The Meaning of Life and Other Vegetables

What are the basic human rights? Those rights that are absolute, that everyone has, no matter what, right from birth and throughout life, that are unalienable under any circumstances?

The first thing that comes to mind is “Life”, or at least “The right not to be actively and bodily harmed”. But if we think about it for a moment, a person might lose this right if they do wrong. Think for example of self-defence – if someone attacks you and tries to kill you, it is YOUR right to defend yourself, and in such circumstances your attacker doesn’t have an unalienable right to either life or not being bodily harmed.

If you think about it a bit longer you’ll realise that no single right can be absolute in the above sense, because there could always arise a situation where such right encroaches on some other person’s right that could be deemed just as “unalienable”; sometimes the very same right that the first person is pursuing.

Except one right: The right to be treated fairly.

“Fair”, though, is an elusive concept. What does it mean?

Fair means that you receive what you give. An eye for an eye? Sometimes, but not necessarily. The simplest (and easiest) alternative is an exchange where all participants agree on the exchange’s fairness, i.e. that what’s given and received in exchange is equivalent. In some cases, however, this is impossible. For example – what is a fair treatment for someone who murdered? The victim is dead and can’t opine about fairness, and the murderer might think that the murder was a fair settlement of a previous dispute.

There are even more complicated cases, which involve multiple parties (some of them possibly unknown) or spanning over many years.

In general, I’d argue that the only basic human right is for a person to be treated at any given time, by any other person (or persons), not worse than could be justified by the sum total of their conscious choices and actions throughout their life, up to that moment. This is not a practical measure, of course; because such totality of information is not available. But it’s also not necessary.

Let’s make a simplifying assumption: rather than looking for fair treatment let’s suffice with preventing unfair one. That is, as long as a person is not treated unfairly, their basic right will be considered as fulfilled.

A treatment of another person can be judged “unfair” only if it is given in knowledge that it is not in line with the receiver’s choices and actions. Therefore, from the giver’s perspective their knowledge of the same suffices for avoiding unfair treatment. What if their knowledge is incomplete?… Simple: The receiver, feeling that they are being treated unfairly, should be able to (have the right to) provide additional information that will tip the balance, and make the same decision/action towards them consciously unfair. This means that we all have a basic, absolute obligation to hear out any unfairness claims against us. This is an integral, unalienable part of the basic human right to be treated fairly.

Given any subset of relevant information, what if the parties disagree about what is or isn’t in line with the subject person’s previous choices and actions? The “Reasonability” principle may be used to settle that. This means considering what a large number of people (or “the average person”), having the same knowledge, would say. This is of course affected by cultural norms, so what if the disputing parties are from two different cultures? To be on the safe side, I’d say that if any of the sides reference group would deem the decision/action unfair, it should be considered unfair. We are well aware of historical societies and cultures that practiced monstrous norms, where an “average” member of siad society/ies would have justified unspeakable unfairness (think the Holocaust, African-American slavery etc.).

In many cases the “Reasonable” opinion is already codified in law. But for the application of law to mesh smoothly with the above-presented principles, The totality of the person’s specific choices and actions, throughout their life, should be taken into account, and the person must be allowed to contribute any relevant information that is to be taken into account before a ruling is made. Whether that’s the case in legal proceedings, I do not know – I’m not a legal scholar or practitioner. But all this is only relevant to the more extreme cases, where legal proceedings are held; and my intention here is to outline universal principles that apply in any and all situations, including the very daily ones.

This is not just a theoretical/philosophical discussion, because, as I argue above, there is no basic, unalienable human right other than the right to be treated fairly (or to not be treated unfairly). If I’m right on this, this must be the main – or the only – guiding principle in all aspects of human interactions.

I believe that a consistent application of the above will lead, in the very long term, to a better society for all, and to a much more sustainable future for humanity and our planet.

Peace to all.




Did you know…? There are more posts in this blog than are presented to you right now. It’s an attribute of the template which I can’t change.
How to see all of them?
Click on the header – the bold “The Meaning of Life and Other Vegetables” at the top. You’ll get a list (which is not complete either), with a button at the bottom to access the next list, and so on. Those go all the way back to my first post in this blog.
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