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Letters
Letters
The Wrongs & Rights of Rights • Now Here This, Man • Terrestrial Communications • Insider Insight
The Wrongs & Rights of Rights
Dear Editor: Surely the woman who borrowed $5 from Tim Dare in Issue 118 should repay it to him on his request not primarily because she had contracted a duty to do so, but because the $5 is his money? His ownership rests upon a foundational belief in our society that human beings can permanently possess certain material objects (including sums of money) for as long as they wish to do so, providing that no other has a better title to their possession. The fact that Tim and the woman entered into an informal contract for her temporary holding and return of the $5 was based on a recognition of that foundational belief and its social implementation. This may suggest that in any property-owing society (that is, almost all human societies), ownership is an intrinsic, and therefore human, right, which is thus not based on a convention – although it may be listed in a Convention.
John Kissane, Luton
Dear Editor: The whole concept of human rights is a bit of a problem. In the absence of a God laying down the law, we are left trying to decide what to base them on.
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