Just wanted to say goodbye, as I will be going away for the next couple of weeks, to the shore and then NYC. I will say, on the way out, that there is a way of deriving a doctrine of rights without invoking God, namely, through the premises necessary to fulfill man's character as a social animal, and most particularly, the respect that we give and demand merely as reasonable and autonomous beings, in other words, from strangers to whom we have no special standing. Society cannot exist without that underlying respect, and if we believe we deserve it merely for being human, we should uphold the standard by giving it. However, without belief in God, the standard is subject to nihilistic attack: who cares about maintaining social stability? maybe creative destruction is better, or maybe it doesn't matter at all? and what if we are all just automata deluded into thinking we have personhood? Why should men demand any more respect than any other machines?
Thus, the belief in God is an alternative to beliefs that can undermine the assumptions necessary to considering rights to be "real", rather than hypothetical. Of course, one could object that if belief in God is controversial, it advances nothing. On the other hand, it is part of the "structure of belief" that affirms personhood, the preferability of social solidarity, and the reality of rights, and therefore cannot be omitted, in the end. |
