Customer Reviews

The Myth of Natural Rights

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Brief, blunt, unafraid of expressing unpopular views. This Loompanics book is directed at smug libertarians in the introduction. However, it contains an exploration of what we mean by "rights" and of morality itself that is valuable for any would-be political/moral philosopher.

Rollins does not flinch before names such as Kant and Rand. He single-mindedly seeks justification for belief in rights granted us by nature or by our humanity. In the process, he entertainingly entertains the arguments of a handful of libertarian and other thinkers, rejecting each as a case of wishful thinking, flawed logic, or plain, unsupported claim-making. Confronted with moral arguments for "natural rights," Rollins, apparently brandishing Ockhams Laser (this is the 20th century), extends his skepticism to morality. Incredibly, unashamedly, he rejects traditional metaethics after he finds it just as lacking as natural rights theories. Common notions of "right' and "wrong" are dismissed along with it. Shocking? Yes. False? Rollins will want to know in what way.


Leave your philosophical preconceptions on your bedside table. Icon-worship this is not. Rollins knocks the caps off the Randian Objectivists early on and never looks back. No moralist, no moral theory is safe by the end of this appropriately black book. Not Utilitarians, not the Categorical Imperative, not your neighbor who says things always turn out for the best.


Rollins' book might be a bit too slim and flip, not to mention unbuttressed by credentials and respectability, to win Best Philosophy Book of the Century. But, what it lacks in pomp and politeness, it repays with interest in honesty, piercing clarity, and, most of all, surprising integrity. Just as surprising, Rollins is probably a libertarian.


If you are interested in political, natural, or human rights, libertarianism, ethics, morality, or why your stolen car stereo hasn't been returned, I dare you to read this book.


Kevin

In just 42 pages, this book goes a long way toward refuting moralism without relying on self-contradictory relativism. I happen to agree with about 90% of this text. The flaw here is Rollins' implication that natural rights do not exist because they have no physical effectivity. Lack of physical effectivity is not a sufficient argument against something's existence. However, the rest of the debunking is pretty hard hitting.