Reformist Muslim has a post on Why Human Rights Matter at Pickled Politics. In response to the post, a commentator mentioned that human rights (legislation) is our way of resitricting state intereference in our everyday lives. This is a common…

Am I not right in saying that women have blown themselves to bits in Israel? Have they not hidden their bombs beneath so-called religious garb?

Whilst I appreciate the need to allow all beliefs, idiotic as they may be, I think this religious tolerance might blow up, literally, in our faces.

I think that is a legitimate worry.

The consequences for political theory be similar to the Rawlsian original position that Reformist Muslim has discussed elsewhere, of thinking about the kind of society you would like to live in without knowing where you might be in relation to others (your beliefs, your sex, your wealth etc).

From such a standpoint, human rights justify themselves to me because I believe I would want to live in a society which respects them.

I also want to live in a society which can stop angry people blowing me up. And so maybe Rawls doesn’t help after all if there genuinely is a tension between human rights and community rights.

But I have not been persuaded that there is such a tension, because the people who are politicaly angry tend to base it on grievances which can easily be traced to a continuing abuses of human rights. I think it would be more persuasive if I felt attempts were being made to address genuine grievances before resorting to curtailing human rights which (from the consequentialist perspective) can create ever more grievances in any case.

It was for me, or people like me, to decide in the case of Shabina Begum. And the dozy bint and her puppet masters lost. Good stuff.

It
is
not
for
you
to
decide.

Dressing women in sacks stems from the same primitive, backward, tribal savagery as stoning rape victims.

If stupid adult women want to dress like daleks, then, as long as they don’t do it in banks etc, or stop if there is a security risk, then fine.

But in the 21st century, to shroud a child in a sack is plain cruel. It has no place in civilised society.

That is not for you to decide. That is for us to decide.

However, nobody is denying her anything. She is taking the piss. That is different.

I’m so glad she lost. One in the eye for dozy bint sack wearers and their puppet masters.

See, when I write my articles about Britishness Old Pickler – I see you as the enemy of our revolution. You are part of the problem.

Shabina Begum does not come from Bangladesh, she is born and bred British regardless of where her parents come from or what her religious values are. I may not support her case but she is 100% British whether you like it or not. And I will never deny her that right.

Amir – your arguments don’t change the basic point that I think RM is making. That there is a potential (repeat POTENTIAL) tension between the will/rights of the majority, however that’s defined (community, family, society etc), and the will/rights of the minority (individual, family, community etc). This is why democracy – guaranteeing will/rights of majority – needs to be accompanied by the rule of law and human rights – protecting will/rights of the minority.

Sorry to hark back to Sri Lanka, but SL is a good example of this dilemma. Sri Lanka has been a functioning democracy, with free competing political parties and free press, since 1948. But it has consistently underperformed in terms of the rights of the minority – the area where judiciary, human rights, rule of law should have provided protection to the minority. Hence the mess there now.

Another point is that the Human Rights Act didn’t actually create new rights. It brings into UK courts rights which were previously already available to all UK citizens, but which before required action at the level of the European Court of Human Rights to enforce (with all the costs and inconvenience involved). I understand that the European Convention on Human Rights was actually largely written by British lawyers, so it is not some dark continental conspiracy at all.

The problem with this argument is the word ‘might’.

If an individual has a 0.1% chance of being tortured if deported, but a 10% chance of killing 100 individuals if left at liberty in this country, I don’t think a purely individual rights approach, implemented within the legal system, is going to be useful in balancing those different probabilities. The process would produce an outcome based entirely on structural issues, like who was in a position to pay money to lawyers when. The hundred people running a 10% chance of death are clearly having their rights violated in some abstract sense. But they don’t know it, so won’t hire a lawyer, meaning the court won’t ever be asked that question.

This is fundamentally different to a case of extradition of someone on a charge for which they will face torture or the death penalty. That would be a violation of human rights in which the court was directly complicit, which is never acceptable.

“greatest good for the greatest number”
Least harm to the least number is a good rule of thumb.

Go back to reading those shitty Gary Younge articles!

Heh heh!

(I) Rule consequentialism doesn’t always disadvantage minorities.

(II) The individual/community dualism (or any other Platonic dualism) is useless in trying to explain the fundamentals of human rights. These ‘rights’ are about improving relations (i.e. trying to curb unnecessary coercion) within our societies, which, in turn, maximises human freedom.

(1.) Utilitarianism can take one of two forms:
Rule and Act consequentialism

(2) Act = You judge ‘x’ act by its good consequences
Rule = You judge ‘x’ act by rule ‘z’ and maximise the good consequences of z

And…

(3) Individuals do not exist because humanity only exists in relation to the corporeal world. There is no such thing as the ‘atomized’ man or an unfettered ego. People are embedded within social structures (i.e. family, country, religion, local community, school, etc.)

(4) Communities do not exist because a community is not an autonomous reality. It does not, so to speak, exist ‘sui genersis’ (as Sonia pointed out above). Society is not a living organism – it does not change on its own accord, only in virtue of its individual members.

All political questions are questions of human freedom (or ‘soft’ determinism if you don’t like the metaphysical ring to that)
Amir