Template talk:Rights

People

Natural/Inalienable Rights Theory defines Natural Rights as attributes of PEOPLE. Men, women, humans, aliens, AIs, angels, etc have rights because and only because they are people. I placed People in the list of who has rights and it was removed. The note implies that the person who changed what I entered thinks "Human" and "Person" are synonymous on a legal/philosphical level which is not true. This revision shows a frightening ignorance and/or attempt to manipulate peoples' perceptions of rights e.g. implies the current debate about dolphin rights is not about treating dolphins as humans' equal, but simply about being a little nicer to them which is not true. This debate about dolphins being persons is much more profound in meaning and implications than simply another discussion about animal cruelty.

If the doctrine of reincarnation allows the soul of a man to be reborn in the body of an animal, such as a hog, if we knew that the soul of a man was in one of our hogs, it would require us to call the hog a man. Locke pairs the examples of a rational talking parrot with a creature that has the shape of a man but cannot engage in rational discourse as a thought experiment which demonstrates that rational discourse is neither a necessary or sufficient condition for being a man. If man is a living body, an animal of a certain shape, then what is a person? A person is an intelligent thinking being that can know itself as itself the same thinking thing in different times and places.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/supplement.html AThousandYoung (talk) 03:20, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

You are entirely correct that "people" and "humans" are not coextensive sets, however the reason your edit was reverted was because this template is an organized list of links to other rights-related articles, and a link to the article you linked to already exists: Natural and legal rights. If there was a separate article on People's rights or Persons' rights or something, that would warrant inclusion, but there's not. [edit: apparently People's rights does exist, but it's new and has never been anything but a redirect to Bill of rights and then to United States Bill of Rights; I just now changed it to redirect to Rights instead, since it's not at all clear what that article is supposed to be about, and nothing but this comment appears to link to it...] --Pfhorrest (talk) 09:28, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

"Rights claimants... fetuses" contentious

Fetuses" appearing under "Rights claimants" makes no sense - fetuses aren't "claiming" rights, they're not claiming anything, they're fetuses. It should be removed from this subsection.--TyrS (talk) 06:40, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Hey again, TyrS. My take is that it is included because, regardless of what any one person thinks, it is a belief that fetuses have rights; they don't have to technically claim anything. Some of society speaks up for them because they cannot. To these people, it is only natural that fetuses would want these rights if they could talk. Furthermore, the article is titled Fetal rights, which is another reason it is included in the template. I'm certain it will be added back because of this. Flyer22 (talk) 10:20, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I think it is one thing saying that other people claim rights for fetuses, we got plenty of reliable sources for that. But saying that "that fetuses would want these rights if they could talk". You would need a source for that.

I don’t think TyrS is saying fetuses don’t have rights or that people don’t claim rights on the behalf of fetuses. I think he is making a grammatical point. And I think he is right. Animals should also be removed from the subsection- because animals don’t claim rights for themselves, humans do. Similarly most children, certainly infants, don’t claim rights, adults do on their behalf.

I think the way to resolve this is to find another title - an alternative to "rights claimants". The section anyway overlaps with "Other groups of rights" - why are authors in "Other group of rights" and animals in "rights claimants". Does not make sense. I think as the template got expanded it started to get a bit messy.

Anyway - can I suggest that we merge the two section under the heading "Group rights". or any other heading that might be appropriate.--SasiSasi (talk) 23:19, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

This was also brought up in the #Fetal rights section above. And, LOL, I'm pretty sure that the line "Fetuses would want these rights if they could talk" cannot be sourced in any valid way, since fetuses cannot talk and we certainly cannot read their minds (which likely haven't developed a language we would understand anyway).

But as for an extra heading, I'm not against it. I was just giving my take on why it might make sense to some people to include fetuses in the Rights template (as cited above in the previous discussion). I can't think of a better heading right now, though. Flyer22 (talk) 23:49, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Having interacted with TyrS a few times, I also believe that TyrS is a she, by the way (just letting you know due to the reference of "he"). Flyer22 (talk) 23:56, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

anything is possible :-) lets see what TyrS comes up with re heading. We should also include sex workers in the template, see Sex workers' rights.--SasiSasi (talk) 00:01, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi there, Flyer & Sasi, sorry I haven't chimed in yet, I forgot to watch this page.
I agree with Sasi that "Animals" should also not go under "claimants" and that "Authors" should. ("Children" as claimants is a bit iffy too though, hmmm. There are a few actual child advocates for chilren's rights, aren't there?)
The best solution I can think of is to change "Other groups of rights" to just "Other". See below for how it would look. (I've alphabetized everything under "claimants" & "Other")
(p.s. I don't care what gender I'm referred to as (: Think of me as a brain in a jar.)
(p.p.s. this is beside the point, but just for "fun", to follow on from Flyer's "Some of society speaks up for [fetuses] because they cannot. To these people, it is only natural that fetuses would want these rights if they could talk." - This is mainly about abortion, with the 'fetal rights' advocates assuming that all fetuses "would want to be born". However, one could say with equal validity that if fetuses could communicate and see what they were going to be born into they'd be grateful to be aborted. Both statements/assumptions are purely speculative and empirically unsupportable. Just putting my 2 cents in on this somewhat off-the-topic topic.) --TyrS 01:47, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

[NOTE: I've moved the example template referenced in the post above from below it to next to it, as otherwise it would be next to mine and look like my suggestion]

As the person who first structured this template (it used to just be an alphabetical list), I'd like to clarify what the point of those two last sections are. Their titles have changed a lot through several past debates on the talk page, but they are in essence supposed to be:

• Rights claimed in virtue of who or what the right-holder is (e.g. a woman), apart from just being someone who does something (e.g. an author).
• Rights about some thing that anyone might do, or about some general facet of life (e.g. labor, sex, language, etc), regardless of who the right-holder is.

The original names for the sections were "Rights of groups" and "Other groups of rights", or something like that. If you look at the talk history above, you'll see how that evolved: someone complained that "rights of groups" was confusing with "group rights", so it got changed to something like "grouped by right holder", which in turn got shortened to just "right holders". Then someone had an issue with saying that everyone listed there really holds those rights, which might be a contentious claim, so "holders" became "claimants". Now that has the issue you're raising that some of the individuals purported to have rights in virtue of who or what they are can't really claim to have rights, since they can't speak, and possibly can't even think, "I have/deserve such-and-such rights".

For illustration, I still think LGBT rights belongs in the second category (where they used to be), because they're not so much about extending rights to people in virtue of their LGBT identity, as it is about rights to engage in LGBT activities. They're rights about anyone's freedom to choose their sexual orientation or gender identity or other such LGBT issues; not about LGBT people's rights to do things like vote or own property or whatever which might otherwise be denied of them in virtue of who or what they are.

Contrast that with say women's rights, or animal rights, or fetal rights, which are all basically saying "these individuals count as full fledged people and deserve (at least some of) the same rights as everyone else"; and compare it with labor rights, or language rights, which are saying "everyone is permitted or entitled to do or have such-and-such".

I think perhaps the most concise way of putting it would be:

• Specific sets of individuals who purportedly have or deserve rights in general.
• Specific sets of rights which individuals purportedly have or deserve in general.

Or in even more precise predicate logic terms, the categories are about claims of the following forms:

• "For all (or at least most) rights R, for every individual x of set S, R(x)" = "S's rights"
• "For all (or at least most) individuals x, for every right R of set S, R(x)" = "S rights"

Coming up with concise but accurate names for these two divisions seems difficult, but I think it makes a much more logical division that "people who claim rights for themselves" and "other rights stuff" which is effectively what you're suggesting. I hadn't really wrapped my own head around how to characterize the second section until now, hence the "other" in its title since the beginning, but the point of the first section is definitely about who is claimed to have rights, in virtual of being who they are, regardless of who is doing that claiming; worrying about who can claim for themselves to have rights seems kind of silly.

Hope this helps,

--Pfhorrest (talk) 03:56, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Pfhorrest.

I understand that it's complicated & difficult to get this right and discussion has taken place in the past, but I don't agree with you when you describe it as "silly" to object to animals and fetuses being labelled "claimants". This indicates that Wikipedia is stating that animals & fetuses claim rights for themselves in the same way that the other groups do, and is neither logical nor neutral in tone.--TyrS 04:55, 12 January 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tyranny Sue (talk • contribs)

Hi Sue. I'm sorry if I caused offense by saying "silly". I wasn't meaning to dismiss that objection about animals and fetuses being labeled "claimants" as invalid; it's a very good point about the wording of the header for that section. What I meant to call "silly" (or more eloquently put, a little "arbitrary") is the idea of categorizing rights into those who are claimed by somebody for themselves, and everything else, where the things in "everything else" are a very diverse group; whereas my intended division is a clear logical one between "rights of any sort, as they pertain to some particular sets of individuals (e.g. women, animals, fetuses)", and "rights of some particular sort (e.g. labor-related, sex-related, language-related), as they pertain to any set of individuals"

In other words, I acknowledge your objection, but I'm suggesting that the solution to the objection is to rename the sections to more accurately reflect their purpose (as I am in favor of the purpose they're meant to serve), rather than to repurpose them to fit the names they have now (as you seem to be suggesting). --Pfhorrest (talk)

Hey, Pfhorrest,

Thank you for seeing my point. I know what you mean and I can easily see why the contentiousness of labelling fetuses (and animals) as claimants was overlooked. Renaming the sections is a good idea but I can't think of anything at the moment and the proposal I made above was kind of a stopgap suggestion, since I anticipate it being tricky to come up with perfect section names. (I've also just changed my "nonsensical" in this section title to "contentious" to avoid being too snarky about it.)  TyrS  chatties  11:11, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I think we should rename the sections as well. The claimant/non claimant won’t get us anywhere, surely some workers claim rights for themselves in that context, and some don’t, etc, etc...

Templates are a good way to make other wikipedia article accessible to users, and as long as the categorisation makes sense to the average person, its fine. There are so many attempts to classify and categorise rights, all of them have their difficulties (see individual v group rights, generations of rights etc). I think we really just ought to find a non-controversial section heading to make all the different articles relating to rights accessible.

See my suggestion on the right, happy to discuss, can’t say I have the definitive answer. Its definitely uncontroversial.--SasiSasi (talk) 17:51, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't like putting the theoretical distinctions and human rights divisions below all the others; the way you have it organized that's basically as miscellaneous group of rights at the top, while I think miscellanea belong at the bottom. I'm also not happy about destroying the distinction between rights-by-who-has-them and rights-by-what-is-had-by-them. Just because the distinction is hard to capture in phrases short enough for section headings doesn't mean we should throw it out. It's really simple to state in a full sentence: those are all about someone having a right to something. One section groups them by the someone, and another groups them by the something. I think this is a useful categorization to keep, we just need to brainstorm names for them. The first thing that comes to mind is "by right holder" and "by right held", but that raises the same issues that caused "right-holder" to be changed to "right-claimant" before. Maybe just "by who" and "by what"? It's kind of silly but I think given the examples in each section it will make sense in context. Still not an ideal solution though. --Pfhorrest (talk) 22:12, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I would not say that the list of rights we have is a "miscellaneous" group of rights. They are the rights the template is about. The categorisations that are in the template are in most cases extremely theoretical and not widely known or accepted. I am not sure why a template on rights should list them first and the rights as "miscellaneous" at the bottom.

Putting the right at the top, right under the heading also means that we don’t have to think about a subheading. I am against trying to categorise the rights in the template. There is no widely accepted categorisation of rights with no overlap or coverage of all the rights articles we have in Wikipedia.--SasiSasi (talk) 02:31, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

An alternative would be this:

Consumer rights/ protection as a rights claimant

I think we should put consumers in the rights claimant section. There is no "consumer rights" page but there is a consumer protection page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_protection

It can also redirect from consumer rights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_rights Thanks98.228.223.184 (talk) 21:58, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Immigrants as a rights claimant

I would like to see immigrants as a rights claimant, however, there is no immigrant rights page. However, there is http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Immigrants_rights&redirect=no and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration which can be redirected there from immigrant rights — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.228.223.184 (talk) 22:04, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Rights claimants creep

In response to the above two sections and some other recent activity, I think we need to be wary of creeping growth in the rights claimants section. If we could list any special interest group in there at all, the list would grow to unwieldy size very quickly. I think we should limit it to only claimants where we have actual articles on the subject of their rights. I'm tentatively open to the idea of claimants where there is a redirect from a rights article to a different name, but I'm very hesitant because as above Immigrants rights just redirects to Immigration and the latter is not on the whole a rights-related article. Something like LGBT rights which once (but apparently no longer) redirected to LGBT social movements might be more acceptable, because the latter article is at least about a closely rights-related issue (a social movement seeking among other things to secure more rights for the claimants). --Pfhorrest (talk) 23:52, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Use of logo

The logo being used on this template is not a widely recognized logo for human rights. It is not Wikipedia's place to promote its use. If it achieves widespread use outside of Wikipedia, then it will be appropriate for us to adopt it, but not before then. I propose removing it from the template. Kaldari (talk) 19:54, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree. It's been pushed all over relevant WP articles by User:WhiteWriter and broadly rejected by everybody at WP:Human rights except for User:Boud who mostly commented on how to get sufficient permission to use it, not whether it was appropriate to use, about a year ago. See WT:WikiProject_Human_rights/Archive_7#Logo and WT:WikiProject_Human_rights/Archive_7#Logo_replacement. I haven't had time to really fight it but if anyone wants to take up that torch they have my support. --Pfhorrest (talk) 08:47, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

• I confess I added it to the template without knowing, so to speak, its pedigree, so I don't mind whether or not it's used here. I think, though, the template feels underpowered without an image, so I found File:Civil rights.JPG as an alternative. CsDix (talk) 11:23, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

If users here do not lke it, i dont have any particular interest in using it here. Just you should know that this logo was elected by masssive international agreement, that is by far bigger than wikipedia entire active body. You will never convince me that image chosen by one or two persons here on talk is better then this logo, created for very this purpose. This logo is THE ONLY logo in usage that was some official meaning and confirmation in background, while all others have nothing. All best. --WhiteWriter^speaks 02:43, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

The objection, I think, is not that any group of Wikipedians are any more authoritative than the contest that picked that human rights logo, it's that nobody can authoritatively make "the logo" for human rights, and we at wikipedia would be better off picking some image which is merely widely iconic and representative of rights without it claiming to be the official logo of human rights. By using this logo, we endorse the authority of the contest to pick a logo for an abstract concept; by using almost any other image, we don't endorse any authority to do so, we just put a pretty picture commonly associated with the subject for beautifications purposes.

Consider Template:Philosophy_sidebar. For illustration, it has a triptych of portraits of widely-recognized philosophers from around the world (Socrates, Confucius, Avicienna). Even if it was just a bust of Socrates (which I think is also used somewhere else on WP), that wouldn't be claiming that Socrates is the official figurehead of all philosophy; just that he is an iconic figure in philosophy.

Frankly the idea of coming up with a logo not for a specific organization but for an abstract concept is patently absurd. A logo is like a brand. Giving something a logo implies the giver has ownership of that concept. But abstract concepts can't be owned. Human rights, as a concept, cannot have an official logo -- nobody has the authority to do so, and this contest acting like it does is simply farcical. And Wikipedia shouldn't be endorsing such a thing. It would be a farce if we came up with a logo too, but nobody is suggesting that.

If I were to suggest an illustration for human rights, I'd probably go for a combination of several different iconic images. The liberty torch that was on WP:HR before was a good one (and contrary to objections is not inherently American; the figure of Liberty personified bearing a torch is European in origin, for example France had a statue of said figure before the US did, and gave the US theirs). The scales of justice would also make a good representation. For that matter Justice has a personification too, so perhaps stand them side by side, Lady Liberty with her torch and Lady Justice with her scales, and you've got some pretty iconic rights-related imagery right there. --Pfhorrest (talk) 09:11, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I understand your logic, but i still must say that i disagree. Abstract concepts do have logos for a quite some time. And by using it, i dont think that we say: "This is official logo", but only: "This logo is visual presentation of human rights." Also, i must say that Lady Liberty is very much "no" to me, as it is representation of America. America is on the very opposite side of human rights chain, so it would be very wrong to use anything even remotely related to that. Therefore, this logo is totally neutral, it contains no language or face, and it is only a visual presentation of rights. Without any insinuations, wherever you are located in the world. No to Lady Liberty torch. --WhiteWriter^speaks 19:43, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm getting get the feeling that your push here is directly motivated by anti-Americanism, which makes the whole thing feel rather biased. (I won't defend America as a bastion of all things good, but it's hardly the worst offender out there as you make it out to be). I guess you also missed my reply to that objection above: Lady Liberty is neither American in origin nor exclusively American in domain. See Liberty_(goddess) which I linked before. --Pfhorrest (talk) 20:23, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

No, its not, but i doubt that Lady Liberty in any form is good for this. Maybe the best solution for now would be to leave it without image? Or maybe something different? Something third? :) --WhiteWriter^speaks 20:28, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

If not File:Civil rights.JPG (which I realize may also be controversial), how about something from here? CsDix (talk) 22:24, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think this template should have any logo or graphic. There is no universally recognized symbol for human rights, so anything we use in the meantime is just going to be decoration, which is discouraged by WP:ICONS. Kaldari (talk) 23:37, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Gender parenthesis

I would like to suggest that rather than having things spread out in purely alphabetical order, we group it like "Men (Fathers)" and "Women (Mothers)" since these are basically sub-groups of the gendered rights movements. I am surprised at the lack of "parents' rights" here though. Ranze (talk) 17:55, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Disability rights

I have taken the liberty of adding a link to Disability rights movement to the template. I piped it to "Disabled persons" in line with the others in the "Rights by claimant" section but "Disability rights" is the "natural" and widely used term. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:44, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 January 2014

Please replace the current version with the following, which improves the template's appearance by setting the class "plainlist" for the first two sections (result shown opposite):

{{Sidebar | name = Rights | title = [[Rights]] | heading1 = Theoretical distinctions | content1 = <div class="plainlist"> * [[Claim rights and liberty rights]] * [[Individual and group rights]] * [[Natural and legal rights]] * [[Negative and positive rights]] </div> | heading2 = Human rights | content2 = <div class="plainlist"> * [[Civil and political rights|Civil and political]] * [[Economic, social and cultural rights|Economic, social and cultural]] * [[Three generations of human rights]] </div> | heading3 = Rights by claimant | content3 = <div class="hlist"> * [[Animal rights|Animals]] * [[Authors' rights|Authors]] * [[Children's rights|Children]] * [[Consumer protection|Consumers]] * [[Fathers' rights movement|Fathers]] * [[Fetal rights|Fetuses]] * [[Human rights|Humans]] * [[Indigenous rights|Natives]] * [[Divine right of kings|Kings]] * [[LGBT rights|LGBT]] * [[Men's rights movement|Men]] * [[Minority rights|Minorities]] * [[Mothers' rights|Mothers]] * [[Plant rights|Plants]] * [[Student rights|Students]] * [[Women's rights|Women]] * [[Labor rights|Workers]] * [[Youth rights|Youth]] * [[Disability rights movement|Disabled persons]] </div> | heading4 = Other groups of rights | content4 = <div class="hlist"> * [[Civil liberties]] * [[Digital rights|Digital]] * [[Linguistic rights|Linguistic]] * [[Reproductive rights|Reproductive]] </div> }}<noinclude> {{documentation}} <!--Place category links on the /doc sub-page, not here!--> </noinclude>

Rights Theoretical distinctions Claim rights and liberty rights Individual and group rights Natural and legal rights Negative and positive rights Human rights Civil and political Economic, social and cultural Three generations of human rights Rights by claimant Animals Authors Children Consumers Fathers Fetuses Humans Natives Kings LGBT Men Minorities Mothers Plants Students Women Workers Youth Disabled persons Other groups of rights Civil liberties Digital Linguistic Reproductive

Thank you, 213.246.114.212 (talk) 12:06, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Done. However, I used the {{plainlist}} and {{hlist}} templates, which have the same effect. --Anon126 (talk - contribs) 22:50, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Intersex rights

The rights of people born with differences in sex characteristics are attracting increased attention, and the page on intersex includes significant detail on human rights abuses and instruments. It's distinct from LGBT, disability and women, although the issues arguably intersect with each of them. Trankuility (talk) 05:23, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 June 2015

Please add the following entry after "Creditors" and before "Fathers"

| [[Elder rights|Elders]]

Thank you, 24.151.10.165 (talk) 18:34, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Done Stickee (talk) 22:58, 10 June 2015 (UTC)