The likely evolutionary path of the human race:

The future of Man

 

The Definition and Basis of Rights

David M. Petersen - Social Justice - Term paper

 

In her essay "Wrong Rights," Elizabeth Wolgast asks the question; "...what kind of thing is [a right] and how can we prove its existence?" (Wolgast 55). This is, of course, a very good question. Unfortunately, neither her essay nor any others I have read on the subject come close to really nailing down the answer. I will now make a humble attempt to do so. I should say that it seems to me that our national system of legal rights loosely corresponds to the paradigm I will outline in this paper (which is a good thing) but only in a very abstract way because it does not acknowledge what I believe to be the true definition and basis of rights. For reasons that will become clear later, My definition of a right is: a state of expectation of a certain level of treatment that coincides directly with an individual's (animal or human) general "brain state" or actual general level of consciousness. Additionally, I believe that the true basis of rights is actually made up of four concepts: awareness, the capacity to reason, self actuality, and reciprocity, and that the first three of these concepts can be shown to be grounded in biology. Consequently, the fundamental idea of the rights of humans and animals should be based on their biological capacity for awareness and reason, both of which correspond to brain states and can be measured, and what I call self-actuality, which will be defined. In addition, at the level of possessing both awareness and reason, the concept of rights involves what I will call reciprocity, which will also be defined.

First of all, I would like to introduce the Triune brain paradigm, a well-established scientific set of facts in the field of Brain Research. This quote from The Brain, by Richard Restak, MD illustrates this paradigm very well,If we remove the cerebral cortex - that part of our brain that has evolved over the past two million years or so - we essentially eliminate our humanity. Beneath the cortex is a brain that is not far different from that of a Bengal Tiger, a French Poodle, or an Arctic Fox. We could, if we wish, remove even more to approximate the brain of a Salamander or a Rattlesnake (Restak 136).

 

They've all got it wrong concerning how consciousness works; read this...

Statement on Consciousness

 

This knowledge was discovered by Brain Researcher Paul D. MacLean. It turns out that there are really three separate but inter-operating brains that make up our actual brain. These brains are in layers outward, with the most primitive closest to the brain stem. The first two separate brains, the Reptilian and Paleomammalian brains, reflect our evolutionary ancestry to reptiles and mammals, respectively. The last brain, the Neomammalian brain, is only found in humans. The Reptilian brain is obviously the most primitive, and has been scientifically shown to be responsible for only the most primitive of biological urges, or "self-preservation and preservation of the species"(Restak 136). The Paleomammalian brain is responsible for the "emotional feelings that guide behavior"(Restak 136). We have this brain in common with other mammals, which is why we can have an emotional connection with our dog, for example. The last brain, the Neomammalian brain, is only found in humans, and "is a kind of problem-solving and memorizing device to aid the older formations of the brain in the struggle for survival""(Restak 136). I believe that this Triune Brain paradigm has profound implications for the question of rights.

Next, I want to restate my definition of a right. A right is a state of expectation of a certain level of treatment that coincides directly with an individual's (animal or human) general brain state. As I will show, this brain state can be very accurately determined by the Triune Brain paradigm. This definition is really not too far away from what Elizabeth Wolgast says is the most common way of dealing with the question of rights, "the [person] has a right to respectful and considerate treatment, a right to have his wishes in regard to his treatment respected...and so on" (Wolgast 57). However, I will try to show why my definition is a better definition of a right than this one and others that I have encountered in the following paragraphs.

Moving on, I believe that the first characteristic of the basis of rights, or the basis of an expectation of a certain level of treatment, is awareness. But what is awareness? The Triune Brain paradigm can definitely shed light on this question. It is clear to me that awareness is what occurs as a result of the function of the Paleomammalian brain, and really could be characterized as the capacity to feel emotions. Your dog, for example, is capable of feeling everything from joy to depression, and anger to affection. I will state that this makes the dog aware, at least for the purposes of this essay. This awareness gives the dog certain rights associated with that awareness that will be outlined later. This definition of awareness must be accepted as a characteristic of the basis of rights for me to move on and prove my point.

The next characteristic of the basis of rights is having the capacity to reason. Because it has been scientifically shown that the capacity to reason lies in the Neomammalian brain found only in humans, we know for a fact that humans are the only entities that possess this capacity. This gives the human being certain rights associated with the capacity to reason that the other animals do not possess, and that will be outlined later. This capacity for reason must be also accepted as a characteristic of the basis of rights to prove my point.

The next important component of the basis of rights is reciprocity. By reciprocity, I mean simply that a human who is aware and has the capacity for reason should treat other humans or animals like they would expect to be treated if they were in their exact situation. For example, treating someone who is gay with the same amount of respect as someone who isn't because it is how you would want to be treated if you grew up being gay. Or treating a cow on a butcher line like the expectation of treatment your brain state demands if you were a cow on the butcher line (you probably wouldn't understand what was happening but you would feel fear), so cows should be put to sleep before they are killed. Moving back to humans, one possible argument against this stance would be the "masochist argument." Or in other words, what if the person is a masochist and wants to be beaten? Should he therefore be allowed to beat people? The answer to this apparent dilemma is that reciprocity must be based on a consensus of how conscious individuals would want to be treated. Since most people are not masochists and would not want to be beaten, this solves this problem. Most people know that they should treat others with respect regardless of their differences, and even if they don't, they could imagine themselves in the other's position and get the picture. Also, this is concept of reciprocity can be sort of survival mechanism, because an individual has no way of knowing what situation he will find himself in tomorrow, and if he and those around him all agree roughly on this concept, his treatment will be better by those around him. For example, if you're a captain on a ship and you treat the crew badly, they could mutiny tomorrow and you're in serious trouble. If you treated them well and they mutiny because of a difference of opinion, they will treat you well. I believe that this is really the answer to the question of the justification of condemning wrongs using the idea of rights that Elizabeth Wolgast brings up. She wonders if there is any justification of the actual rights themselves. (Wolgast 63). I believe that one justification of you as an individual having rights is that you respect the same quality in another individual. I also believe that because Humans have attained a certain level of consciousness, they have a responsibility to uphold this concept of reciprocity for each other and the lesser mammals. The last important component of the basis of rights is self-actuality. First, let me make the distinction that exercising a right has nothing to do with possessing one. In other words, under my definition of rights, entities possess rights that they could never enforce for themselves. Unfortunately, this concept of self-actuality that I want to define is related to survival of the fittest, and therefore a bit of a harsh reality. Basically, the definition of self-actuality is that the entity is responsible for enforcing its own rights. This is true even if they do not have the capacity to do so against the force that is impugning on their rights. For example the previously mentioned cow in the butcher line is responsible for saving his own life, even though he has no means to do so. This is unfortunate, but it follows directly from evolution. The world is populated by many organisms that struggle to survive and as we know, "only the strong survive."

And so a summary of the concept of rights would be the definition of a right, or an expectation of treatment based on your actual brain state, and the four concepts that make up the basis of rights which are: awareness or capacity to feel emotions, capacity for reason, reciprocity or treating others as you would be treated yourself, and self-actuality, or being responsible for enforcing your own rights. It is very clear that the only truly accurate way to assign certain rights to an entity would be to base them on the above-mentioned Triune Brain influenced rights paradigm as outlined. It seems to me that most discussions about rights are very ethereal and abstract, and not grounded in any way to our physical reality. I believe this to be a serious drawback to any theory of rights. Alan White's essay "Whose Rights?" For example is completely inadequate. He writes: "A necessary condition of something's being capable of having a right to V is that it should be something which logically can V"[thus] only a person can logically have a right because only a person can be the subject of such predictions" (White 52). For one thing, White's idea of " a person" completely ignores animals. However, the real problem with White's view of rights is the vague definition of "person." White never bothers to actually spell this out for us. For example, How much are children persons, and what rights do they have at various stages of their lives? I will show that the Triune Brain paradigm of rights is a far more effective way to ground the discussion of rights to actual reality.

Moving on, using this Triune brain influenced rights paradigm, we must come to the conclusion that insects and reptiles unfortunately have no rights. They lack a Paleomammalian brain and consequently don't meet the first requirement; they are not aware. Since they do not possess any knowledge of their own state of being alive, they do not have the right (or the expectation of a certain level of treatment) to be alive as far as we are concerned. This may appear harsh, but it is an unavoidable logical conclusion. This does not mean we should run around killing reptiles, of course, because this would threaten our on survival by unbalancing our environment. Mammals, according to this same standard, would then have more extensive although still very limited rights, being aware, but lacking or very nearly lacking the capacity to reason. Since they are aware, and thus have an inner emotional life, they then have the right to fight to survive, against a human even, in order to protect that inner life. Additionally, because the can feel fear and pain, they have the right to not be tortured. These rights are directly tied to the level of brain activity they possess, which is dictated by the fact that they only have a Paleomammalian brain. Since they do not have a Neomammalian brain, they have no capacity for reason and hence no use for the right to vote, for example.

Humans, in general, are both aware and have the capacity for reason according to the Triune Brain paradigm, and consequently the question of rights gets far more complicated. Humans, of course, inherit all the rights of mammals because they possess both a Paleomammalian and a Neomammalian brain, but with the addition of the latter comes a vast array of new rights, the entire list which is not necessary to go into here. Some examples are the right to free speech, the right to assemble, the right to the pursuit of a living, etc. In short, all of the rights that can be directly linked to the human's ability to reason. I wish to stress that a human only has to have a general capacity for reason, it would not be right for an individual to have more rights if that individual was smarter then others. The overall point here is that humans everywhere have equal rights by my definition and basis for rights, based purely on the concrete fact that they all possess the same brain state in general.

Some of the variations on the rights of humans would be the rights of children, retarded people, people in vegetative states, and corporations. The question of the rights of children should take in to account that children actually evolve through a process where they are moving from the "just being aware" stage to the "aware and have the capacity to reason" stage. As odd as this seems, this means that logically they start out having the equivalent of the rights of animals and gradually progress on a sliding scale to having the rights of full fledged humans when they turn 18 years old. This sliding scale is directly related to the sliding scale going on in the general development of their brain. Of course, I want to stress that I believe that the minute after they are born they have of course surpassed the actual rights of animals. This method of evaluating the rights of children is more grounded in reality than any previous method established and should be considered. For example, Wolgast says that "atomistic writers [or writers that believe that the basic units of society are discrete and autonomous individuals] characteristically struggle with the place of children" (Wolgast 55). Hopefully this Triune Brain influenced rights paradigm can help shed some light in this area. This idea can correspond to retarded people as well. They would fall somewhere on this brain state spectrum that, as will be shown later, the position of which can be accurately determined. It could be fairly accurately determined using the brain state model whether or not they have the capacity to drive, for example. The question of the rights of humans who are in a vegetative state should take in to account the fact that they are now merely "reptilian", and thus have no rights. But there is one important difference here, of course; they were human. As far as this question is concerned I would say that they don't have the right to continue living per se, but they do have the right of "their estate" being treated as human. As far as Corporations are concerned, It seems to me that they should have roughly the same rights as individual humans because they are merely a collection of these.

Based on this Triune brain paradigm, and the fact that scientists can measure the location of activity in the brain using "brain activity maps", awareness and the capacity for reason can be accurately measured and this paradigm can be enforced. This quote from Restak's book The Brain illustrates how scientists can now measure the location of activity in the brain:

The Brain uses Glucose (sugar) and oxygen according to its activity at a given moment. Reading this sentence results in increased glucose and oxygen consumption in the visual cortex. Closing your eyes and thinking about turning the page sparks an increase in metabolic activity in the frontal areas of the brain. Since the advent of electronic tracers (special procedures capable of tracking molecules of radioactively tagged glucose), brain activity maps have become possible (Restak 5).

This process is therefore the basis for the enforcement of this rights paradigm, and makes this Triune Brain influenced rights paradigm an actual real life possibility. This paper unfortunately has only scratched the surface of the complex questions of what is a right and what is the basis of rights. There are obviously many tangential questions that can follow from this discussion and many ways this idea can be further developed. I mean for this paper to be merely an outline and an initial basis of discussion on the question of the actual rights of entities. This question seems to be constantly debated with no one being able to actually pin it down to anything in our physical existence. I have thus tried to do so. Incidentally, my view of rights is in complete disagreement with Alan White. He states that: "a possible possessor of a right is "whatever can intelligibly, whether truly or falsely, be said to exercise, earn etc. a right, to have a right to such logically varied things, to have duties, privileges, etc." Under his definition of rights one must earn or exercise a right in order to possess it. I believe I have shown that this is an incorrect view, and I also believe I have shown that a better definition of a right is a state of expectation of a certain level of treatment that coincides directly with an individual's (animal or human) general brain state. In addition, the true basis of the concept of rights is actually made up of four concepts: awareness, the capacity to reason, self actuality, and reciprocity, and that the first three of these concepts can be shown to be grounded in biology. Consequently, the fundamental rights of humans and animals should be based on their biological capacity for awareness and reason, both of which can be measured, and self-actuality. In addition, at the level of possessing both awareness and reason, the concept of rights involves reciprocity.

 

Work Cited

Restak, Richard M. MD. The Brain. Toronto:

Bantam. 1984.

Social Justice in a Diverse Society. Manning, Rita C. and Trujillo, Rene, eds. "Whose Rights?" White, Alan R. Mountain View: Mayfield. 1996.

Social Justice in a Diverse Society. Manning, Rita C. and Trujillo, Rene, eds. "Wrong

Rights" Wolgast, Elizabeth H. Mountain View: Mayfield. 1996.

 

The 21st century needs its own philosophy; here it is:

philosophy.dmpetersen.net

 

My entire body of work is archived Here forever, (http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/
http://philosophy.dmpetersen.net) except for some documents in my storage space.

 

Other Works by David M. Petersen