining to Human Rights; if the right to life is the first in an hierarchy of basic human rights, then that presupposes that the right to defend your life trumps someone else's right to life in the instance of your life being put in danger by someone else, such as in an attack.


Should any hierarchy not then start as follows:

  1. A right to defend your life.
  2. A right to life, except where it would conflict with the First Human Right.

In other words, someone gives up their right to life if their action results in your life being threatened by them. A justification for defensive war.

The right to defend your life would impact any rights pertaining to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. A veritable Zeroth Human Right?

Take, for example, any right to worship as you see fit. In some instances that may, depending on the religion one chooses, conflict with someone else's right to life. Therefore any right to worship should be subject to an exclusion in the instance of it affecting someone else's right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. It is worth noting that many Islamic countries have their own version of human rights, but only insofar as they conform to sharia, which is a massive get-out clause.

The whole area is fraught with conundrums and nothing is as simple as it first looks. More tomorrow on lawful violence, which is no more than the violence of the majority...

Analyse and discuss....


No comments: