Dear David B.,
Maybe it is time to finish our discussion of human rights. I disagree with
you that the law is always at or near the frontier of our evolving
sense/experience of justice. I believe in the morality and necessity of
civil disobedience on issues where low quality intellectual patterns of
values (in your terminology: social values) have taken control. To the
extent that the law does not represent justice as one of highest available
intellectual values that should govern human behavior (as intellectual
patterns of values should govern social patterns of values: guiding and not
crushing them), 'rights' are more than 'legally just claims'.
The practice of law enforcement shows to me that 'rights' can conflict in
practice. Maybe the legal principles behind the 'rights' that are enshrined
in laws do not. It is only the laws which I can appeal to however, when
exercising 'rights' in your definition. Only when you agree that 'rights'
are more than 'legally just claims' legal principles become relevant. Then I
can also exercise 'rights' by civil disobedience that appeals to the legal
principles or the sense of justice that should be enshrined in law. Although
... SHOULD we really lay down and fix all our experience of justice in laws?
Doesn't the law become too much of a static intellectual pattern of values
then, leaving too little room for DQ?
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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