I think by “universal” we mean rights which can be conferred to another regardless of place or person. So I do think some rights are universal, but everything a society may call a right is not a universal right—having clean water and clean air, having medicine/healthcare, ability to commit suicide, freedom to sexual congress are not universal rights because they are things a person wants, but not things which prevent that person’s molestation, per se.
Universal rights have the quality of preventing personal molestation from another. The way I think it’s best to think of someone(s) molesting another is direct interference in their life. But for animals with higher-level cognition, not getting killed or molested is a bit more complex, which is why these types of animals (who resolve their differences through speech) need group-level effects to safeguard their personal safety, like freedom to religion, freedom to speech, and freedom to bear arms, freedom to privacy, and so on.
It’s a tough question, what right is universal and why, and it’s easy enough to draw justifications for why lack of sexual congress may be mentally molesting, and therefore an individual should be guaranteed means to procreation. But the problem with guaranteeing sexual congress for everyone is that it puts undue burden on the provider of such rights. There’s so inherent social or personal benefit in giving someone the right to procreate. But someone trying to procreate should not be actively prevented because doing so would impinge upon their freedom to privacy, at least that’s how I think about it.
Universal rights have the quality of preventing personal molestation from another. The way I think it’s best to think of someone(s) molesting another is direct interference in their life. But for animals with higher-level cognition, not getting killed or molested is a bit more complex, which is why these types of animals (who resolve their differences through speech) need group-level effects to safeguard their personal safety, like freedom to religion, freedom to speech, and freedom to bear arms, freedom to privacy, and so on.
It’s a tough question, what right is universal and why, and it’s easy enough to draw justifications for why lack of sexual congress may be mentally molesting, and therefore an individual should be guaranteed means to procreation. But the problem with guaranteeing sexual congress for everyone is that it puts undue burden on the provider of such rights. There’s so inherent social or personal benefit in giving someone the right to procreate. But someone trying to procreate should not be actively prevented because doing so would impinge upon their freedom to privacy, at least that’s how I think about it.