Yondu on Nostr: That's a very interesting question. I don't understand well Kant's imperative in his ...

That's a very interesting question.
I don't understand well Kant's imperative in his standard form: "behave as if your action essence would become natural law". For me it's too vague. If I'm saving my child of many children - should the law to be to save my child or their own child? Even supposing the latter, I know a lot of people who would say "no, you shouldn't save your own child in case this will immediately cause 10 million deaths" (I disagree, but a lot of people would say that). So what would be a natural law in this case?
And Kant is not saying there is natural law, he says "behave as if it would be", but for me the meaning of his words here might be much more prosaic, i.e., "behave as you should; so that not to feel guilty later" - this is mostly aligned with Value Ethics (as opposed to Consequentialists and Deontological, both of which have their huge drawbacks) and very-very local, down to each person and his/her own choices in each moment, nothing of "universal right" or "universal rules" here.
I would ask back: how ANY principle in people relationships CAN be generally right or wrong?
E.g., principle: "do not murder". I'm sitting in the restaurant with a lot of children and seeing terrorist which came and start mass shooting. Shouldn't I kill him if I can?

About the declaration of human rights: I like it. Very good document, very idealistic. I would like to live in the world where this declaration is respected by many governing bodies. However, no of the mentioned rights are "natural law" as we can see every day. They are not respected and a lot of people will not think of these rights as the "natural law". They are just the reflection of the state of liberal minds raised in the culture of Western society of the second half of XX century. If you would ask people in XII century - they would see the concept quite differently; also if you describe it to the modern people in rural China or Russia, Iran, UAE, Laos, mid-African tribes etc. - probably each of them will point out some of the Articles of this declaration as blatantly wrong.

So my view is - no, there is no universal truths in people relationships and societies. There is always local cultural context which defines which action is good and which is bad, and this is derived from the current societal norms in the specific place and time which in terms rooted in evolutionary theory and survival of the societies/lineages and people inside of them. Value ethics is quite on spot IMO.

The silver rule you mentioned (don't do to other what you wouldn't like to receive yourself) is the rule of thumb, very good euristic on how to survive in current Western society. This is not "natural law" but just the rule which was proven useful during last centuries. Maybe later it will be wrong, in different society, and even now it is not uniformly advantageous but depending on the context (see above).