MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY

On the Absolutism of Rights
By Kizmet

Last month, I found myself in a debate with someone who is an extreme advocate of Ayn Rand’s Philosophy of Objectivism. One of the topics we argued about was human rights—whether they are absolute or not. My standpoint is that human rights are not absolute, for the simple reason that all individuals within the society have these human rights in similar and equal measure. 

In an attempt to persuade me that rights are indeed absolute, the advocate for absolutism of rights asked me this question: “How do you legislate my thoughts?”

Below is my response to that question of his:

Why would I make a law to control the mind or thoughts of individuals just so I can justify my notion that human rights are not absolute? Or why should I do that just so I can satisfy someone? And if I were to do that, why should I make laws on thoughts alone? Sins and crimes are also conceived by emotions such as desires, etc., so why shouldn’t I make laws on them as well? But then, why should I do that?

My understanding of the notion that “the rights are not absolute” is that it doesn’t encompass the drafting or enacting of laws to control the thoughts of an individual—unless, for some reason, the country’s inventors can come up with our version of “precogs,”* who shall be helpful in preventing crimes. Or if some Filipinos would suddenly acquire super mental powers—the technical ability to read minds and thoughts, for instance—and use those powers to commit crimes, then maybe the government will try to convince a few of those super humans to help the government in preventing other super humans from committing crimes.  So here, by enacting laws, the government will be able to maintain peace and order. Such laws can prevent its constituents from interfering with the rights of their fellow citizens. This being the case, and according to the principle that “There is no crime if there is no law punishing it,” people certainly could not be accused, charged, and convicted for any crime.

When I say rights are not absolute, I mean there are provisions of the law that restrict or limit these rights. For example, the right to freedom of speech is limited by: (1) severe calumny, (2) anything lewd or obscene, (3) anything that provokes violence or disorder, (4) seditious messages, and (5) clear and present danger.

In Dictionary.com, the word “absolute” is defined as “free from restriction or limitation; not limited in any way.” In other words, the word “absolute” should mean that there are no restrictions or limitations. If we apply the adjective “absolute” to describe a human right, it means that this human right has no restrictions or limitations at all. It also means that should someone decide to commit a murder and someone is indeed murdered, it would not be possible to convict the murderer for that crime. To begin with, there will be no crime to charge that murderer with, for the killing of another person would just be an exercise of an absolute right. If every individual has similar and equal rights  and such rights are absolute and society finds such a notion acceptable, then anarchy and chaos certainly would reign in that society.

So for us to co-exist in society, we have to defer to each other’s rights, and recognizing the rights of others can only mean limiting our own rights. And because of these limitations, these rights become non-absolute. They become simple rights, and there is really no need for a law to control the minds or thoughts of individuals unless these minds or thoughts create clear and present danger to society or threaten the rights of other individuals. An individual may be entitled to his or her thoughts, but the moment these thoughts become dangerous or life-threatening and are explicitly acted upon, they become crimes as defined by the laws of the land. The individual can then be charged and tried in court and, if after due process is found guilty beyond reasonable doubt, he or she should be convicted and punished according to law.

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*“Precogs” is short for “precognition” (from the Latin præ-, “prior to,” + cognitio, “acquiring knowledge”) or “future sight, which means perception that involves the acquisition of future information that cannot be deduced from presently available and normally acquired sense-based information. In the 2002 Hollywood science-fiction film Minority Report, a specialized police department apprehends criminals based on foreknowledge provided by three psychics called “precogs.”

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