Is truth a basic human right?

Those who want power over others have always manipulated public perception of the truth, but an Open Society (by Karl Popper's definition) was supposed to be resistant to this in much the same way as the scientific process is resistant to it, through things like free speech, democratic debate, and freedom of the press. Today the ideal of the Open Society is in tatters largely because of systematic and relentless attacks on the truth.

I think the seeds of many of our problems today are found in the birth of modern marketing and and the manufacture of "needs" to create a consumer society. And also, I think that the very idea of "intellectual property" is at odds with a commitment to truth and a truly open society. This combined with the fact that the primary beneficiaries of these two concepts also hold most of the economic power in our world create the fundamental distortion that has led to where we are today.

Truth itself is not really knowable in many interesting cases, and even scientific truths which might appear "objective" at any given point are subject to debate, change and revision.

The thing that needs to be protected is the pursuit of truth and I think this looks a lot like freedom of the press and freedom of civic speech.

The basic human right you're looking for is called freedom of speech.

As long as we have it, we're able to share different points of view and discuss them. Then we can draw our own conclusions.

That's the closest we can get to the "truth".

I'd settle for the 'facts'... things that most reasonable people can observe and can agree exist/happen. (Whether they survive interpretation is another question.)

'Truth' is one of those lofty aspirations that we like to pretend to reach for, but very few of us (if any) are yet fit to grok. Gotta walk before you can run.

I don’t think there would be a legal way to codify access to truth that wouldn’t also enable disastrous side effects. Such a law would potentially endanger rather than protect journalists, whose work could potentially be scrutinized for truthfulness in order to determine whether they qualify for protection; implicitly, should they fail that scrutiny, however biased... they would presumably be less protected than under broader laws that protect journalists (or just human life) generally.

That said, law isn’t the only framework to understand rights. I think it’s reasonable to say that we’re morally entitled to access to the truth. It doesn’t have the same force as law, but it doesn’t carry the same risks either.

All of that said, since you’re new to the realization that truth telling is a mortal risk... welcome. It’s not warm here, but it’s important to know. For what it’s worth, there’s a long ugly history of persecution of truth. It’s present in the history of major religion and major political strains.

I have many misgivings referencing this particular news outlet generally, but if you want to learn more about the dangers faced by journalists, Democracy Now is a great resource for that.

From a USA perspective, we have freedom of press / speech, which means that the government is not allowed to interfere / pass laws. I feel like this is reasonable.

Other than that, truth can't be a basic human right in the sense that, say, water or shelter can be, because what does that even mean? How would you go about providing truth to someone?

No, because we can’t agree on what’s “true” or what we mean by that. Umberto Eco wrote an interesting essay on the nature of truth, you can find it in his book On the Shoulders of Giants.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights spells out rights that cover journalists doing their job.

https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

Saudi Arabia is not a signatory of the Declaration.

Having a right, from whatever source or authority, does not protect anyone from someone abusing or ignoring that right.

Truth a basic human responsibility.

Hot headed aggression will always overcome truth, and find a way to abuse knowledge and win wars. We must tell our truths often and early if we are to progress diplomatically.

I think that gradual truth should become a human right. If truth or human rights then privacy would not be. In a just world privacy should have an expiration date, potentially beyond the end of participants but always resulting in complete transparency.

Basically I want a moral model that prevents grandmas from having secret family recipes that could enrich the world supply of cookies

Free speech should be a basic human right... and maybe truth falls under that.

I think of it like most other "rights": You have the right to know the truth, you have the right to tell the truth, but you don't have the right to force someone else to tell you the truth.

A right is always obtained (sometimes with force), not given. Whether it is a basic one depends on how many people wants to obtain it. If few cares about it, then it's a luxury.

To me, information is a basic human right.

The degree of truth that is within that information needs to be delineated by the individual... Not prescribed by an authority as truth

yes.

No, we should not accept journalists being killed it is their job to find the truth when people of countries etc does not want you to know the truth.

Why is the truth important? It is a democratic cornerstone, the people we have elected are working for us and shall report to us just as basic as that. When you don't get access to the truth or get misinformation you are taken away your democracy as you see in countries like in example Russia, China and USA.

Depends on whose truth.

Why do you think Jamal Khashoggi told the truth?

> Recently I read the statistics on the frequency of journalists being killed. I was appalled.

Where? What are the stats?

> I suppose I never thought deeply enough to conclude the torture and murder of Jamal Khashoggi is a manifestation of a systematic problem.

It's not. And common sense says he was killed because he was a spy/political actor, not a "journalist". What "truth" was he killed for, if he was killed. Why was he targeted and not 1000000 other journalists around the world. If it was systematic, there would be a lot less journalists. If it was systematic how come there hasn't been another khashoggi incident? There would be journalists being killed in every consulate around the world. No?

> If nation states (even democratic in some instances) are willing to kill those who share the truth, is this something we should accept?

Of course not. But then again, they shouldn't be killed for lying either.

> I wonder to what extent we are entitled to truth, and why there is a war against it.

Ask the CNN, WaPo, NYTimes, Foxnews, etc why they are engaging in a war against "truth". There is a war against "truth" because political/financial interests are at stake.

An introductory class in philosophy would do wonders for you. "Truth" you will find is a very complex topic. But beyond the philosophical issues with "truth", your problem is that your started with a false premise : "Journalists give us truth". They do not. Truth doesn't come from journalists. Truth is independent of journalists.

You sneakily confused "right to free speech" with "right to truth via journalists". That's journalist type of behavior. You see this all of HN and social media because of the amount of journalists wasting time on social media instead of doing actual work.

I believe in right to free speech. I believe journalists have the right to lie outright, spin facts, tell truth, etc without physical harm. Just like any american has the same constitutional rights. Unfortunately, it's the journalists who are waging a war to censor americans so it's hard to sympathize with these people. But certainly nobody should be killed for expressing their opinions.

>I suppose I never thought deeply enough to conclude the torture and murder of Jamal Khashoggi is a manifestation of a systematic problem.

Even for something that has received such a wide coverage as that, what do we actually know for a fact about it? You hear pundits and journalists claiming things for fact, but what are the sources, and what is the actual evidence. The only evidence is "everybody knows", or the U.S. intelligence community being "certain" of his fate. They were "certain" of a lot of things. If something that has received as wide a coverage as that event has had, imagine all the things we'll never hear about.

>If nation states (even democratic in some instances) are willing to kill those who share the truth, is this something we should accept?

It's amusing that I'm writing these lines near a street named "Richelieu" in Algiers. We'll have to go back to Cardinal de Richelieu for whom the "raison d'État"[0] was a cornerstone.

I'd recommend the book "Diplomacy" by Henry Kissinger.

- [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_interest