-64
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by DragonWasabi@monyet.cc to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

Obviously it was a good thing that it was banned, but I'm just wondering if it would technically be considered authoritarian.

As in, is any law that restricts people's freedom to do something (yes, even if it's done to also free other people from oppression as in that case, since it technically restricts the slave owner's freedom to own slaves), considered authoritarian, even if at the time that the law is passed, it's only a small section of people that are still wanting to do those things and forcibly having their legal ability to do them revoked?

Or would it only be considered authoritarian if a large part of society had their ability to do a particular thing taken away from them forcibly?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] DragonWasabi@monyet.cc 0 points 6 months ago

Human rights describes the individuals that the rights pertain to, no? So those human rights could either be based in legality or in morality, which wouldn't always align. People may also have different beliefs about which human rights are morally justified and which ones aren't. If there's a third kind of human right that isn't based on what's legal or what's believed to be (or, fundamentally is) moral, then what's it based in?

Inherent to the human condition is interesting, but isn't that still a moral stance/belief? Even if you argue that it's objectively moral (and if you don't believe in moral subjectivism/moral relativism) or objectively the right thing for humans to have rights based on the kind of beings that they are, how is that separate from morality? As far as I know when someone says "this is a human right" they're usually asserting that they believe it's morally correct for humans to have a certain right, and that it would be wrong to violate that right. Occasionally someone says "this is a legally protected human right" to emphasise that it's a legal right enforced by law. I'm not sure by what metric rights could be ascribed or theorised conceptually to apply to certain individuals, if not law or ethics.

For example, you could say that the law did violate the enslaved's moral human rights, by assigning other humans a legal right to own them, which many at the time would have also believed was their moral right, even if we don't agree with that today or assert as being objectively immoral. If their human right to not be enslaved wasn't legal or moral, I don't see what the third option could be.

this post was submitted on 18 May 2024
-64 points (21.4% liked)

Asklemmy

43941 readers
521 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS