Denver Philosophy Meetup

About this event

My apologies for the mix-up with our September meeting. I was traveling and knew I couldn't host. I arranged for someone to start the meeting from my computer and hand it over to Dan. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. A big thank you to Dan for stepping in and saving the meeting. I'm back, and this month's topic is: Where do rights come from, where do they end, and who decides? We use the word right all the time. Human rights, parental rights, privacy rights, animal rights, the rights of generations not yet born. Yet if someone asked us to say exactly what a right is, most of us would pause. Philosophers have been exploring this for centuries. John Locke argued that some rights belong to us simply because we are human, long before any government writes them down. Jeremy Bentham found that idea baffling and famously dismissed natural rights as "nonsense upon stilts," insisting a right exists only where a law creates it. Other traditions begin somewhere else entirely. Confucian thought tends to speak less about what we are owed and more about what we owe one another through our roles as parents, children, neighbors, and citizens. The Southern African idea of Ubuntu, often summed up as "a person is a person through other people," suggests that whatever we claim for ourselves is bound up with our place in a community. So where does a right come from? Law, social agreement, morality, our shared humanity? Can we hold a right the law refuses to recognize, and can the law grant rights that seem morally wrong? When I claim a right, am I also placing a duty on someone else, and who exactly is that someone? The questions get sharper the closer they come to home. When a child's interests and a parent's wishes pull in different directions, whose claim comes first? Can people who have not been born yet hold anything against us? Once we click "agree" and share our data, is privacy still ours to claim? Do animals have rights of their own, or is it closer to the truth that we have responsibilities toward them? And when we call healthcare, housing, education, or internet access a right, what are we saying about who provides it and how? Our meetings are the 1st Monday of the month at 6:00 pm. Mountain Time https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86706047777?pwd=U1VkMTQ3OWZPMTl2ZlJLRlRubVVyQT09 Meeting ID: 867 0604 7777 Passcode: 510932 Dial in: +1 346 248 7799 US If you would like a direct email separate from the meeting, go to www.Room4Thought.org and add your email to the list. It is also the best way to contact me: [email protected].