Oddbean

Yea at least thats the only way that "natural rights" make any sense. But its also extremely vague on details which is fine. Agreeing exactly what the morals are, and how to derive rights from them, is very murky and fraught with disagreement. Large parts of the world do not derive "freedom of speech" from "you cant kill or enslave others" for example. Which I why I've been arguing for pragmatic rights, those you can actually assert and are generally agreed upon socially. Although I agree morality is a survival mechanism and tends to be pretty consistent across time and cultures.

Essentially, that rights are what you can exercise in a social context. Any rando can imagine a right or privilege. But if you can't actually exercise it, so what? Likewise society can decide a existent right is no longer is valid. (not the state, social consensus at whatever level) In either situation the individual's option is to go somewhere they can *exercise the rights they hold. Individuals generally will not continuously assert rights in contexts that result in social exclusion. 99% of the time they either conform or move to a different social context that agrees with them. So rights aren't static, except in a dogmatic sense. They result from individuals asserting them en masse.