> They’re only consequences in the sense that definitions are consequences,
A priori truths are, exactly and only, those things that are true by definition (and only exist within a particular axiomatic framework.)
You’ve described exactly why rights can only be a priori, but used it to deny that they are.
> They don’t exist before they are defined by humans, so in that sense they do not have an a priori existence.
If things exist before they are defined by humans and human knowledge of them comes as a result of experience with their existence, that knowledge is a posteriori. You’ve marshalled a cogent explanation of why rights cannot be known a posteriori, but then presented as an argument for why they cannot be a priori.
I think the difficulty we're having in communicating here is that I'm not using "a priori" in the Kantian sense as being in contrast to "a posteriori", but rather in the colloquial sense of "having a prior existence".
It's also irrelevant to the point I'm trying to make how or whether humans have knowledge of some pre-existing things (through experience or through some other means).
Since you brought up axiomatic frameworks, I'll have to differ on that as well, as I don't think the majority of humans that talk about rights do so based on any kind of axiomatic framework, but rather on their biases and because they've essentially been brainwashed in to thinking that way through education, socialization, the media, peer pressure, parenting, etc..
So my view and Kant's view on this differ significantly, and while I give him credit for these terms, I don't subscribe to his views and don't feel bound to use these terms in the way Kant or Kantians would have me use them.
> I think the difficulty we’re having in communicating here is that I’m not using “a priori” in the Kantian sense as being in contrast to “a posteriori”, but rather in the colloquial sense of “having a prior existence”.
“Having a prior existence” is very much what a posteriori is (a priori or a posteriori are epistemic terms, they don’t refer to the thing itself, but to our knowledge of the thing, if our knowledge is independent of our experience [as it is with things with no prior existence of their own] then it is a priori, if it is derived from experience [as it is for things that have prior natural existence rather than being pure products of intellect] it is a posteriori.)
Sure, if you reverse the definition of a priori, it applies to exactly the opposite of the things it usually applies to, but that’s probably not the best way to communicate. (And this is literally the first time I've ever heard the suggestion of an English "colloquial sense" of that phrase, which is used exclusively, in my experience, as a technical term of art in epistemology (and is used in English largely because an imported Latin technical term won't conflict with any colloquial understanding that might attach to a more natural English alternative.)
> > Since you brought up axiomatic frameworks, I’ll have to differ on that as well, as I don’t think the majority of humans that talk about rights do so based on any kind of axiomatic framework, but rather on their biases and because they’ve essentially been brainwashed in to thinking that way through education, socialization, the media, peer pressure, parenting, etc..
That’s still an axiomatic framework, its just one that is practically useless to discuss because each of the things which you might like to be conclusions dependent on logic and a smaller set of simple principles are just independent axioms not subject to debate. And, yes, its very common.
