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Natural Rights?
Posted by: Dale Franks
on Sunday, March 06, 2005
Jon's post on the concept of "natural rights" got me to thinking about it as well. My challenge to the "natural rights" crowd is simply this: If rights are natural, then why are they not self-enforcing?
In nature, the physical world operates according to a number of self-enforcing laws. We derive the law of gravity, even though we can't see, touch, smell or taste gravity, because we observe the effect of gravity on other objects. We don't fall up. Objects don't spontaneously hover. But we note that gravity has specific, predictable effects.
If rights are natural, then why do they not arise spontaneously? Indeed, for rights to even exist for any appreciable amount of time, they have to be reinforced with a massive hedge of social, legal, and political buttresses. We employ thousands of individuals as police, lawyers, judges, and politicians. That seems to be a pretty complex life support system for something that's natural.
There are, of course, societies that exist without this life-support system. Somalia, for example, is a country in which everything it is possible for people to accomplish with guns has been accomplished. The only "rights" that exist there are those that the inhabitants can defend by force. So, why, after government collapsed in Somalia and the country devolved into anarchy, didn't the recognition of "rights" spontaneously arise?
The last half of the 20th Century was dominated by the struggles between the free world and Soviet Communism, a totalitarian system in which "rights" were systematically repressed. Indeed, even a casual survey of human history shows that rights have been consistently suppressed throughout almost all of human history. Indeed, even in our free society, one of the big concerns of the last week was the legalized suppression of free speech by the McCain-Feingold Act.
It seems odd to posit the existence of "natural" rights that don't arise spontaneously, that can be easily and systematically repressed, and that, even in free societies, relies on a complex legal system to survive.
What then, is so natural about "rights", if they don't naturally arise?
Let's say you and I lived in a state of nature. What stops me from killing you? You have no recourse to the protection of the law. No community of fellow citizens who are pledged to protect you. There's just you and me in the forest, and I don't want you there. Where are your rights now? What protection do they afford you?
What you have is the ability to defend yourself. If you're lucky, the fear of your ability to protect yourself might deter me. It might not. But the only thing that keeps me from killing you and taking your possessions is your ability to defend yourself. Your "right" to live is irrelevant. The only "rights" you have in nature are those you can secure for yourself by force. Your "rights" certainly won't prevent me from bashing you over the head with a rock.
In nature, the strong survive, and the weak are dinner. How, then, do I derive the existence of rights from nature?
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In the words of Robert Anton Wilson, roughly, "There is no governor anywhere, and we are all absolutely free."
In a sense, we are, by natural law, alive and free. The problem is that everyone else is too. When two free things interact, one of them often winds up with a broken skull. Sort of like the natural laws guiding chemical reactions—which, if you want to look at things from a purely deterministic standpoint, is quite analogous with human interaction.
Yes, I know that only tangentially—at best—relates to your argument, but the RAW quote popped into my head, and I felt like elaborating. |
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Written By:
Beck
URL:
http://INCITE1.blogspot.com
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If rights are natural, then why are they not self-enforcing?
Because that’s not the purpose of a right.
Look, all this talk about natural rights and neither you or Jon have said "here’s what I believe a natrual right to be.
Definition, or at least concept from which you’re operating, please. |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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Definition, or at least concept from which you’re operating, please. My point is that there’s no such thing, so it’s a bit difficult to define it. I can tell you what it’s believed to be by the people who accept its existence, but that’s not *my* definition. |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
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"If rights are natural, then why are they not self-enforcing?"
It’s for the same reason why people can arrive at a solution of "5" to the problem of "2+2", even though the correct answer is naturally given in the nature of things.
That’s why.
Think about it.
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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What rights do we grant others to restrain us?
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Written By:
Walter E. Wallis
URL:
http://
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What rights do we grant others to restrain us? Those we choose to grant. |
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Written By:
Dale Franks
URL:
http://qando.net
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Look, all this talk about natural rights and neither you or Jon have said "here’s what I believe a natrual right to be. Well, since there is a commonly accepted definition of what "natural rights" are, I hardly thought it was necessary. The generally agreed definiton of "natural rights" is that a natural right
—is not made by human beings;
—is based on the structure of reality itself;
—is the same for all human beings and at all times;
—is an unchanging rule or pattern which is there for human beings to discover;
—is the naturally knowable moral law;
—is a means by which human beings can rationally guide themselves to their good.
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Written By:
Dale Franks
URL:
http://qando.net
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It’s for the same reason why people can arrive at a solution of "5" to the problem of "2+2", even though the correct answer is naturally given in the nature of things. Yet, somehow, we didn’t go through 5,000 years of recorded history thinking 2+2=5 until mathematicians all of the sudden came up with "4" during the enlightenment.
By the same token, things didn’t mysteriously fly off into the air and bounce around the room prior to Sir Isaac Newton formulating the theory of gravity. Newton posited a theory that explained why things didn’t hover in midair. That things didn’t naturally hover was self-evident.
Think about that. |
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Written By:
Dale Franks
URL:
http://qando.net
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It’s for the same reason why people can arrive at a solution of "5" to the problem of "2+2", even though the correct answer is naturally given in the nature of things. But 2+2 (or, the underlying reality that such an abstraction represents) is subject to testing, falsification and proof. It is scientifically verifiable.
Where is the empirical proof—the scientific evidence—of "rights"? And, even assuming such a thing exists, why do humans have them, but not the other animals capable of reason? I can find plenty of rationales for the implementation of such a thing, but I just can’t find any objective evidence of them. |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
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Natural law is the order that arises from the conduct of men in the absence of a state. Stated differently, man has a moral sense because it is an evolutionary valuable trait, or man has a moral sense because God gave it to him, and natural law is the expression of that sense.
For a much more developed (and non-theological and amoral) explanation, natural law can be defined by the conduct of three men. If A does something to B such that C concludes that A is a threat to C (and, for that matter, to others), then A has violated natural law. In other words, if A murders B for no good reason, or A steals from B for no good reason, then A is likely to be seen as a threat by C.
Other fields of science suggest that natural law is "hard wired" by such propensities as protective instincts aorused by big eyes in relation to face size (infants), instincts aroused by sex, etc. etc.
The supposition is that all state made law should rest on natural law for its validity—in a democracy, in theory, it should rest on the community sense of what is right and wrong in a particular situation.
Some interesting experiments with computer generated organisms with random, inheritable, behaviour have suggested that there is such a thing as natural law. Computer "life", given a capacity to beneficially and destructively interact with other computer life, seems to evolve a set of natural laws. |
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Written By:
John Lederer
URL:
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My personal view is that the concept of natural rights is more an article of faith than a matter of fact that can be empirically established. This does not mean that such rights do not exist. Nor does it mean that a belief in natural rights cannot be squared, logically, with one’s experience. It only means that one may not be able to establish the existence of such rights through the use of mathematical formulae or scientific experimentation. The belief in the existence of a body of natural rights ultimately rests on the principle that mankind, although evolving from the animals, has reached a higher plane of consciousness and is capable of rational thought. Accordingly, each human being has the innate ability to utilize his intellect to improve his own understanding of things; he or she should have the ability to realize his or her full potential in this regard, and the protection of the ability to do so (through the support and protection of natural rights) is a logical corollary to the power of the individual to think and act. An individual can choose to act in a manner that advances the cause of the greater good, even though those actions may not directly benefit the individual personally. (All those Kansas voters supporting the Republicans may be proof of this principle, according to a certain author.) But a person also retains the "right" to act selfishly so long as no other person is directly harmed; even here there is an exception, of course, for the right to act in one’s self defense. The Bill of Rights reflects our collective view as to the more essential of these natural rights, not because without such an express acknowledgement these rights would not exist, but rather only to make sure that these rights are respected by those exercising political power. |
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Written By:
RAZ
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It’s very difficult to separate the concept of natural rights from a theological foundation. I know many have tried, but ultimately you’re still dealing with moral propositions ("should be" statements), and those are notoriously difficult to extrapolate from amoral nature.
Might I suggest we look at natural rights as less than fundamental laws of reality and more as a hypothesis of "the good society" based on a fundamental law of reality. I think that fundamental law is "self-interest."*
If one accepts that all individuals are self-interested as a matter of nature, then proposed rules for a good society have to accord with that. Such rules would have to accommodate the self-interest of each individual as much as possible—the great limit of one person’s interests is of course another person’s interests.
This is still a moral view of rights (the phrase "good society" gives that away immediately), but at least one can claim that the moral rules are a rational response to a natural law. With this in mind, let me say that I think the "gravity analogy" isn’t a useful one.
I’d offer the "Bernoulli" analogy. Bernoulli’s principle is and always has been a "law of nature," even long before the principle was articulated. Yet, humans have only been manufacuring practical aircraft wings for a short time (with some sporadic experiments earlier than that, of course). Aircraft wings are a "response" to Bernoulli’s principle—a response that could well have predated the articulation of the principle itself (just as manufacturing stronger alloys predated an articulation of the scientific principles involved).
I think it’s fairer to look at "natural rights" as analogous to the aircraft wing—not as analogous to the natural law foundational to the function of the aircraft wing.*
—JMD
*I think the analogy can be extended. Just as there is more than one way to fly, so there is more than one way to approach "the good society" (often using completely different natural laws like the "the strong survive, the weak perish" observation above). The argument then becomes about which is the most efficient or reliably way to fly. |
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Written By:
JMD
URL:
http://aberrancy.blogspot.com
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"Yet, somehow, we didn’t go through 5,000 years of recorded history thinking 2+2=5 until mathematicians all of the sudden came up with ’4’ during the enlightenment."
Nor was evolution dormant for all the ages that no human being thought of it.
What you’re essentially talking about, Dale, is the validity of concepts. It doesn’t mattered when any given connection of concept to reality is discovered.
Jon—if you want "testing", then go try to strangle the next person you see.
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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If rights are natural, then why are they not self-enforcing?
"Natural Rights" aren’t natural in the sense that, say, human body hair is natural. Rights are natural in the same sense that human language is natural. Does French and Swahili and Telagu grow on trees? Of course not, just as no one is ever born speaking any language at all. What’s "natural" isn’t any actual language itself, but rather our ability to acquire and use language.
:jackson |
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Written By:
jackson zed
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For a much more developed (and non-theological and amoral) explanation, natural law can be defined by the conduct of three men. If A does something to B such that C concludes that A is a threat to C (and, for that matter, to others), then A has violated natural law. So, if B and C wish to take A’s food, and A, upon learning of this, bumps off B, has natural law been violated because C now feels threatened by A?
Oh, but wait a minute, you covered that:In other words, if A murders B for no good reason, or A steals from B for no good reason, then A is likely to be seen as a threat by C. And who defines the "good reaon"? What if B and C feel they are entitled to some portion of A’s food, because A, through luck or circumstance, has more of it, and B and C have less? B and C, who are hungry, may think they have a very good reason to steal A’s food. A, who wishes not to go hungry by having his food stolen, kills B, for what he thinks is an extremely good reason. C, who no longer has the power to take A’s food, is condemned to starvation, thereby. Does C now have a "good reason" to sneak up on A in the middle of the night and slit his throat?
I’m sorry, but I’m not seeing any natural laws arise here. All I’m seeing is changes to power relationships as A, B, and C each attempt to secure their own best interests.Other fields of science suggest that natural law is "hard wired" by such propensities as protective instincts aorused by big eyes in relation to face size (infants), instincts aroused by sex, etc. etc. So, the basis for natural law is that I think fuzzy kitties are cute? You may want to try and expand on that.The supposition is that all state made law should rest on natural law for its validity—in a democracy, in theory, it should rest on the community sense of what is right and wrong in a particular situation. So, let’s say A, B, and C get together and vote on their society’s food policy. If B and C vote to confiscate 2/3 of A’s food, perhaps because A "profited unfairly in the 80s", is it then a natural law that property may be confiscated if the majority wishes to?
If so, then what is so "natural" about it? Now, it’s just the majority deciding to deprive the minority of property because it’s the "fair" thing to do—and it’s in the best interest of the majority to do so. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need, don’t ya’ know. Again, all I’m seeing are the results of power relationships. What natural law do I derive from noting that majorities routinely wish to confiscate the property of affluent minorities? |
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Written By:
Dale Franks
URL:
http://qando.net
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Jon—if you want "testing", then go try to strangle the next person you see. I’m gonna skip past the actual strangling part, and speculate on what might happen if I were less speculative: If I pick the right person, then I’ll successfully strangle them. Pick the wrong person, and I’ll be less successful. The operative issue, in each case, is ability. The outcome depends entirely upon "power", and not rights. In any fight between a gun and a quiver full of rights, the gun is going to win every time.
So, any such test would reveal....er, nothing. How would you suggest we test and falsify these "rights" of which you speak? man has a moral sense because it is an evolutionary valuable trait, I would agree with that. Of course, these "moral senses" vary at least as much as "taste in music". (another evolutionary trait, though I still can’t understand why we ever developed it)It’s very difficult to separate the concept of natural rights from a theological foundation. I know many have tried, but ultimately you’re still dealing with moral propositions ("should be" statements), and those are notoriously difficult to extrapolate from amoral nature. Very well stated. And that’s it in a nutshell. Nature is amoral. We can implement value systems, and we can see the varying efficacy of those different value systems. From that we can—according to our desired outcomes—choose a value system that is more or less effective. But the value of the input depends entirely upon the value we assign the output. And that’s fundamentally an individual valuation.
That is to say, individuals can be "moral", but nature cannot. Nature can only dictate the effectiveness of any given morality. "Right" and "Wrong" do not exist in nature, except insofar as nature already enforces it. But you seem to be arguing the same thing as Jackson...What’s "natural" isn’t any actual language itself, but rather our ability to acquire and use language. ...that "rights" are simply the individual—and collective—invention of rules by which we co-exist. |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
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Nor was evolution dormant for all the ages that no human being thought of it.
What you’re essentially talking about, Dale, is the validity of concepts. Yes, and that’s exactly my point. The "discovery" of the natural laws was merely the creation of theories that explained how self-evident natural processes occured. All it required was observation of the retrograde motions of the planets, or the startling profusion of different types of finches in the Galapagos.
These things were self-evident, in that all it took was observation to begin formulating explanations of things that were already apparent.
Now, when the founders held certain truths to be "self-evident", one has to ask, "self-evident from what?" Certainly not from human history. Indeed, the dominant lesson from human history up to that time appears to have been that some men have been endowed by a divine right to rule, or are Gods themselves, and that the mass of humanity’s duty is to serve them. That has been the dominant form of social interaction for nearly all of recorded human history.
The only thing "self-evident" about rights was Enlightenment Man’s desire that they exist.
Now, let’s do a gedankenexperiment. Let us say that there had never been any chattel slavery throughout human history. The Enlightenment thinker would certainly have been justified in following this train of thought:
Hmm. Never in human history have any societies countenanced slavery. Why would this be? Clearly, it is physically possible to enslave other people. When one society conquers another, it would be a trivial task to force the surviving women and children to be slaves. Moreover, it would allow the victors to follow other pursuits while the conquered populations were forced to do the drudge work. Yet, never, in all of human history, has slavery been allowed by any human civilization...Ah Ha! There must be a natural propensity to liberty that arises from human nature. Human nature abhors slavery. It is self-evident, therefore, that all men have a natural right to liberty!
Now, that would be the derivation of a self-evident right from observable propensities in human nature.
Instead, however, the Enlightenment political philosophers apparently thought:
Hmm. For all of human history, kings have been considered divine—or at least to have ruled by divine right—and chattel slavery has been common to every human society since the dawn of recorded time. Why, it is self-evident that all men have a natural right to liberty!"
Sorry. That conclusion simply isn’t derivable from the observations. That is what separates the "discovery" of natural rights from other natural laws. The actions of those natural laws were already observable. Nothing in human history inidcates that societies are naturally prone to accord rights to all men. quite the opposite, in fact. So, the idea of "self-evident" natural rights runs directly contrary to the observed workings of human societies for all of human history.It doesn’t mattered when any given connection of concept to reality is discovered. But I’m not arguing "when". I’m arguing "how" Natural laws were derived by observing the actual workings of nature. Natural rights were derived by positing a state of society directly opposed to observable facts of human organization.
That is not a trivial difference. |
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Written By:
Dale Franks
URL:
http://qando.net
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If rights are natural, then why are they not self-enforcing?
Because that’s not the purpose of a right. But we are not talking about purposes.
Look, what we think of as natural laws are merely formal codifications of the way things actually work in the real world. If there are inherent, self-evident rights that are instrinsic to human nature, then why didn’t they arise spontaneously and continuously at all time in human history? Natural laws are so because they enforce themselves naturally. They are the way things are not what we posit they should be.
The most logical conclusion one derives from a survey of human history is not that rights are intrinsic to human nature, but rather humans tend to organize themselves into heiarchies ruled by an absolute despot, whose rule is sanctioned directly by God or the gods. |
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Written By:
Dale Franks
URL:
http://qando.net
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"So, any such test would reveal....er, nothing." ...except that the person that you try to strangle will—even feeibly, in the case of an infant—attempt to resist your destruction of his life, just exactly as you would.
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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humans tend to organize themselves into heiarchies ruled by an absolute despot Or is it that absolute despots have the power to force their will on the weak? When the weak have access to more power, don’t they try to gain more freedom from despotism? Fights for freedom have occurred throughout human history. Human struggles for freedom are the way "things are." They’re just not very successful due to imbalances of power. |
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Written By:
JWG
URL:
http://
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So, any such test would reveal....er, nothing." ...except that the person that you try to strangle will—even feeibly, in the case of an infant—attempt to resist your destruction of his life, just exactly as you would.
1. Resistance is meaningless in determining the procession of a right. The a child may resist an parent’s attempt to get the child to eat cabbage but it doesn’t follow the such resistance is evidence of the inheirant right not to be forced to eat cabbage.
2. What if the person doesn’t resist the attempt on his life? If their is no resistance does it mean that the victim doesn’t have rights? |
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Written By:
Septeus7
URL:
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...except that the person that you try to strangle will—even feeibly, in the case of an infant—attempt to resist your destruction of his life, just exactly as you would. So will a fuzzy kitty. Are we to infer from that that animals have rights, too? |
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Written By:
Dale Franks
URL:
http://qando.net
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...the person that you try to strangle will—even feeibly, in the case of an infant—attempt to resist your destruction of his life, just exactly as you would. I agree, and I would argue that this is evidence toward the conclusion that complex organisms have (generally speaking) a predisposition towards survival, as well as the capability for self-direction.
Those don’t imply a right, though. As Dale notes, lots of things offer resistance, and yet most of us have no compunction against eating meat.
Here’s a question I’ve long had for the "rights" advocates: at what point do we get that right to life and liberty? Does it come at birth? Inception? At the age of 18? At some indeterminate and variable age? Society certainly recognizes a right to life for 5-year olds, but does anybody grant them a right to liberty? Do you think they should be free to drive cars, own homes, enter into contracts, and walk the street armed with automatic weapons? Because, if there is a "natural right" to life (and the subsequent liberties that grants the rest of us) then it follows that they have as much right to those liberties as do we adults, and it would be morally unacceptable for a parent to invoke force against such a person. (e.g., spank) |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
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Or is it that absolute despots have the power to force their will on the weak? Actually, I’ve long argued that the purpose of government—in a fundamental and original sense—is to ameliorate and/or focus power. Governments (initially, tribes) arose because either a) an entity wanted to aggregate and focus power for its own benefit—as in a warlord, dictator or leader who wished to command—or b) an entity wanted to prevent a larger power from being focused on them—as in a group of people who wished for protection against an outside force and/or the natural internal conflicts that occur in the state of nature which makes life, nasty, poor, brutish and short. (to borrow from Hobbes)
That is my fundamental understanding of government, and I think it has the benefit of being uncorrupted by outcome-based wishful thinking. |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
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If rights are natural, then why are they not self-enforcing?
They are self-enforcing. A society that does not respect "natural rights" (or more appropriately, the natural law) inevitably implodes.
Just because this effect doesn’t happen immediately doesn’t mean the rejection of the natural law isn’t the source. Societies tend to be pretty fluid, and moral decay - if this is the right term - takes time.
I would argue they are self-enforcing, they just don’t have the immediacy we’d like.
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Written By:
Shaun
URL:
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Would you people seriously assert that you could unilaterally take another human being’s life and be in the moral right about it?
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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A society that does not respect "natural rights" (or more appropriately, the natural law) inevitably implodes. If these inherent natural rights do exist as an integral component to human nature, they presumably existed before societies were organized. Please explain, then, how a system of self-enforcing natural rights allows the growth of societies that do not respect them in the first place. |
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Written By:
Dale Franks
URL:
http://qando.net
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Would you people seriously assert that you could unilaterally take another human being’s life and be in the moral right about it? Please describe the way in which principles of morality are visbly embedded in nature. Please feel free to use foxes and chickens, or cheetahs and gazelles, for illustrative purposes. |
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Written By:
Dale Franks
URL:
http://qando.net
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No, Dale: you can compare human beings to foxes and chickens or cheetahs or gazelles if you want to, but I know the difference, even if you don’t.
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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I believe that rights are a construct of man, not an innate part of a human. I also believe that the concept of rights is related to natural instinct. Many examples presented so far are using the individual/clan instinct of individual survival. However, there is also the instinct of species survival.
Humans have moved to the top due to brain development, and have evolved as their intelligence has evolved. Inventions such as hunting weapons, agriculture and medicine have greatly impacted the species’ ability to survive. These things themselves are not innate parts of human individuals, but the concepts behind them can be viewed as species traits when you consider survivability instinct, natural human intelligence, and the passing of knowledge through generations. Our brains allow us to move some things on a track parallel to DNA, but at an accelerated pace. As long as we pass ideas to offspring and the ideas affect species survival, they can be a valid part of human evolution.
I propose that the concept of rights can contribute to the survival of the species. Yes, the American founders were likely driven by self-interest, considering their myopic view that "all men are created equal" only applied to Anglo-Saxon gentlemen. And, yes, some considered them "self-evident" because of religious moral views. However, that doesn’t mean that the concept of rights cannot evolve, as it indeed has. As it evolves through generations, its value to species survival should increase. And if the concept is superior to slavery, despotism, etc., evolution should keep us moving toward it.
Rights are not an innate part of a human. But if they prove to contribute to species survival, the desire for them could become an innate part of the human collective indistinguishable from genetic instinct. |
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Written By:
ZG
URL:
http://
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They are self-enforcing. A society that does not respect "natural rights" (or more appropriately, the natural law) inevitably implodes. Really? No society in history has ever "respected natural rights", except in degrees. China has been notoriously bad about it, and they’ve survived for quite a few millenia.Would you people seriously assert that you could unilaterally take another human being’s life and be in the moral right about it? Depends on what you mean by "in the moral right". Neither I, nor society, would regard it as a "right action". The universe, however—nature—would regard it no differently than any other interaction of matter and energy.you can compare human beings to foxes and chickens or cheetahs or gazelles if you want to, but I know the difference, even if you don’t. I presume you’ll refer to mankinds capacity to reason. However, that capacity is also shared by many animals. Do apes have similiar Natural Rights?
I’ve been asking questions of you, too, though and I hope you’ll answer them. My experience in debates on this topic is that advocates of Natural Rights point out the consequences of the non-existence of Natural Rights, and assert a substantive different between the natural laws that govern man and animals...but they’re notably reticent to respond to difficult questions and requests for evidence.
This issue of Rights is an important one, too. In my opinion, the most important issue in philosophy. To date, I can find as much evidence for Karma as I can for Natural Rights. They’re both appealing concepts, with no basis in physical reality. Rights are not an innate part of a human. But if they prove to contribute to species survival, the desire for them could become an innate part of the human collective indistinguishable from genetic instinct. Due to the natural human instinct for self-interest, security and protection, I suspect that such a development would require a massive leap forward in technology—a leap that would eliminate codependence. In time, however, such a thing is not unthinkable. |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.qando.net/Default.aspx?tabid=38
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"I presume you’ll refer to mankinds capacity to reason."
Why do you do that? ("Presume".) You’re the one playing empiricist around here: why don’t you just bloody look at the differences between human beings and foxes and chickens or cheetahs or gazelles and sort it out for yourself?
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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I presume that because you’ve mentioned it before. Also, because that is the position of the Objectivist Center: "rights are derived from the capacity to reason", which is why "people have rights and animals do not".
So, I think my presumption was quite apt.
Moreover, I have looked at the differences between man and, say, apes. I find that both man and apes can reason. In fact, apes are generally regarded to be on about the level of a 3-4 year old human. Does this mean that apes have rights equivalent to a 3 year old? What about people with mental disabilities, who will never progress farther in their capacity to reason than the ape? Are they fair game now?
I have sorted it out, and I’ve given my evidence. To date, you’ve asserted that there is some substantive different between man and animal, but you haven’t produced it. You can "see" it, but not—apparently—describe it.
I’d still like to hear your evidence, and I’d like to know the answers to those questions. |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.qando.net/Default.aspx?tabid=38
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My point is that there’s no such thing, so it’s a bit difficult to define it. I can tell you what it’s believed to be by the people who accept its existence, but that’s not *my* definition.
Jon, you are the one saying something doesn’t exist, not them, not me. What are you saying doesn’t exist?
How can you demand people pay attention to your assertion of nonexistance when you can’t tell them what it is you assert doesn’t exist?
What is that which isn’t?
What is a "natural right?" |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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I think the definition Dale gave above is sufficient for our purposes. Alternately, definitions include:
"Rights that belong to people simply because they are human beings"
"Rights to which a person is entitled simply because he or she is human and that cannot be taken away by government."
"Belief that individuals are naturally endowed with basic human rights; those rights that are so much a part of human nature that they cannot be taken away or given up, as opposed to rights conferred by law." |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.qando.net/Default.aspx?tabid=38
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But we are not talking about purposes.
What is "self-enforcement" if not a purpose for rights? You’re asking why they aren’t self-enforcing, I’m asking you if that’s what you see as their purpose?
So we are indeed speaking of a purpose.
Let me ask it another way, why must a right be "self-enforcing" for you to consider it to be a right? What purpose does "self-enforcement" serve in that regard?
Re: definiton of natural right:
—is not made by human beings;
—is based on the structure of reality itself;
—is the same for all human beings and at all times;
—is an unchanging rule or pattern which is there for human beings to discover;
—is the naturally knowable moral law;
—is a means by which human beings can rationally guide themselves to their good.
That’s a list of characteristics to be sure, but what defines a natural right?
For instance, is a natural right an innate passive (or negative) right which establishes a sphere of moral authority in which a human being may act without anyone’s permission?
Like you have the natural right to life? Existence exists, you’re life is a part of it, do you have the right (innate moral authority) to act without permission to protect and sustain yours, etc?
If so, who granted that, who constructed that, who made it a right? Or has man naturally acted on that through out his history without permission from any man or society?
Does the fact that we have only recently acknowledged it as a right mean that in the past man didn’t have it and didn’t act on it as if he had it?
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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"Also, because that is the position of the Objectivist Center."
(shrug) Hell, John: why don’t you just come up to my house and type your presumptions into my editor and cut out the middle?
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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I think the definition Dale gave above is sufficient for our purposes. Alternately, definitions include:
I disagree.
What he has listed are descriptions that characterize a natural right. They don’t define it.
See my definition of a natural right. Is that what you’re talking about or do you have a different definition you’re saying doesn’t exist?
This is important so we’re not talking past each other. |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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(shrug) Hell, John: why don’t you just come up to my house and type your presumptions into my editor and cut out the middle? So, do you disagree with that assumption, and with the Objectivist/Randian take on the difference between man and animal? So far, you haven’t even suggested that my presumption is incorrect. Is it?
At some point, it’d be nice if you’d start responding to question and explaining your own position. If I’m wrong, tell me why. why must a right be "self-enforcing" for you to consider it to be a right? If I’m on the same page as Dale—and I think I am—the self-enforcement part is necessary for the right to be natural. |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.qando.net/Default.aspx?tabid=38
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McQ: I think your definition:"an innate passive (or negative) right which establishes a sphere of moral authority in which a human being may act without anyone’s permission?" ...describes "ability".
What is a "sphere of moral authority"? That’s an abstract, but what physical reality does it represent? I can do a lot of things without anybody’s permission. That doesn’t necessarily imply that I would have a "right" to do those things. |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.qando.net/Default.aspx?tabid=38
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If I’m on the same page as Dale—and I think I am—the self-enforcement part is necessary for the right to be natural.
Why?
Why must a right be self-enforcing to be a right in general, or a natural right specifically?
It all goes back to your concept/definition of a right, which may or may not be the same as my concept of a right or the concept of those who talk about natural rights.
Until we have a definition of what your consider to be a natural right, we have nothing to discuss.
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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Why must a right be self-enforcing to be a right in general, or a natural right specifically? All laws in nature are self-enforcing. If "rights" have no physical manifestation—a natural enforcement mechanism—then they are merely abstract human constructions to describe how we’d like to see the world.Until we have a definition of what your consider to be a natural right, we have nothing to discuss. Since you missed it the first time, here we go again. "Natural rights" are defined as:
"Rights that belong to people simply because they are human beings"
"Rights to which a person is entitled simply because he or she is human and that cannot be taken away by government."
"Belief that individuals are naturally endowed with basic human rights; those rights that are so much a part of human nature that they cannot be taken away or given up, as opposed to rights conferred by law."
If you have an alternative definition, offer it. Your earlier definition seems to posit the existence of "ability". |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.qando.net/Default.aspx?tabid=38
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I think your definition: ... describes "ability".
Of course it does. Shouldn’t a definition of a right define the ability it represents for you?
It also points out that its a passive right. IOW, it exists; you don’t have to do anything to invoke it.
What is a "sphere of moral authority"? That’s an abstract, but what physical reality does it represent?
You’re right ... abstracts don’t exist. No one argues they do. But they are how we represent and perceive that which does exist.
Abstracts represent concretes, Jon. That’s their purpose. Its one reason we’re able to communicate on topics such as this.
What is a ’sphere of moral authority’? It means because I exist I have the right within that sphere (which, in abstract, represents the limits to my rights) to act without permission to defend, sustain and enrich my existence.
Now, that’s my definition, I’m still interested in yours. Obviously it will include "self-enforcement". |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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Rights & Laws -
Gravity is a law, it exists whether we admit it or not, we as a species realized that the day OG dashed off the cliff in pursuit of the wild turkey we were hunting. OG demonstrated the law of gravity, though we didn’t understand why or how, we realized "hey, we can’t fly". It didn’t need to be explained.
Actually Og didn’t walk off the cliff, instinctively he knew that was a "bad" "idea", we all laughed because he got too "close" to the edge and went "home" and told the "wives" how "funny" the expression he had on his face was...the "conversation" went like this...uggggh uggggh...
Every one of the things I put in quote are concepts that are as much concepts as the word "Rights".
Rights, are a human construct, just as the ’law’ for why we can’t fly is a human construct. Gravity will be there whether we define it or not, rights on the other hand, will not be.
Show me a ’right’ in nature. A ’right’in nature should appear for all intents to be identical to a ’law’ or ’rule’. The only difference between them is the semantic expression, the ’label’ we’ve attached to them. Any ’right’ you can name ought to be as clear as any natural law you can name because someplace there will be a ’rule’ that NATURALLY enforces that ’right’.
If it’s there in nature we wouldn’t be arguing about whether or not it was
there and trying to demonstrate it was by pointing to various actions of
various creatures. As something with the same force as a natural law, it should apply to all creatures, not just ones that can reason it through. Gravity applies to birds, bees, baboons and Bob the builder. Do ’Rights’?
"We hold these truths to be...", King George III didn’t hold those truths to
be anything.... As a preface for a great document the drafters merely stated their beliefs as a justification for their behavior in light of their next planned interaction with the government of King George the III.
Arguments that animals display certain behavior patterns that assist in species survival aren’t ’laws’ or demonstrations of ’rights’. They’re survival patterns the species has acquired. Not all species demonstrate like patterns of survival behavior.
As a concept rights are noble and worth fighting, and dying, for, but I don’t believe for a minute they are natural. |
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Written By:
looker
URL:
http://
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Very well put, Looker. And like most of the good points/questions in this thread, I’m guessing it will be completely ignored by the Natural Rights Proponents.Of course it does. Shouldn’t a definition of a right define the ability it represents for you? That’s an interesting suggestion. Does that mean that a paralyzed person has no right to their limbs, since they do not have the ability to use them? If I kill Bob Smith, does that mean that—since he couldn’t excercise it—he didn’t actually have a "right" to his life? IOW, it exists I think you’re engaging in a tautology. If "right" is equivalent to "ability" then you’ve got "the ability to live represents the ability to live".
If "right" is equivalent to a normative standard of "right and wrong"—the common definition among classical Natural Rights proponents—then you’re confusing a normative "right" with a simple "ability". Enlightenment theorists postulated Natural Rights as a foundation for morality.
If, however, "ability" is that foundation, then slavery must be a "right", because people have the ability to make it occur.I have the right within that sphere (which, in abstract, represents the limits to my rights) to act without permission to defend, sustain and enrich my existence. There, again, you use the word "right". Does that mean "ability"? If so, your "right" doesn’t exist, just as soon as a more powerful entity decides to expropriate it. Your "right" exists only until such time as it doesn’t.
There’s no normative judgement of right and wrong in that formulation. Now, that’s my definition, I’m still interested in yours. [sigh] This is the third and final time I’ll write this. "Natural rights" are defined as:
"Rights that belong to people simply because they are human beings"
"Rights to which a person is entitled simply because he or she is human and that cannot be taken away by government."
"Belief that individuals are naturally endowed with basic human rights; those rights that are so much a part of human nature that they cannot be taken away or given up, as opposed to rights conferred by law."
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
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Look Jon, I’m not trying to be flip or obtuse. But I think we’re done if this is all I’m going to get each time I ask you define your concept:
"Rights that belong to people simply because they are human beings"
"Rights to which a person is entitled simply because he or she is human and that cannot be taken away by government."
"Belief that individuals are naturally endowed with basic human rights; those rights that are so much a part of human nature that they cannot be taken away or given up, as opposed to rights conferred by law."
Yes, given, they’re rights that are naturally ours. Given we have them naturally. We agree on that.
But more than that, as you define them, what do those naturally endowed rights do? or not do?! As you understand them, what is their defined purpose? Why do you include self-enforcement as a requirement (and where is that found in that list you call a definition?)? Wouldn’t you agree that any definition of a natural right, where you’re concerned, would include a requirement for self-enforcement?
In all the years I’ve read about and studied the concept of rights, especially natural rights, I’ve never seen a requirement for self-enforcment in the numerous definitions I’ve seen.
Without understanding how you define the term "natural right", we can’t begin a serious discussion about their existance or non-existence because I have no idea of your concept (other than saying I can’t touch it so it can’t be real).
What I’m getting at here is you’re starting in the middle and and attacking a concept you seemingly can’t even define.
Start at the beginning: what is a right?
Some say a right is a sanction to individual action, something which can be exercised without anyone’s permission.
That’s a pretty standard definition. Do you agree?
If so, where does the "self-regulatory" requirement you demand come in?
Now roll that in with natural right. What is a natural right? Is it and can it be different than a common "right" such as freedom of speech? Is there more to it? Isn’t it possible some rights are indeed constructs and some aren’t?
But we can’t even discuss those questions until you can establish a working understanding (definition) we can all agree with. Otherwise we have a strawman sitting here looking at us. You talking about one concept and me and others defending another.
Unless you simply want to engage in tossing assertions around, that’s where we are at the moment .... at least as I see it. |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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Now, that’s my definition, I’m still interested in yours. Obviously it will include "self-enforcement". I provided the commonly accepted definition on Saturday. Perhaps you missed it. |
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Written By:
Dale Franks
URL:
http://www.qando.net
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Any ’right’ you can name ought to be as clear as any natural law you can name because someplace there will be a ’rule’ that NATURALLY enforces that ’right’.
Right to life. You exist and are alive. Who else has the right to looker’s life? Does anyone else have the right to your existence or is your existence inalienable?
Yes, it is completely inalienable. Its yours and yours alone. Non-transferable. Uniquely yours.
Your existence contains its own unique and individual right to that which can only be yours: your life. Derivative from that is the right to do what is necessary to sustain your life, etc.
Existence is the rule (and self-evident ... you either do or don’t exist), life is the right (as a result of your existence). It can’t be any more basic than that.
[sigh] This is the third and final time I’ll write this. "Natural rights" are defined as:
"Rights that belong to people simply because they are human beings"
"Rights to which a person is entitled simply because he or she is human and that cannot be taken away by government."
"Belief that individuals are naturally endowed with basic human rights; those rights that are so much a part of human nature that they cannot be taken away or given up, as opposed to rights conferred by law."
No they’re not ... they’re described as such.
They are not defined as such. For the third and final time, how do YOU define a natural right (and I’ll remind you that both you and Dale have inserted the self-enforcing caveat on a natural right and I challenge you to show me that caveat included in what you’re calling "definitions" above.) |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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From somewhere above:
"My personal view is that the concept of natural rights is more an article of faith than a matter of fact that can be empirically established."
Rights are claims that are just. The empirical basis of natural rights (as distinguished from civil rights) is found in the immediate realization that "this life I am living is my life," which established your exclusive and just claim to your own life—it is inalienable, you cannot transfer it to anyone by any natural means. From the natural immediate just claim to oneself arise the immediate corollary rights of self defense, liberty, property and self-expression ("these thoughts I am thinking are my own; I am the person thinking these thoughts").
These natural rights must be the foundation of civil rights, wherein natural rights are mediated in the framework of civil society—a trial by jury according to due process, for instance, before depriving someone of life or liberty.
But natural rights are deeper, empirically, than one might think on first glance at my description. The just claim that one makes on one’s life as a matter of ontological certainty (this life I am living is my own; these thought I am thinking are mine), they are also the foundation of Reason itself, since one cannot reason except as oneself with one’s own thoughts. Further, given this ontological certainty at the foundation of Reason, Reason is perfectly grounded in Truth. Whatever errors it finds its way to from that ground, Reason can always refer back to its initial certainty, its foundation in Truth, and test itself. |
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Written By:
Martin McPhillips
URL:
http://mcphillips.blogspot.com/
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I provided the commonly accepted definition on Saturday. Perhaps you missed it.
Not that I know of, unless it was in the comments to Jon’s post ... perhaps you could refresh my memory. |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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Look Jon, I’m not trying to be flip or obtuse. I’m not either, but I think that I—and Dale—have given copious definitions of "rights". We’ve approached it from the "ability" angle, the "morality" angle, and the "normative" angle. That covers nature, the supernatural, and the abstractions of justice. what do those naturally endowed rights do? or not do? Actually, that’s a good question. So far as I can tell, proponents argue that they provide man with a moral basis for subsequent ethics and action. They are a metaphysical "entitlement". Though, exactly who does the entitling is a question left unanswered.
However, I don’t think they exist, so it’s a bit hard for me to say what they "do", since my argument is precisely that they don’t "do" anything.
I’d certainly be interested in knowing what you and Billy think they do.In all the years I’ve read about and studied the concept of rights, especially natural rights, I’ve never seen a requirement for self-enforcment in the numerous definitions I’ve seen. Never? In the Declaration of Independence, they are called "unalienable". How are they unalienable? And yet, that law of nature, unlike all others, has no physical manifestation. Why is that? Some say a right is a sanction to individual action, something which can be exercised without anyone’s permission. That’s a pretty standard definition. Do you agree? Taking that as a working definition, what of the murdered Mr Smith? Did he never have these rights, since he was unable to excercise them? What of children, who are unable to do a whole bevy of things without parental permission? When do they obtain these rights? |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
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If these inherent natural rights do exist as an integral component to human nature, they presumably existed before societies were organized. Please explain, then, how a system of self-enforcing natural rights allows the growth of societies that do not respect them in the first place. They don’t.
What we’re missing here is it’s not a "black-and-white" issue of whether natural rights are adhered to or not. Even in doing wrong, some form of order is being followed, or at the very least, a percieved order is being followed. So in the sense that a society can still survive and not follow the natural law, it most certainly can. Whether or not it is beneficial to that society in the long term is another question altogether.
It’s akin to eating healthy, or eating nothing but sugar. The body would still survive - heck, my son would enjoy the three hour burst of energy. But over time?
Societies may act contrary to the natural law. They may even thrive for a time (analogies to cancer come to mind), but ultimately they do not endure.
Can we think of a culture that has acted in opposition to the natural law and prospered/endured? |
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Written By:
Shaun
URL:
http://
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McQ - I’m guessing self enforcement can be summed up in the nature of gravity - Gravity is self enforcing.
You’re right to live is enforced by you, to the level of your ability. In there you can include as part of your abilities, the ability to live and function within a society that will act as your first line of defense in enforcing your right to live. However, your ability to enforce your right to live, other than that being a ’natural’ ability you own as part of your being you, is not ’self enforcing’ in the way Gravity is self enforcing.
I don’t see any human rights in terms of those outlined to KG III as ’self enforcing’. There is no natural phenomena that occurs to prevent my being killed or made a slave as there is if I shove my would be attacker/enslaver over the edge of a cliff. All I did was move him back a couple of feet, a visible natural law took over after that.
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Written By:
looker
URL:
http://
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I challenge you to show me that caveat included in what you’re calling "definitions" above Here: "that cannot be taken away by government." And here: "cannot be taken away or given up".
And yet, "life" can be taken away. Or, for that matter, given up. Walk into some parts of Iran carrying a US flag, and you’ll find your life is confiscated from you in fairly short order. |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
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The empirical basis of natural rights (as distinguished from civil rights) is found in the immediate realization that "this life I am living is my life," which established your exclusive and just claim to your own life—it is inalienable, you cannot transfer it to anyone by any natural means. From the natural immediate just claim to oneself arise the immediate corollary rights of self defense, liberty, property and self-expression The unavoidable implication of such a line of thought is that animals have rights equivalent to humans. Their lives are untransferable, their self-awareness evident. Will you be a rigid vegetarian from here on? Or do you wish to confiscate the life of a self-aware, self-motivated thinking being? |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
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But more than that, as you define them, what do those naturally endowed rights do? or not do?! As you understand them, what is their defined purpose? Why do you include self-enforcement as a requirement (and where is that found in that list you call a definition?)? Wouldn’t you agree that any definition of a natural right, where you’re concerned, would include a requirement for self-enforcement? Well, I tell you what. Since you don’t seem to like our definitions, why don’t you provide one that answers the questions you pose, then we’ll kick it around some.
As far as self-enforcement goes, that is implied in the fact that natural rights are supposedly inherent in human nature. If they were an intrinsic part of our nature, then like opther natural laws, they would exist independent of our recognition of them. It seems to me that if natural rights existed, then humans would have built societies that were inherently repectful of natural rights, instead of the ones they actually built.
Natural laws are self-enforcing because there is no other way for them to exist as natural laws. Now you expect me to swallow some "natural rights" deal that seems not to have demonstrated itself throught mankind’s history until the modern era, and is natural, and inheres in humans simply because they exist.
And somehow, I’m the one that has to explain my terms? Well, with all due respect, I’m not the guy claiming—in direct contradiction of the observable evidence of human history and social organization—that there’s some superspecial system of rights that inmheres in human nature.
Seems to me the burden of proof isn’t on me. I’m not the guy making extraordinary claims about human nature. |
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Written By:
Dale Franks
URL:
http://www.qando.net
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Can we think of a culture that has acted in opposition to the natural law and prospered/endured? I guess that depends on your definition of "endured". Dynastic Egyptian despotism existed for about 2,500 years, roughly half of all recorded human history. Does that count as endurance? |
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Written By:
Dale Franks
URL:
http://www.qando.net
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"However, I don’t think they exist, so it’s a bit hard for me to say what they ’do’, since my argument is precisely that they don’t "do" anything.
I’d certainly be interested in knowing what you and Billy think they do."
Well, for one obvious thing, they substantiate the political assertion that, for instance, the destruction of European Jews was wrong and that that’s why it should never happen again. Ann Frank’s right to her life was immutable, regardless of the fact that people with the "Power" killed her. Even though she’s been dead all these years, she still had her right to her own life. Right establish a standard against which to judge any given wrong in a political context. That’s one thing they "do".
"They are a metaphysical ’entitlement’. Though, exactly who does the entitling is a question left unanswered."
There is no necessary "who" about it, any more than there must be a "who" behind the question of why there are stars in the sky. You don’t have a problem accepting that as a fact worth simply taking up as fact without demanding its cosmological provenance. It’s a wonder to me: what your motive is in demanding it of the fact of rights arising from the nature of things (a human being, which McQ and McP are ably pointing out) in this particular case.
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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"However, I don’t think they exist, so it’s a bit hard for me to say what they ’do’, since my argument is precisely that they don’t "do" anything.
I’d certainly be interested in knowing what you and Billy think they do."
Well, for one obvious thing, they substantiate the political assertion that, for instance, the destruction of European Jews was wrong and that that’s why it should never happen again. Ann Frank’s right to her life was immutable, regardless of the fact that people with the "Power" killed her. Even though she’s been dead all these years, she still had her right to her own life. Right establish a standard against which to judge any given wrong in a political context. That’s one thing they "do".
"They are a metaphysical ’entitlement’. Though, exactly who does the entitling is a question left unanswered."
There is no necessary "who" about it, any more than there must be a "who" behind the question of why there are stars in the sky. You don’t have a problem accepting that as a fact worth simply taking up as fact without demanding its cosmological provenance. It’s a wonder to me: what your motive is in demanding it of the fact of rights arising from the nature of things (a human being, which McQ and McP are ably pointing out) in this particular case.
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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Here: "that cannot be taken away by government." And here: "cannot be taken away or given up".
And yet, "life" can be taken away. Or, for that matter, given up. Walk into some parts of Iran carrying a US flag, and you’ll find your life is confiscated from you in fairly short order. Rights are claims that are just. You can take someone’s life, but you cannot take away his just claim to his life. You can never make the life that he is living someone else’s. In civil society just law is predicated on any person’s claim to his own life, self defense, property etc.; that’s why murdering someone is mediated as a crime that can be punished by an equivalent deprivation of life and/or liberty. Natural law is the law of conscience, a special form of intuitive experience that allows one to acknowledge one’s own just claims as belonging equally to others: hence "equality before the law" as an empirical principle.
So, when someone is, for instance, executed for murdering another person, they are being punished for violating that person’s exclusive claim to his own life. The residue of this arrangement is that the murderer himself is having his just claim to his own life violated, but that is the point where justice emerges to say that when he unjustly took another life he relinquished his own in payment. |
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Written By:
Martin McPhillips
URL:
http://mcphillips.blogspot.com/
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"The unavoidable implication of such a line of thought is that animals have rights equivalent to humans. Their lives are untransferable, their self-awareness evident. Will you be a rigid vegetarian from here on? Or do you wish to confiscate the life of a self-aware, self-motivated thinking being?"
That’s a completely avoidable implication, if you don’t change the subject from human beings to animals. I can speak to the empirical basis of the natural rights of human beings, given my own experience and my experience of other human beings. Animals are another category, spanning everything from the lowly protozoa to the imperial beagle. I’ve yet to see a coherent statement about who they think they are from a single one of them. In their higher orders, conscience dictates that they be extended ethical treatment, but I don’t see any basis for extending human rights to animals.
There’s a point at which changing the subject and a stylish mysticism merge: changing the subject to the unknowable and untold states of mind of animals suggesting equivalence with human beings.
Sorry to be of so little help on that question. |
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Written By:
Martin McPhillips
URL:
http://mcphillips.blogspot.com/
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There is no natural phenomena that occurs to prevent my being killed or made a slave as there is if I shove my would be attacker/enslaver over the edge of a cliff. All I did was move him back a couple of feet, a visible natural law took over after that.
Are you saying your requirement for a right to life is that it must prevent death or enslavement?
That certainly is not found in any defintion I understand of a right.
Tell me, do you believe abstraction is "unnatural"? Is unnatural for man to think in abstractions?
Because what you seem to be saying to me is if our rights come from an abstraction which isn’t a part of "visible nature", then they don’t exist.
Yet as others have pointed out, we use the abstraction of numbers quite succesfully every day to the point that we get into huge abstract equations to prove natural laws (and things we can’t see in the universe) quite often. But you’ll never find the number "two" existing naturally anywhere. And how about the abstract concept of zero?
Why should rights be any different than numbers or zero in that respect?
If we accept a right as a sanction to act without permission, who else holds that sanction beside you? Can you transfer that sanction, or is it inalienable?
Since your existence is unique and discrete, who else has a "right" to it?
Your existence entitles only you to your life, no one else. Its your non-transferable title to ownership of your life. Its your life and your life alone.
That does not mean someone can’t violate that right and kill you or enslave you or shove you off a cliff. It does mean, however, establish that they have immorally violated your right to life if they do so, and consequently you have the moral right (as do others)to remedy the situation in your favor.
You’re right to live is enforced by you, to the level of your ability.
Absolutely, and that is why self-defense is an innate right. No one gives it to you, nor do you seek permission for its use, looker, you rightfully excercise it to the best of your ability when its necessary (i.e. when someone is trying to violate your right to life or some derivative right).
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, a right to life does not guarantee an outcome in such a case. |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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Gents: Allow me to pipe in with my own extended comments with links, from my own place. (When I wrote my thoughts, Q&O was for some reason unresponsive from here... likely firewall issues)
And to that, let me add as an aside t Martin:
Rights are claims that are just.
True, Martin, true. Yet, who decides what is and is not just? These values do not simply fall out of the air. I submit that the arbitor of justice in a secular sense, is the society; the culture. |
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
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"Are you saying your requirement for a right to life is that it must prevent death or enslavement?
That certainly is not found in any defintion I understand of a right."
That is entirely correct.
These people are running an equivocation between "law" and "right" that is utterly false.
I will also say that I find the resort to "commonly accepted definition" especially unworthy.
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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"Rights are claims that are just.
"True, Martin, true. Yet, who decides what is and is not just? These values do not simply fall out of the air. I submit that the arbitor of justice in a secular sense, is the society; the culture."
A just claim is grounded in immediate truth, about which there is no "who decides." It simply is the immediate empirical reality, utterly unchallengable.
"I am the person living this life; the life I am living is my own."
That is the immediate ontological fact for each of us, something we have to experience in order to experience our experience, to be conscious of being conscious: "the thoughts I am thinking are my own; I am the one thinking these thoughts."
There ain’t no "who decides" about it.
What happens in societies after that is either an accomodation or a suppression of same, acknowledged as the very force of what human beings are—individuals—either way. |
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Written By:
Martin McPhillips
URL:
http://mcphillips.blogspot.com/
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Eric: "Yet, who decides what is and is not just? These values do not simply fall out of the air. I submit that the arbitor of justice in a secular sense, is the society; the culture."
Well, that’ll put you in the same boat with Henke and Franks on the day when "the society; the culture" "arbit" that they are politically competent to dictate the terms and conditions of your life.
...which, in case you hadn’t noticed, is happening just about daily.
You’ve given up the premise, and you don’t have a leg to stand on.
So, just move along, Citizen. Show’s over. There is nothing to see here.
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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Fascinating discussion. I’m the guy tweaked in Jon’s original post for clicking my heels together and reciting "there ARE such things as natural rights." Sunday I posted about Dale’s post, and you can find it here.
Rights aren’t natural laws. Our constitution guarantees the right to freedom of speech, it doesn’t mandate that we must speak our minds. Rightsholders have the choice whether to exercise their rights or not. So rights are not physical laws like gravity, and animals don’t have them.
Further, rights are rights because they are susceptible to suppression. If it were impossible for your right to be abridged by others, it wouldn’t be a right, either, it would be a naturally occurring feature. I don’t have a "right" to be born with a nose. But I do if you want to go with the theory that "rights" are like things falling down, and not up.
Rights must be measured against some objective standard. You might have a right because the law says so, and provides an enforcement mechanism for its abridgement. You might have a right because you’re the biggest guy in the state of nature, or have a couple big friends. You might also have a right because it’s been empirically observed that exercise of the right is necessary (not to say sufficient) for the survival and prosperity of the species. That’s where liberty comes in (I argue).
If you’re with me up to a certain point, at least, we should be able to agree that there exists a natural right to procreate—if the biggest guy in the state of nature or government outlawed procreation, we become extinct awfully quickly. Liberty is not as cut and dried, but is of the same character—collections of humans prosper more the mor they’re free. The extreme opposite of propsperity is extinction. |
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Written By:
Matt Barr
URL:
http://newworldman.us
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Right to life. You exist and are alive. Who else has the right to looker’s life? Does anyone else have the right to your existence or is your existence inalienable?
Yes, it is completely inalienable. Its yours and yours alone. Non-transferable. Uniquely yours.
Your existence contains its own unique and individual right to that which can only be yours: your life. Derivative from that is the right to do what is necessary to sustain your life, etc.
Existence is the rule (and self-evident ... you either do or don’t exist), life is the right (as a result of your existence). It can’t be any more basic than that. While it’s precious to me, and hopefully my family, I can’t buy that my uniqueness and existence are therefore a warranty to any ’rights’. My being me, and unique are really merely byproducts of my existence. Making you a slave doesn’t take away your right to life, it takes away your freedom. Torturing you doesn’t take away your life either, so long as you aren’t killed, your ’right’ hasn’t been abridged.
There is no natural, as in a force of nature, action or reaction that intervenes and prevents my being knocked on the head or hauled off into slavery. There IS a natural reaction if I’m able to nudge my attacker or enslaver over the edge of the handy "serial Western" cliff.
My life certianly is inalienable, can’t be transferred or granted to another, but that doesn’t make anything about it a ’right’. A truly natural law should apply to all things. Gravity as evidence - people fall, rocks fall, birds that die in flight fall. Nothing that hasn’t had some kind of natural counterforce applied to it is immune to the effect. So too, a ’right to life’ would apply to anything living. Not that I’m asking anyone to give up eating tasty chicken, but there’s not much evidence of any ’right to life’ in the animal kingdom.
Perhaps I’m having a problem understanding why it is so strongly contended that there is such a ’right’. I don’t view it as a problem that we, as thinking beings, have decided that there IS such a right and it is worthy of defense and propagation. Not because, like gravity, nature odains it, but because we choose to make it so. In fact, to me that makes it more noble and precious and worthy of defense. It is a transient thing that should be made as permanent as we can make it. To me it’s obvious that if it were natural, we wouldn’t need to dicuss it’s existence, it would, as they said be ’self evident’.
The business of making it ’endowed by his Creator’ is akin to going to a card game and telling the guy holding the Royal Flush (the king) that your pair of dueces beats his hand because your recent interpretation of Hoyle, though there is no proof in the book, says that a pair beats a Royal Flush. It’s justification for your claiming you’ve won. |
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Written By:
looker
URL:
http://
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"My being me, and unique are really merely byproducts of my existence."
...he said, as if his own existence is of no consequence, which is why he keeps comparing himself to chickens.
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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Billy:
"Well, that’ll put you in the same boat with Henke and Franks on the day when "the society; the culture" "arbit" that they are politically competent to dictate the terms and conditions of your life.
...which, in case you hadn’t noticed, is happening just about daily.
Yes, they do... because we have decided to be a member of that society. But the reason we did so... (And yes I mean ’we’... I’ll get to that) .. the reason we di so is rather simple; it is the society which provides us the greatest amount of freedom. And I don’t see that as giving up anything, since, yes, that situation may change; at which point people can, and do make the choice to establish a new culture... as we did in the case of our own revolution.
But why did that revolution occur? Because the government had moved too far outside the values of the culture to be of use to that culture.
And Martin:
A just claim is grounded in immediate truth, about which there is no "who decides." It simply is the immediate empirical reality, utterly unchallengable
Meaningless, given that immediate truth does in fact get changed, to suit either the law or the lawless, depending on whom it is speaking.
Looker:
The business of making it ’endowed by his Creator’ is akin to going to a card game and telling the guy holding the Royal Flush (the king) that your pair of dueces beats his hand because your recent interpretation of Hoyle, though there is no proof in the book, says that a pair beats a Royal Flush. It’s justification for your claiming you’ve won.
No, it’s simply placing the realm of ’who decides’ a little higher than the "thinking beings who have decided that there IS such a right and it is worthy of defense". Because, you see, this same group of thinking beings has the ability to change their mind. |
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
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Oops; Sorry, Billy; I forgot to address the "We" comment.
Like it or not, you’re benefitting greatly from the values of the society you claim so loudly to not be a part of. That you continue to do that these many years, suggests an inability (or non-desire) to ply your craft, and live your life in any other fashion. |
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
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Oops. One more thing, Billy; We most certainly agree... and I will state loudly at need... that law and ’right’ do not of nesessity, go together. In this, I find the most correct comment of any you’ve made on this subject. And yet, we seem to have come to different conclusions as to what the American revolution was all about, with respect to law and rights.
I submit to you that the revolution occurred directly because the King ran afoul of what the culture considered to be the rights of the citizen.
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
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"...it is the society which provides us the greatest amount of freedom."
Like I said: it’s doing that every day.
Let me tell you something, Eric, right out loud:
You get to take that "we" bullshit and jam it straight your ass. I will thank you to speak for yourself. You don’t get to assert what "benefits" me any more than Hillary Clinton does. And the fact is that, in my work, I deal with people explcitly and completely voluntarily. So save your stupid equivocations for people who can’t see through them. You don’t know the first thing in the world about my "society".
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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A just claim is grounded in immediate truth, about which there is no "who decides." It simply is the immediate empirical reality, utterly unchallengable
"Meaningless, given that immediate truth does in fact get changed, to suit either the law or the lawless, depending on whom it is speaking."
Ah, no. Neither law nor lawless nor who is speaking changes immediate truth. Your use of Reason and logic is grounded immediately in your identity as the person living your life and thinking your thoughts. From there you are on your own.
2 + 2 does not equal 5 by any law or speaker.
Nor does anyone else live your life or have your immediate just claim on it by law or otherwise. No positive law changes immediate empirical reality. |
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Written By:
Martin McPhillips
URL:
http://mcphillips.blogspot.com/
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I see I’ve a lot to which I need to respond. I will when I’ve got more time. However, in the meantime, let me address to your attention the myriad questions I’ve been asking throughout this thread. They are going almost wholly unanswered. That is, I think, not an accident. Nor is Billy’s (so far) failure to claim my presumption was incorrect. Or the general failure to address the fact that animals do reason. Etc.
Since the "Natural Rights" proponents are making the positive assertion, you’ve an obligation to objectivity to provide the evidence for your assertion. To date, you’ve loudly proven that you are the only person capable of living your own life. That, however, does not imply any form of "right and wrong", since it applies equally to each living thing.
While you consider whether or not to address those questions, I’d remind you that braggadocio and argumentum ad consequentiam are very poor bases for arguments, and their use will result in pointing and laughing. |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
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Rights aren’t natural laws. Our constitution guarantees the right to freedom of speech, it doesn’t mandate that we must speak our minds. Rightsholders have the choice whether to exercise their rights or not. So rights are not physical laws like gravity, and animals don’t have them.
Your point is well taken. Rights are inextricably linked with morality. They are the basis of morality and ethics. It is within the realm of morality and ethics where we fashion our laws which support and protect the rights with which our existence endows us.
But the entire purpose of the laws we fashion is to protect what is naturally ours ... our lives and the derivative rights they entail. Otherwise, other than some arbitrary construct which we felt might be nice, there’s no purpose for law. And to drive the point home, all one has to do is study early cultures which were not in communication and see what evolved as law. In the vast majority there were laws which proscribed murder and stealing (through force or fraud).
What were these disparate cultures addressing, knowingly or unknowingly, if not the rights of unique individuals to their lives and derivative rights?
Further, rights are rights because they are susceptible to suppression.
McP calls them just claims. I don’t think anyone disagrees with that. The argument is whether they’re abritrary constructs or naturally endowed.
Obviously those of us on the natural rights side see them as a product of our existence and its requirements which is about as natural as we can get.
What I’ve been trying to get at for sometime is for those who believe otherwise to definitively state their concept of a "natural right".
Rights must be measured against some objective standard. You might have a right because the law says so, and provides an enforcement mechanism for its abridgement. You might have a right because you’re the biggest guy in the state of nature, or have a couple big friends. You might also have a right because it’s been empirically observed that exercise of the right is necessary (not to say sufficient) for the survival and prosperity of the species. That’s where liberty comes in (I argue).
A)If it can be granted, it can be taken away, so what we call rights (i.e. those granted by law) are in reality legal privleges. A right is something no one grants but sanctions your action without premission from anyone or anything. The right to life is yours and yours alone and it doesn’t require a law or permission.
B) I’m not sure a right requires an objective measurement (and I may be misunderstanding your point) but it does require an objective definition. It is against that which various measurments are made through law.
C) Liberty, in my estimation, is a derivative right of the right to life for exactly the reason you describe.
If you’re with me up to a certain point, at least, we should be able to agree that there exists a natural right to procreate—if the biggest guy in the state of nature or government outlawed procreation, we become extinct awfully quickly. Liberty is not as cut and dried, but is of the same character—collections of humans prosper more the mor they’re free. The extreme opposite of propsperity is extinction.
I’d again argue that any right to procreate is derivative of your right to life. But I know where you’re headed here.
We live in a world with finite parameters of existence for free human beings, both physically and rationally. Stray outside those parameters and you become extinct or oppressed, or enslaved.
That, in my estimation argues for an absolute morality with "morality" being defined as ’right’ actions/activities and ’wrong’ actions/activities and "absolute" being defined meaning the "best" set of circumstances under which humans would prosper has free beings. Obviously then the argument becomes what is "right and wrong" and who gets to decide what is "best" and even what constitutes being "free", which we argue all the time. But I think the broad concept, based on the finite nature of our existence, has validity. |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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Oh - abstractions - nope, I believe that’s natural. In fact we couldn’t be doing what we do right now if we didn’t do abstractions, so it’s natural for us and perhaps we ’learn’ it, but it’s in our nature, as it were.
That being said, I don’t see that that leads to anything that proves an abstraction like the right to life is necessarily analagous to the existence of the quality of ’two’ or ’four’. Ultimately while two, and four and zero (as an aside...odd that it took so long for us to realize that ’nothing’ was a valid a value as 1...and perhaps I can beat myself up argumentatively by pointing out that THAT abstract concept, while always existing, took us so long to find useful, and THEREFORE perhaps the ’right to life’ could be like the concept of ’zero’....) are admittedly abstractions, they are ones that can be demonstrated. We can demonstrate zero, or two, etc. We can demonstrate gravity.
How does one demonstrate the ’right to life’? We feel we have such a right, but naturally we would. As you point out, we exist, so that seems natural and correct - dare I say, right.
But a ’right’ to it? Nature doesn’t know rights. Hungry lions don’t know rights, swimming sharks don’t know rights. Were we less intelligent, less ’abstract’, less in fundamental awe of our nature and existence, we
wouldn’t be wondering if ’rights’ were natural. They’re a human concept, applied as we will, and hence show no evidence of existence in nature, other than our own...which I suppose says....we are natural, rights are a concept we created, therefore rights are natural. But under that path I won’t even grant chicken and egg status to the idea because as a concept, we could easily discard them, in the same way we’ve discarded the idea that the sun revolved around the earth.
I can’t agree that saying I want to defend my life, my ’right’ to life, is any more than a survival instinct not shared by a long lost genetic offshoot who didn’t grasp the idea of non-existence enough to defend itself.
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Written By:
looker
URL:
http://
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Since the "Natural Rights" proponents are making the positive assertion, you’ve an obligation to objectivity to provide the evidence for your assertion. To date, you’ve loudly proven that you are the only person capable of living your own life. That, however, does not imply any form of "right and wrong", since it applies equally to each living thing.
Yes. We have. Reach out and touch your nose. Did you do that or did I do that? Or did you decide not to do what I ask? How much more objectively can one prove that you are the only person capable of living your life?
And, if not true, you should be able to provide the exception which makes your point.
The assertion is not MEANT to imply any "right or wrong", Jon. It is meant to establish the understanding that only you are entitled to your life and thus the only being who is able, by right, to act in behalf of your existence without permission.
And the entire point of a natural right is it does indeed apply "equally to each living thing". That’s its point. That’s its function. All of us, each and every one, are unique discrete individuals who exist and who are the only ones with a right to direct our existence.
While you consider whether or not to address those questions, I’d remind you that braggadocio and argumentum ad consequentiam are very poor bases for arguments, and their use will result in pointing and laughing.
And I’d point out that silly little snarky remarks such as this by the person who initiated this conversation are not useful and really make me wonder how seriously you want a discussion as opposed to just issuing your assertions and being done with it. |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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Ok, one more thing...And I’d point out that silly little snarky remarks such as this by the person who initiated this conversation are not useful and really make me wonder how seriously you want a discussion as opposed to just issuing your assertions and being done with it. Snarky? Certainly. Silly? Not at all. While it may have been phrased snarkily, the point of the statement is completely relevant. Logical fallacies like "they substantiate the political assertion that...the destruction of European Jews was wrong" and tangent-diving like "why don’t you just come up to my house and type your presumptions into my editor and cut out the middle?" are neither useful, nor worth serious consideration. I will continue to point that out. And after awhile, that continual pointing will come with the derision due such illogic.
You don’t like the snark? Fair enough. But the point is valid, which is more than can be said about the above comments. |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
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Billy:
You are able to engage in that activity because of the culture, and how it views commerce.
That’s how it benefits you. I can think of a few cultures that wouldn’t work on levels of culture, laws or both. Can’t you?
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
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Florack: "At least it’s not Bolivia, here."
What a ringing standard of judgment. Ethan Allen would be proud.
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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"...tangent-diving like ’why don’t you just come up to my house and type your presumptions into my editor and cut out the middle?’ are neither useful, nor worth serious consideration."
You don’t have to consider it, but I do. If you want to argue with the TOC, then you might at least have the nerve to take it up with them directly and leave me out of it.
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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But the point is valid, which is more than can be said about the above comments.
I take that to mean you are indeed interested in the discussion and aren’t interested in just publishing your assertions, and my comments aren’t valid in that regard. If so, that’s fine with me.
I will continue to point that out. And after awhile, that continual pointing will come with the derision due such illogic.
As for logical fallacies and illogic, those who live in glass houses ...
If that’s what you want this to become instead of the earnest discussion I’ve been trying to have, I can play too ... as you well know.
I would hope, though, we could continue this on a bit higher plane.
BTW, speaking of unaswered question, you have a bunch to address. |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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Every time I think I’m out, you keep draggin’ me back in.
I do have a lot of things to which I need to respond, and I plan to do that when I have some more time later in the day. For now, I’ve got work—the payin’ kind—to do.
My snark was mostly addressed at Billy, who has been responding, without actually being responsive. It’s a bit hard not to make assumptions about the support for his positions, when he refuses to actually offer his own support for them....or answer questions.
For your part, I think I’ve written a great many relevant questions above, and I’d like somebody to take a stab at them. Exclusively playing offense is an effective discussion group tactic, but it leaves something to be desired when I’m trying to figure out what kind of basis there is for a "natural" right. |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
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A)If it can be granted, it can be taken away, so what we call rights (i.e. those granted by law) are in reality legal privleges. A right is something no one grants but sanctions your action without premission from anyone or anything. The right to life is yours and yours alone and it doesn’t require a law or permission. I find the last bit appealing in understanding where your position is. I would agree, we require no law, or permission to exist, our existence is, as it is, because it is. Following through on the premise I have a Creator, that would certainly lead me to conclude it was endowed by the same.
I have to grant, on that basis, it is natural, but I’m not seeing where you can take the next step to make it what one could call a ’right’. Nature would dictate that pretty much anyone who can overpower me through force or guile can strip me of that ’right’.
From there I’d say it was my right, as a more guileful, or more powerful
individual than you (which I’m probably not), to take what I want from you, because ’my’ existence (my right) trumps yours. Therefore, I have a ’right’ to deprive you of your existence if that becomes necessary to perpetuate my being. That’s the animal kingdom at work there.
So, merely having a ’right’ in existing is insufficent - I don’t see where that proves a ’right’ that would stay me from attempting to abridge your ’right’. What I’m looking for is a natural proof that I, as an individual apart from you, must recognize that I MUST NOT abridge your right. In effect I don’t see a natural law that says the same thing gravity does. Gravity applies to you AND I. Your right to life, applies only to YOU because there’s nothing natural to stop me from "removing" that right if I perceive a need and can figure out how to do it.
But that’s only because it appears to me that you’re equating mere existence with a ’right’ and I’m not trying to tell YOU what you think. Perhaps I misunderstand...
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Written By:
looker
URL:
http://
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Exclusively playing offense is an effective discussion group tactic, but it leaves something to be desired when I’m trying to figure out what kind of basis there is for a "natural" right.
I’m certainly not exclusively playing offense, Jon. I’ve actually put definitions up there and tried to explain concepts in as much detail as possible. I’ve also tried to answer your questions directly. So its not quite as one-sided as you imply.
You’re obviously not satisfied with my explanations and I’m not at all satisfied with yours, so maybe we ought to take a breath and think about it a bit.
Go do your paying kinda work, we can do this at all our leisure. ;) |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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Billy:
An interesting, if off-target response.
Bolivia wasn’t what I was considering... mostly because it isn’t the culture that’s the limitation there, but rather the government itself. |
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
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"Nature would dictate that pretty much anyone who can overpower me through force or guile can strip me of that ’right’."
No, they can’t. They might be able to destroy its practical manifestations, but the two are not the same. As I keep pointing out: the case of, say, a murder victim does not prove that there is no such thing as rights. All it proves is that some people (like: murderers) cannot add two plus two in order to get to four. And rational people are righteously—correctly—outraged when that happens. Now, on the accounts we’ve seen here, there is no reason on earth for moral outrage over any past violation of rights, except that it’s a fashionable thing to do when the herd’s fashions are running that way. You guys wouldn’t even have cause for moral outrage if it was your head on the block with the herd’s approval, because that would manifestly mean that they disapproved of your rights. What could you possibly have to complain about?
This is the whole point that McQ and McP are making about self-abnegation in this line of thinking.
If you people are integral ("honest) about this, you’re ready to let go of your lives as long as it’s a popular thing to do.
Why you would do that is the central mystery here, to me.
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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Florack: you’re the one who balls-up government and culture in one big grab-bag called "society". If you want to begin making distinctions according to what any given thing really is, you’d do a lot better to start at the beginning.
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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From there I’d say it was my right, as a more guileful, or more powerful individual than you (which I’m probably not), to take what I want from you, because ’my’ existence (my right) trumps yours. Therefore, I have a ’right’ to deprive you of your existence if that becomes necessary to perpetuate my being. That’s the animal kingdom at work there.
No, you have the power, which has nothing to do with a "right".
Again, if a right is a sanction to act without requiring anyone’s permission, would you suggest that depriving me of my existence fits in that category (i.e. you have a right to kill indiscriminatly)?
Additionally, you’d certainly not have my permission to take my life and I’d invoke my right to defend it (a derivative right of my right to life).
But even if you did kill me, you can’t "take" my life ... its non-transferable, inalienable, only belongs to me. You can’t take it and you can’t live it. Its uniquely mine.
The right, as McP notes, serves as your just claim to your existence. Its unique. No one else has it and no one else can take it ... even with your permission, its inalienable.
So, merely having a ’right’ in existing is insufficent - I don’t see where that proves a ’right’ that would stay me from attempting to abridge your ’right’.
You’re trying to make too much of a right, Looker.
A right is not a guarantee to some outcome.
It is two things: 1)Its a moral claim. You are the only person with a moral RIGHT to your life. Period. No one else can make that claim.
2) Its a sanction to act without anyone’s permission within a certain sphere (that sphere being defined as ending where your actions require the permission of others because further action would violate their sphere of moral authority given by right).
What I’m looking for is a natural proof that I, as an individual apart from you, must recognize that I MUST NOT abridge your right.
You’re a rational human being, Looker, why must I explain why you must not abridge my right? It seems self-evident to me. We talk about it every day on this blog. Its the difference between war and peace, poverty and prosperity, existence and extinction.
Choose which side you want to be on and it becomes exceedingly clear why you must not abridge my rights. But note the key action: choose. That’s why rights are critical to rational man.
In effect I don’t see a natural law that says the same thing gravity does. Gravity applies to you AND I. Your right to life, applies only to YOU because there’s nothing natural to stop me from "removing" that right if I perceive a need and can figure out how to do it.
We all have the same right to our lives, looker. And thus every one of us, you and I, are suseptible to having them violated. Just as gravity is a universal law, the right to life is a universal right.
As to your last point, same with gravity. I can shoot your ass into space and you can avoid gravity for quite sometime if not forever if I’m clever enough which means you can spurn the law of gravity if you can figure out how to do it.
Also, consider the desert island analogy. Alone you have no need to invoke your rights. The moment another person arrives, the need arises.
Why?
But that’s only because it appears to me that you’re equating mere existence with a ’right’ and I’m not trying to tell YOU what you think. Perhaps I misunderstand...
Your existence as a rational being argues persuasively that you have a right to continue that existence and to "revise and extend" it, wouldn’t you say?
If not you, who? Who does have that unique right if not you? |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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Actually, Billy, as I’ve told you elsewhere, I’ve done no such thing. Instead, I have repeatedly labled government a less than perfect TOOL of society. You may want to go back and read the links I posted, if you need a reference for that point. |
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
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"That’s the animal kingdom at work there."
It is gruesomely fascinating, to me, to watch these people keep stepping down to the level of beasts with such strutting rectitude. Here is a curious fact, however:
No one of sound mind would consider bringing, say, a tiger up on murder charges for killing a human being. And everyone of sound mind knows the unilateral arbitary killing of one human by another by its right name.
Now, since this distinction is being obliterated, which way will the necessarily implicit political tides run?
Your guess is as good as mine.
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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Martin:
You would, I suppose, consider slavery to be wrong under any condition; a universal judgement in your eyes. Good.
Yet, a look around the world suggests that’s not a universal view.
Consider; if it was in fact a universal truth that all men were created equal, it wouldn’t have been such a radical idea, for the time of ourmown revolution, much less then to now. Last I checked, it is quite true that a vast majority still do not consider these as any kind of truth, universal or otherwise; they consider them to be anything BUT self-evident. Royalty still exists, as do class structures, and slavery, as well.
Your argument here, Martin, doesn’t seem to mesh well with established, and reinforced fact.
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
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Having read a good deal of the comments at this point, I can’t help but conclude that Dale and Jon set up a strawman (unitentionally), and then proceeded to knock it down.
So far as I can tell, everything the two of you have mentioned as the basis of natual rights is indeed false. So, I’m not surprised that you don’t think they exist. If that’s all I had to go on, I’d be worried too.
Billy has been poking holes, trying to get you to get to the right answer on your own, and McQ and McP have been helping you to form a definition piece by piece.
It’s always best if you can get there yourself. Let me add another piece I haven’t seen mentioned by anyone. Hopefully it’s of some satisfaction, as I did see one of you complain that rights were an abstraction without any referents to reality.
How about _choice_?, which is as concrete as can be. Right now, sitting there, you and every human being on earth has a choice that is as _natural_ as you can get, and applies to no other animals, so far as we know. That choice is to continue to pursue your life or not—to purposely default on its requirements, or even to explicitly bring it to a close, if you choose. This choice is not granted by anyone else, and it cannot be conveyed to anyone else, in part, because they already have it for their own part.
It applies to everyone equally, at all times—this choice—and it is a product of the nature of human beings through and through.
Now, without finishing the whole thing, can anyone tell me what this _natural_, _concrete_, _real-as-hell_ choice IMPLIES, as an aspect of human nature?
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Written By:
Richard Nikoley
URL:
http://uncommonsense.typepad.com
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The simplest attempt at a definition of a "natural right" I can think of is "rational self-interest extended to others". Which has no individual enforcement mechanism, nor any immediate group enforcement mechanism.
What we call "rights" exist -as rights- because enough people agree to them.
Paradoxically, those rights seem most uniform in cases where the group voluntarily gives up some portion of those rights (especially as regards raw power) to a sub-group dedicated to upholding the remainder.
I can think of no enforcement mechanism that does not have exceptions, and thus, does not depend on at least the passive cooperation of "others".
Perhaps therein lies a definition. Let’s try this out:
"A natural right is one that, absent active attempts to deny it, is naturally available to those who seek it"?
That would cover thugs, those content with a suboptimal condition (willing slaves), and violence...
It still doesn’t have an enforcement mechanism that does not rely on others. In fact, the only thing that approximates an enforcement mechanism is the existance and actions of multiple others.
Oops!
While previewing my comment, I saw that Richard Nikoley brings up an interesting point, which leads me to say that the only "natural right" in the assumed preconditions of Jon and Dale (as opposed to my more convoluted attempt), is Free Will: You always have the right to make choices, no matter who you are or what your situation is. That choice may be to refuse to choose, but that is inherently a choice of its own. You are free to choose to die rather than give up a secret to the enemy, you are free to choose to attempt to speak when someone’s strangling you - no particular SET of choices is a Right, let alone a natural one, but the freedom to choose among the possibilities inherent in the situation is a Natural Right because it is, by it nature, inalienable.
I think. Can anyone poke holes in that that don’t rely on ad absurdum? |
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Written By:
Dave
URL:
http://www.thepatriette.com/dangerous
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Dave:
You draw upon the very FIRST implication of this natural choice, which is, by concrete nature, we have no choice in the matter of whether to choose. We are, by nature, beings who _must_ choose whether to pursue that which is necessary to advance our lives, or not. Refusing to chose is no less of a choice, and amounts to a default on one’s life.
So, if, by nature, we MUST choose, what does it naturally imply? Let’s look at it this way: see how absurd would it be, once recognizing this inherent choice we have, to say, "yes, but, everyone who chooses to pursue his life instead of default on it or end it must ultimately get the permission of everyone else."
If nature affords us this choice, _naturally_, then it is our choice _by nature_, which means, it is our _right_, by _nature_.
So, there you have a basic derivation of the natural right to life. The other rights are derivative, for, in order to exercise the natural choice to live, one must naturally be able to acquire things like property and associations with others.
This inherent choice is actually pretty handy. Not only can you derive rights, but morality too. Anyone want to give it a shot?
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Written By:
Richard Nikoley
URL:
http://uncommonsense.typepad.com
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MCQ Its a sanction to act without anyone’s permission within a certain sphere (that sphere being defined as ending where your actions require the permission of others because further action would violate their sphere of moral authority given by right). On that point I must admit my last attempt at the argument....errr, sucks....
I accepted the premise that the basis for a ’right’ was you needed no one else’s permission. Obviously by suggesting I had a ’right’ to remove you for my own nefarious reasons I was presumably not going to get YOUR permission so I have no such right.
Billy - I’m not trying to judge whether or not you’re moral - not knowing me, and whether or not I’m being a devil’s advocate it’s a, shall we say presumption to judge my morality based on the context provided here for reference.
What I’m looking for is reasoning to believe, or not, that rights are as natural as gravity and not a construct of man.
I keep seeing reliances to ’morality’. It shouldn’t enter into it if it’s a ’natural’ law. Gravity has no morality. A ’natural’ law should technically be amoral because different societies make different moral judgements.
On the basis that my existence gives me a right to my existence, yes, I agree
it’s natural, there needs to be no moral judgement on my existence, it simply, is. It’s not very satisfying however...yet, as McQ pointed out perhaps I’m attempting to make more of the ’right’ than there needs to be made.
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Written By:
looker
URL:
http://
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"If nature affords us this choice, _naturally_,..."
It had occurred to me to hit this with the emphasis it requires, in response to Dave.
Nature doesn’t "afford" us the matter of choice: it positively impresses it upon us. The matter of choosing whether (and then how, which is the whole rise of ethics) to conduct our lives is an absolute imperative. When it comes to politics, any human being who is prohibited from applying his own mind to the conduct of his life has essentially (in principle—which is a dirty word unless you’re some kind of goddamned evil extremist) been stripped of his ability to live. After that, it’s only a matter of degree.
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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"to default on it’s requirements" Objection, your honor; Assumes facts not already admitted.
Who defines the requrements?
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
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"I accepted the premise that the basis for a ’right’ was you needed no one else’s permission."
That premise is correct. It is crucial, however, to grasp that it is not an open-ended blank check. Read it again: McQuain pointed this out with his caveat centering on the word "ending". What he’s talking about is the bi-lateral nature of rights: no one can ever have a "right" at the destruction of someone else’s.
"What I’m looking for is reasoning to believe, or not, that rights are as natural as gravity and not a construct of man."
Well, all you have to do is understand the validity of concepts and start putting them together from the ground, up. You keep equivocating between the physical phenomenon of gravity and an abstraction, and that is simply never going to work for you because they are categorically different things.
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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"Assumes facts not already admitted."
Just stop choosing to stay alive, Eric. Go ahead. I dare you.
"Private Pyle, If god wanted you up the obstacle he’d have miracled your ass up there by now!"
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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What we call "rights" exist -as rights- because enough people agree to them.
Disagree. They work because (and/or when) enough people agree to them, but in my estimation, that has nothing to do with their existence with or without such a working relationship."A natural right is one that, absent active attempts to deny it, is naturally available to those who seek it"? I think this more readily defines a passive or negative right in general. And while I agree that any natural right will be a passive or negative right, this seems to be more of a characteristic of a natural right than a definition of natural right.
My own attempt from a comment above: a natural right is an innate passive (or negative) right which establishes a sphere of moral authority in which a human being may act without anyone’s permission?
You always have the right to make choices, no matter who you are or what your situation is. That choice may be to refuse to choose, but that is inherently a choice of its own. You are free to choose to die rather than give up a secret to the enemy, you are free to choose to attempt to speak when someone’s strangling you - no particular SET of choices is a Right, let alone a natural one, but the freedom to choose among the possibilities inherent in the situation is a Natural Right because it is, by it nature, inalienable.
It is also naturally human. But a right? It is passive, it is innate, and you certainly don’t have to ask permission to choose. But is a choice worth anything if you can’t act? I posit that you have the innate right to act to benefit your exitence as long as your act doesn’t violate the rights of another. That would be true for a right to choose as well.
But before I lose the larger point, the right to choose, "free will" is that part of our nature which causes us (by nature) to require rights. Rights are the moral parameters placed on our right to choose (and then act on our choice). |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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Billy:
Cute, but avoids the point.
Again, who choses what’s ’required’ to stay alive?
looker:I keep seeing reliances to ’morality’. It shouldn’t enter into it if it’s a ’natural’ law. Gravity has no morality. A ’natural’ law should technically be amoral because different societies make different moral judgements. Just for the sake of discussion and focus, try this from the opposite angle; (and, mind, I’m not taking sides at this point) Let’s try exclusion as a discussion point;
Granting that those rights listed in the US COnstitution, even by it’s own wording, are a subset of the whole... Is there any human right named in the constitution that cannot be considered a moral issue?
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
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I keep seeing reliances to ’morality’. It shouldn’t enter into it if it’s a ’natural’ law. Gravity has no morality. A ’natural’ law should technically be amoral because different societies make different moral judgements.
Gravity has no morality because it has no choice. It acts on all bodies in the same way.
Morality enters into our situation because of choice. In terms of our existence, there most certainly are right choices and wrong choices.
There are also choices others can make pertaining to our existence which can be wrong. Thus moral parameters defined by our rights. |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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"Rights are the moral parameters placed on our right to choose (and then act on our choice)."
No, sir. Rights are the political parameters, etc. The whole point of "politics" is to answer questions of how human beings should behave toward one another. Ethics ("morals") is the matter that implictly demands those answers when human life exists in a social context.
I know: this is pedantic. It is nonetheless true, and it serves clarity of thought about this stuff.
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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So far, this is what I am getting from the thread, and the questions it raises in my mind. If we accept a right as a sanction to act without permission, who else holds that sanction beside you? Can you transfer that sanction, or is it inalienable?
Since your existence is unique and discrete, who else has a "right" to it?
Your existence entitles only you to your life, no one else. Its your non-transferable title to ownership of your life. Its your life and your life alone.
That does not mean someone can’t violate that right and kill you or enslave you or shove you off a cliff. It does mean, however, establish that they have immorally violated your right to life if they do so, and consequently you have the moral right (as do others)to remedy the situation in your favor. Morally? So, rights are a moral claim inherent in our existence?Rights are inextricably linked with morality. They are the basis of morality and ethics. It is within the realm of morality and ethics where we fashion our laws which support and protect the rights with which our existence endows us...
That, in my estimation argues for an absolute morality with "morality" being defined as ’right’ actions/activities and ’wrong’ actions/activities and "absolute" being defined meaning the "best" set of circumstances under which humans would prosper has free beings. Obviously then the argument becomes what is "right and wrong" and who gets to decide what is "best" and even what constitutes being "free", which we argue all the time. But I think the broad concept, based on the finite nature of our existence, has validity. OK. So let me see if I got this right.
We get these rights simply by being human, right? And only we get to do that, and not animals, because animals can’t reason and even if they could, they can’t communicate with us, so, you know, screw ’em. We’re superior to the animals in specific cognitive ways. I mean, these rights are natural, but not that natural. Not so’s you’d be able to find any examples elsewhere in the natural world. So, never talk about the animals. It’s like talking to Germans. Never mention the war. OK, got it.
But let me take the animals point a bit further. The difference between humans and animals is that we think; we are self-aware. OK, I’ll bite. Does that mean all humans have those intrinsic rights? I mean, what if I think my group of humans is smater and prettier than some other group of humans? Does that mean I can invade their country to gain lebensraum in the East? Or, even among my own people, a 30 year-old has greater cognitive facilities than a 1 year old. Does than mean that infanticide is OK because 1 year olds don’t have the requisite cognitive abilities?
"Oh, no, no, no," you reply. "All humans have those rights."
I see. So, does that mean we have to outlaw abortion because fetuses, being nascent humans, also have inherent rights that it is immoral to take by killing them? So, in order to protect these tiny human lives, I am obligated to require you to bring them to term?
Now, so far, your argument is, I am alive. I know I am alive and have a unique inner life. Therefore, it is immoral to deprive me of it.
Well, now, hold on there, sparky. Where did that morality come from? Who is the arbiter of this morality? Morality requires a standard of behavior. A standard implies an arbiter. Who is the arbiter? Several of you have denied that it is God, so who, exactly is it? You posit there is a universal standard of morality. Sez who?
What I’ve got from you so far is a bald assertion about the nature of rights and morality. How do I test that assertion to see if it’s true. How do I falsify it? If I can’t falsify it, then what is it but the tenet of a secular religion?
As near as I can make out, your argument is, "I am alive, and I think, therefore I have a right to live." Not only is that a bald, unsupported assertion, it’s also a tautology.What I’ve been trying to get at for sometime is for those who believe otherwise to definitively state their concept of a "natural right". I’d rather use your definition. At least that way, I know you agree with the definition we’re using.If it can be granted, it can be taken away, so what we call rights (i.e. those granted by law) are in reality legal privleges. A right is something no one grants but sanctions your action without premission from anyone or anything. The right to life is yours and yours alone and it doesn’t require a law or permission. Well, I’m sorry, but that’s just metaphysics. I mean, fine, let’s assume, arguendo that these natural rights exist. What do they mean in practical terms if the society in which you live chooses not to believe in their existence. You can then drone on about natural rights all you want, but essentially they do you no good, except to provide a stirring peroration before the firing squad opens fire.
Moreover, if they do exist, what evidence from human history shows their practical effects? I mean, outside of portions of classical Greece from the 8th to the 3rd centuries BC, when they were conquered by Philip of Macedon, and the Romans from about the 4th century BC, when the plebeians were allowed to elect Tribunes to 50 BC, when Rome effectively became an absolute monarchy, where were they recognized? And the Romans, and even the Greeks, for all their endless pride in eleutheria or freedom, were slave-owning societies.
It seems to me that much the argument for natural rights is simply based on consequentialism, to wit:Well, that’ll put you in the same boat with Henke and Franks on the day when "the society; the culture" "arbit" that they are politically competent to dictate the terms and conditions of your life. In other words, the theory of natural right must be true, or else Bad Things Will Happen. Consequentialism, by the way, is perfectly OK in explaining why it’s important to respect rights, but it doesn’t tell us much about their derivation.
And that would be different from recorded human history, how? Society will be the arbiter. It always has been. Somehow the existence of natural rights—asuming they exist—has done nothing to prevent it. Even with natural rights, it appears, those same bad things happen over and over again in every society. Just as they’re happening in our now.
So, what, precisely is it that you natural rights do as a practical matter when society rules against you, other than providing you with some metaphysical talking points?
You can reply that they don’t do anything as a practical matter, but they provide a standard of morality. Really? To whom? To societies who deny that morality? How?
You say that the morality that flows from natural rights is universal. Yeah? According to whom? Not the society that puts a gun to your head and says, your money or your life. Now what?
Really, if that’s your argument, then we’re really just talking about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It doesn’t mean anything. It has no practical relevance to real, political life, except insofar as you can convince your fellow citizens to buy into it. If you can’t then your rights will accomplish nothing but allow you an intense feeling of moral rectitude, as they offer you a blindfold and a last cigarette.
C) Liberty, in my estimation, is a derivative right of the right to life for exactly the reason you describe. Derivative? Who are you, Justice Blackmun? Next you’ll be telling us about "emanations" and "penumbras".
Look, I’m pretty sure we all agree that people do have rights, and that those rights must be respected. But unless you can convince the society in which you live to believe those things, too, then your belief in rights doesn’t avail you of much.
As a practical matter, only by convincing your society about the existence of rights can you convince them that those rights should be protected. It seems to me that the best way to do this is to proceed from reason, rather than an appeal to a metaphysical existence of natural rights. That means using consequencialist arguments about the negative effects that flow from the denial of rights.
As far as their derivation is concerned, it seems to me that the proper answer of their origin is to note that human history has shown that government tends to tyranny. After 2,500 years of philosophical thought about this, from Classical Greece to the Enlightenment—with stops along the way in Rome, Venice, Holland, Wittenburg, Switzerland and England—we rationally developed a series of individual rights that government was forbidden to abrogate, irrespective of the social costs of doing so. Only in this way, has it been possible to prevent, or at least limit, the tyranny of government, and even this is imperfect. But rights are an intellectual creation, based on more than two millennia of rational, skeptical inquiry about the nature of man and his government.
What gives them force is not that they inhere in us by nature, but that we have made the conscious decision that merely by being human we should be regarded as having inherent rights that it is illegitimate to abrogate.As to your last point, same with gravity. I can shoot your ass into space and you can avoid gravity for quite sometime if not forever if I’m clever enough which means you can spurn the law of gravity if you can figure out how to do it. Uh, actually, no, you can’t. You can merely shoot me to a region of space where gravity from any large objects isn’t strong enough to overcome my momentum. But I can’t "avoid" gravity. It just becomes too weak to affect me very much as a practical matter.
Like natural rights. |
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Written By:
Dale Franks
URL:
http://www.qando.net
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Can’t resist adding one thing to Dale’s post: What would reality look like if there were no such thing as Natural Rights? As far as I can tell, since you don’t posit physical manifestations of these rights, there would be no difference at all. The world would exist exactly as it does now.
So, as I asked earlier: Now, what’s the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, powerless Natural Right and no Right at all? If there’s no way to disprove the contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that Natural Right exists? Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder.
You’ve all proven (to our satisfaction, though I imagine somebody could always bring up determinism) that we exercise sole control over our own bodies. Until, of course, such a time as we don’t excercise that control. What you haven’t proven is that a suggestion that this implies a "right" is anything more than a tautology: I alone control my body, therefore I alone have the ability to control my body.
That ability, I note, doesn’t imply any limits. For example, the ability to control your own body does not prevent you from destroying another body.
At any rate, my point stands: how is the existence of what you perceive as a normative standard in nature—and "correct" course of behaviour in oneself, and towards others—manifested in a way that we can test? And if such rights did not exist, how would we be able to tell? Would killing in such a world be substantively different than in this one?
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
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Two points immediately. More after dinner:
We get these rights simply by being human, right? And only we get to do that, and not animals, because animals can’t reason and even if they could, they can’t communicate with us, so, you know, screw ’em. We’re superior to the animals in specific cognitive ways. I mean, these rights are natural, but not that natural. Not so’s you’d be able to find any examples elsewhere in the natural world. So, never talk about the animals. It’s like talking to Germans. Never mention the war. OK, got it.
Uh no you don’t but nice try.
Show me the first animal which understands right and wrong and its responsibilty to do what is right and we have an apples to apples discussion.
Until then, this has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
Well, now, hold on there, sparky. Where did that morality come from? Who is the arbiter of this morality? Morality requires a standard of behavior. A standard implies an arbiter. Who is the arbiter? Several of you have denied that it is God, so who, exactly is it? You posit there is a universal standard of morality. Sez who?
When someone comes at you with intent to kill and you defend yourself, other than you, who’s the arbiter?
No one. Who determines the standard of behavior? Your attacker.
By what right do you defend yourself? Your right to life.
What more do you need Dale, someone else’s permission and approval? |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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By what right do you defend yourself? Your right to life. Well, actually, my experience is that I don’t think about it that deeply. I defend myself because I don’t want to die. I’m defending my life, not my rights. In fact, even if you’re not trying to kill me, you’re just irritating me by poking me with a stick, I’ll defend myself too.
Of course, if I start poking a grizzly bear with a stick, he’ll defend himself, as well.
Now, is that because bears have the same right to defend themselves that I do, or is it because we are both predatory mammales who have evolved to respond to aggression with a fight or flight mechanism?
I guess I’m a little hazy on the distinctions in our behaviors, and why defending myself is proof of some natural right, while the bear’s self-defense is proof of nothing more than an evolved instinct. |
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Written By:
Dale Franks
URL:
http://www.qando.net
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Dale:I’m defending my life, not my rights. Most fundamentally, what you are defending is your natural choice in the disposition of your life (reference my previous comments). That is what nature compels you to do, and you can’t get around it, and because you can’t get around that choice, it is your natural right. You can choose to defend yourself (directly or by flight), or you can choose not to, and take whatever consequences come. If you choose not to choose, you still have made a choice.Of course, if I start poking a grizzly bear with a stick, he’ll defend himself, as well. Or, he’ll flee (not likely, but animals do one or the other). Nature afforded them no choice in the matter. They are not compelled to choose anything because their behavior is just automatic. They can’t act either actively or passively in their own destruction, so rights and morality don’t apply to them.
Nature made animals one way—survival of the fittest. They all operate within their natural capabilities to forward their own lives and reproduce.
Nature gave us a choice in the matter, and that is our source of natural rights and morality.
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Written By:
Richard Nikoley
URL:
http://uncommonsense.typepad.com
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Gravity has no morality because it has no choice. It acts on all bodies in the same way.
Morality enters into our situation because of choice. In terms of our existence, there most certainly are right choices and wrong choices. Choices - a ’right’ isn’t a matter of choice. It’s either a right, or it’s not.
THAT much is certain. You either have these basic rights, or you don’t. You either have a right to life, or you don’t - like GRAVITY....it’s not a matter of choice. Ending your own existence, may be a choice you make, but it doesn’t have any effect on your ’right’ to life (exist).
So too morality....morality doesn’t enter into your rights - you either have them or not. What you choose to DO with them, or to others who also have them, is a moral issue (assuming you live in a society that has morals). Those are simply the outcome of decisions, they don’t have any effect on the existence of the rights themselves. When someone comes at you with intent to kill and you defend yourself, other than you, who’s the arbiter?
No one. Who determines the standard of behavior? Your attacker.
By what right do you defend yourself? Your right to life. There have been people in the past so morally opposed to violence they’d let themselves be killed rather than commit a violent act. That didn’t change the existence of their right to life.
I don’t see how ’rights’ are choices, or moral. |
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Written By:
looker
URL:
http://
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Looker:Choices - a ’right’ isn’t a matter of choice. It’s either a right, or it’s not. Our actions are a matter of choice. Nature mandates that you must choose which actions you will undertake with respect to the advancement or ending of your life. Since this choice is mandated, you have a natural right to choose to further your life. Accordingly, you have a natural right to life, and all that derives from that politically.
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Written By:
Richard Nikoley
URL:
http://uncommonsense.typepad.com
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Well, actually, my experience is that I don’t think about it that deeply. I defend myself because I don’t want to die. I’m defending my life, not my rights. In fact, even if you’re not trying to kill me, you’re just irritating me by poking me with a stick, I’ll defend myself too.
What does what you do or don’t think about deeply have to do with the subject at hand?
Of course you’re defending your life ... as you have every right too. That’s the point.
I guess I’m a little hazy on the distinctions in our behaviors, and why defending myself is proof of some natural right, while the bear’s self-defense is proof of nothing more than an evolved instinct.
I guess you are a bit hazy on the distinctions. I also guess you like to continue comparing humans and animals as well, even though you consistently leave out the bit about free will and choice which makes such comparison fairly ludicrous.
Bears don’t choose to attack nor do they choose to defend themselves. They do both by responding instinctively to certain stimuli in a certain way. Apparently nature found that when you don’t have the ability to reason and choose, its best to hardwire you a certain way. That’s why their behavior is termed "predictable" given a set of stimuli.
As for why you think you do what you do, I’m not sure of its relevance to the the point.
I answered the questions you posed concerning morality: you claimed if morality was involved, there had to be an arbiter and a set standard. I provided through an example who, in the case of the right to life, who the arbiter was, who set the standard and that, by right, you needed no permission to choose to defend yourself. A classic example of the use of a right.
And all I get in reply is a statement that you don’t think much about such an event and a non-sequitur in the form of a bear analogy. |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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Choices - a ’right’ isn’t a matter of choice. It’s either a right, or it’s not.
THAT much is certain.
Agreed.
You either have these basic rights, or you don’t. You either have a right to life, or you don’t - like GRAVITY....it’s not a matter of choice. Ending your own existence, may be a choice you make, but it doesn’t have any effect on your ’right’ to life (exist).
Agreed.
So too morality....morality doesn’t enter into your rights - you either have them or not.
Morality comes in on the back end, Looker. As all of us have been saying there are two parts to a right ... the sanction to act and the responsiblity to not violate the same right for others through that sanction. Morality is what defines where your sanction to act ends and the other guy’s begins.
What you choose to DO with them, or to others who also have them, is a moral issue (assuming you live in a society that has morals). Those are simply the outcome of decisions, they don’t have any effect on the existence of the rights themselves.
Yes ... agreed.
There have been people in the past so morally opposed to violence they’d let themselves be killed rather than commit a violent act. That didn’t change the existence of their right to life.
I don’t see how ’rights’ are choices, or moral.
I’m not sure who said or inferred they were, Looker. I certainly haven’t that I know of ...
I think what Dave (?) was suggesting was that choice is a right since it is innate, passive and you need no permission to make it (you may need it to exercise it, but that wasn’t his point), but I don’t believe he wasn’t saying that rights are a choice.
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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"In other words, the theory of natural right must be true, or else Bad Things Will Happen. Consequentialism, by the way, is perfectly OK in explaining why it’s important to respect rights, but it doesn’t tell us much about their derivation."
(phew) It’s a good thing I didn’t advertise it that way.
"Consequentialism": not really, but now that you mention it, it’s a fact that when people violate what we’re calling rights here, it results in a Bad Thing. Let’s do this justice and call it Cause&Effectism."Society will be the arbiter. It always has been." Tell me something: was it British "society" or American "society" who "arbite[d]" in 1776, or were they both all tossed together in the same anti-conceptual bag?
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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As all of us have been saying there are two parts to a right...the sanction to act and the responsiblity to not violate the same right for others through that sanction. Morality is what defines where your sanction to act ends and the other guy’s begins.
I must disagree on this point.... You can’t state that rights are composed of two parts, sanction and responsibility and then say morality defines the scope of the sanction, and then go on to say that you haven’t inferred rights are not related to morals. You just made it one of the guiding aspects of one of the parts of a right.
If morality is a factor, you are implicitly infering that ’rights’ are a human construct, and not natural, because not all societies will make the same moral judgements with respect to rights and therefore there’s nothing ’universal’ about the right since one society may make a moral judgement one way, and another society the other.
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Written By:
looker
URL:
http://
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Look, I’m pretty sure we all agree that people do have rights, and that those rights must be respected. But unless you can convince the society in which you live to believe those things, too, then your belief in rights doesn’t avail you of much.
As a practical matter, only by convincing your society about the existence of rights can you convince them that those rights should be protected. There is no consensus, and probably not even a sizeable minority, of people living today who believe liberty is necessary for prosperity. As history continues to proceed, though, my money is on prosperity coming to be recognized as a consequence of liberty. We won’t be around, but it’s not all about us, is it?
When it gets through the thick skull of humankind that in order to prosper—and even survive, since the extreme opposite of prosperity is extinction—every man and woman must enjoy liberty, liberty will be acknowledged as being as necessary as the right to procreate and the right to live to prosperity of the species.
You make a mistake if you artificially cut off a debate that’s been going on for thousands of years and will continue for probably just as long in the future and say, "someone, right now, in 2005, can take away my liberty, so natural rights don’t exist." It seems to me that the best way to do this is to proceed from reason, rather than an appeal to a metaphysical existence of natural rights. That means using consequencialist arguments about the negative effects that flow from the denial of rights. Actually, the best way to do it is to have some societies operating with free men and some under tyranny, and see which ones do better. I know you’re impatient, but what can you do?As far as their derivation is concerned, it seems to me that the proper answer of their origin is to note that human history has shown that government tends to tyranny. And men tend to liberty. There have been far more despots overthrown in human history than republican governments. |
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Written By:
Matt Barr
URL:
http://newworldman.us
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I must disagree on this point.... You can’t state that rights are composed of two parts, sanction and responsibility and then say morality defines the scope of the sanction, and then go on to say that you haven’t inferred rights are not related to morals. You just made it one of the guiding aspects of one of the parts of a right.
When did I infer rights weren’t related to morals?
If morality is a factor, you are implicitly infering that ’rights’ are a human construct, and not natural, because not all societies will make the same moral judgements with respect to rights and therefore there’s nothing ’universal’ about the right since one society may make a moral judgement one way, and another society the other.
No, I’m not infering that at all. Morality is nothing more than right and wrong. What would be the ’right’ or moral decision concering and innate right and what would be an immoral or ’wrong’ decision concerning said right? Should be pretty self-evident, looker, if the right to existence is the context. |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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No, sir. Rights are the political parameters, etc. The whole point of "politics" is to answer questions of how human beings should behave toward one another. Ethics ("morals") is the matter that implictly demands those answers when human life exists in a social context.
No.
Politics is merely a reflection of personal values, and a means by which we decide GROUP values.
Or, the lack of same. Politics of themselves are *A*moral.
Tell me something: was it British "society" or American "society" who "arbite[d]" in 1776, or were they both all tossed together in the same anti-conceptual bag?
Both. Along with the rest of the world, of course, much of which was also making moves toward the end of Euro-Colonialism, a move which would not be complete for a couple hundred years. And perhaps it should be pointed out that Britain itself was also changing from within, away from the Monarchy?
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
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Can’t resist adding one thing to Dale’s post: What would reality look like if there were no such thing as Natural Rights? Iran?
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
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Can’t resist adding one thing to Dale’s post: What would reality look like if there were no such thing as Natural Rights?
You don’t have to wonder, Jon. Just grab a history book and delve into the pre-Enlightenment world. It was indeed a world without the benefit of the discovery of natural rights.
What you haven’t proven is that a suggestion that this implies a "right" is anything more than a tautology: I alone control my body, therefore I alone have the ability to control my body.
While it may indeed be a tautology (there are some that argue that definitons are nothing but tautologies) it isn’t the tautology you state: "I alone OWN my LIFE, therefore I alone have the RIGHT to my life." That of course would include control, etc.
You’d think as often as that’s been said you’d have gotten it by now. Little different when you say it like that, isn’t it?
That ability, I note, doesn’t imply any limits. For example, the ability to control your own body does not prevent you from destroying another body.
You’re the only one touting ability, Jon. Others have been talking about ownership, existence, life and rights, etc. "Ability" is a strawman.
At any rate, my point stands: how is the existence of what you perceive as a normative standard in nature—and "correct" course of behaviour in oneself, and towards others—manifested in a way that we can test?
How can it be tested? With history. Go look up those societies that didn’t abide by these rights, whether acknowledged or not, and tell us how they’re doing.
And if such rights did not exist, how would we be able to tell?
Again look at the pre-Enlightenment world vs. the post-Enlightenment and you tell me.
Would killing in such a world be substantively different than in this one?
It was. The pre-Enlightenment world was not a nice place for the vast majority of human beings in the absence of any concept of individual inalienable rights. Today, with such a focus, its a much better place in that regard. |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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The flaw in Dale’s argument, as more than one person observed, is to try to separate natural rights from God. This you cannot do.
My observation is based on my reading of Locke and Strauss.
Natural rights are those which we were intended to have "in a state of nature" (in other words, with which we were endowed our Creator). It is undoubtedly true that, in a state of pure nature, other men may seek to deprive us of our rights - that they may choose not to live as our Creator intended. They may not recognize our natural rights. This happens because we also have free will.
Recognizing that this was a crappy state of affairs and that the Almighty wasn’t coming down from on High anytime soon to fix things, men eventually formed governments - to preserve their natural rights and allow them to live together peacefully.
This, quite simply, is Locke’s argument, boiled down to its essentials. You can get all complex about it, but there’s really no need. For "natural", try reading "God-given" and you’ll be a lot closer to the mark. Or just go and read the Declaration of Independence, as simple a statement of Natural Rights as you’ll find anywhere:
WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men...
The concept of Natural Rights is an important one, because, like the terms ’inalienable’ and ’God-given’, it implies something immutable, permanent, not subject to the whims of man. As McQ points out, the modern governments founded on Natural Rights concepts are radically different from those that went before, and we stray from these ideas at our peril (well I’m not sure McQ agrees with that, but it’s what I believe).
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Written By:
Cassandra
URL:
http://
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I’m going to try to respond the open questions. If I miss some, ask again. I’ll follow that with questions of my own.
Ultimately, I think the problem is that you have a personal definition of "right/rights", which doesn’t match any of the dictionary definitions, and from which you’re deriving a series of normative standards—"this is right, that is wrong" statements—that simply don’t exist in nature. They make good, efficient moral systems, sure. But that doesn’t make them "natural".
First, we’ll accept your definition of "natural right", though I would prefer to define them by the standard definitions of "natural" and "right". So, to this...How can you demand people pay attention to your assertion of nonexistance when you can’t tell them what it is you assert doesn’t exist? ...I would note that I’ve repeatedly defined it. I’m familiar with Locke. I know what is considered a "natural right", and I know of the logical assumptions that are derived therefrom. (if we assume the initial right) That you don’t accept my definition indicates we’re speaking past each other. So, we’ll work from your definition: "an innate passive (or negative) right which establishes a sphere of moral authority in which a human being may act without anyone’s permission?"
First, I would note that this is illogical. A right cannot be defined as a right. You’re beginning at second base. Secondly, I reject the idea of the physical existence of a natural "moral authority" (as opposed to individual ethics, or preferences), and the idea that the sole control of your Self gives you, in all cases, the authority to act without anyone’s permission. You may only do so as long as a greater power does not prevent you from acting. As soon as one does, your Right and 50 cents won’t buy you a cup of coffee.
However, your argument, as I understand it, is not that this Right gives you—and solely you—the *ability* to excercise your liberty. It is that this Right gives you a moral *entitlement*( to excercise liberty.
But, what produces this entitlement? The fact that you can excercise sole domain over your body? Why is it that such sole dominion constitutes a Right when you can excercise it, but does not constitute a right when it can be taken away from you?
McP argues that:Nor does anyone else live your life or have your immediate just claim on it by law or otherwise. Nobody else can live the life of an Ape, either. In itself, that is only evidence of ability. But you draw inferences from that that go far beyond the fairly obvious fact that you and You, and I am not You. That fact, in itself, does not imply that there is some universal judgement *against* the initiation of force against you. Reach out and touch your nose. Did you do that or did I do that? Or did you decide not to do what I ask? How much more objectively can one prove that you are the only person capable of living your life? How does that imply a normative judgement about "right and wrong"? It certainly means that You are not Me. But, from that, one cannot draw physical implications and manifestations of morality. Morality implies a normative judgement of right and wrong. The fact that only I can choose to touch my nose implies...nothing more than that.
Bob Smith kills Jane Doe. Regardless of her capabilities, he decided to do, and did, that. How much more objectively can one prove that you are not the only person capable of ending your life? Why does the fact that Jane Doe was capable of choosing imply a "natural" right, but the fact of Bob Smith’s capability to choose not imply a "natural" right? The assertion is not MEANT to imply any "right or wrong", Jon. It is meant to establish the understanding that only you are entitled to your life and thus the only being who is able, by right, to act in behalf of your existence without permission. Ok, I accept that only the individual entity is capable of self-direction. So what? To that point, I’m with you. Beyond that is where you go off into metaphysical inferences unjustified by the evidence.If you want to argue with the TOC Actually, I want to argue with you, but you’ve been unwilling to respond. Since you’re determined to be opaque, I’m forced to assume that your position is similiar to the position of the philosophy to which you adhere. If I’m wrong, tell me. So far, you’ve wiggled a great deal, but you’ve not actually suggested that I’m wrong. Which suggests to me that you’re just being obstinate for the sake of being obstinate. If you become interested in serious debate, join us. If you simply want to play word games, you will be given the deference word games are due.So, there you have a basic derivation of the natural right to life. The other rights are derivative, for, in order to exercise the natural choice to live, one must naturally be able to acquire things like property and associations with others. The fact of existence and self-determination is accepted. What in nature indicates to you that you have a "Natural Right" to continue to excercise that existence/self-determination? You’re describing a moral system, but that doesn’t imply that it is *natural*.
Let me go a bit further: I excercise sole dominion over my life. You excercise sole dominion over yours. Do I have the right to end your life? If I have the ability, that gives me as much "right" to a course of action, as your ability to self-determination gives you to your life. So, would you argue that—in a natural sense—it would be wrong to end your life? Why? What if a tree falls on you, depriving you of your life? Is that also wrong? From a universal standpoint, both actions are simply interactions of matter and energy....both morally neutral. It is only from an individual-preference perspective that we can call one "good" or "bad". (and that depends entirely upon our desired output)Most fundamentally, what you are defending is your natural choice in the disposition of your life And, most fundamentally, what the attacker is excercising is his natural choice in the disposition of his life. He has excercised his choice to attack you. Therefore, he has a right to attack in every sense that you have a right to defend. And men tend to liberty. There have been far more despots overthrown in human history than republican governments. Uh, Matt...that is, in part, because there have been far, far more despots in human history than republican governments. Which, itself, tends to provide dispositive data about the whole "tend to liberty" hypothesis. Atually, I would argue that a republican government is more stable, because it has a more stable balance of powers, which provides more alternatives.You don’t have to wonder, Jon. Just grab a history book and delve into the pre-Enlightenment world. It was indeed a world without the benefit of the discovery of natural rights. But you postulate that they existed, McQ. In fact, you postulate that they are "natural", so they exist today. And yet, much of this world is "not a nice place for the vast majority of human beings". Your argument is that recognition of a specific system of values is "nicer" for humans. I agree. That doesn’t make such a system "natural", any more than the poetic justice of "Karma" makes it "natural".
At any rate, pre-enlightenment, people were still capable of self-determination. So, these "Natural Rights" must have existed to exactly the same extent as they exist today. My question is: how would the world be different if they did not exist? How would the world be different if "rights" were the result of the ability to apply force to their protection?
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.qando.net/Default.aspx?tabid=38
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My questions:
Is there any scientific evidence that it is morally wrong to kill another person?
Why do humans have Rights, but the other animals capable of reason do not?
How would you suggest we test and falsify these Natural Rights?
At what point do we get that right to life and liberty? Does it come at birth? Inception? At the age of 18? At some indeterminate and variable age? Society certainly recognizes a right to life for 5-year olds, but does anybody grant them a right to liberty? Do you think they should be free to drive cars, own homes, enter into contracts, and walk the street armed with automatic weapons? Should parents be prohibited from restricting their liberty? Should the death penalty be outlawed, since the Right to Life is "unalienable"?
Apes have cognitive capabilities similiar to that of a 3-4 year old. Do they have equivalent Natural Rights?
What is a "sphere of moral authority"? That’s an abstract, but what physical reality does it represent?
What do Natural Rights DO?
What’s the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, powerless Natural Right and no Right at all? Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. If there’s no way to disprove the contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that Natural Right exists?
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.qando.net/Default.aspx?tabid=38
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Finally, and importantly: Show me the first animal which understands right and wrong and its responsibilty to do what is right and we have an apples to apples discussion.
Very well....Morality is a naturally occurring phenomenon, cognitive scientist Evan Thompson and primatologist Frans de Waal said in remarks given at “Primates, Monks and the Mind.”
[...]
In his presentation, titled, “On the Possibility of Empathy in Other Animals,” de Waal explained natural selection has created a social nature in primates that includes moral tendencies. The ability to observe innate, basic moral tendencies in primates, including sympathy, empathy and reciprocity, indicates that morality is a natural state that developed before the split of apes and humans during evolution, he said. Many animals are undeniably capable of Reason, and many animals apply it in an altruistic way. (signalling alarms, caring for wounded, etc) As far as I can tell, humans are not different in nature...merely in degree. We are far more complex, but unless you posit a "soul", we have no substantive difference in nature.
Vegans all around, then? |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.qando.net/Default.aspx?tabid=38
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"to default on it’s requirements" Objection, your honor; Assumes facts not already admitted.
Who defines the requrements?
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
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Arrgh. Sorry Q*O. Apparently this firewall is caching stuff. |
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
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The flaw in Dale’s argument, as more than one person observed, is to try to separate natural rights from God. This you cannot do. Excellent point, and this is exactly what drives my conclusion that rights are a cultural contruct and nigh on meaningless outside of it.
I’m sure that will be a stretch to some, but consider, please;
I have long argued that governments are formed by the various cultures so as to support said cultures, and further both their longevity and their influence. (Once again, for the benefit of one who insists I’m arguing that government and culture are wrapped up in the same ball... government was constructed by and is a tool of, the culture. Are we clear on this, yet?)
It follows, then, that;
Our new culture formed, over the years of seperation from England before the Revolution, and then was codified in our founding documents. IE; the new culture established a new government whose values more closely resembled it’s own.
Those documents which codified our new culture, (thereby creating our government) held rights to be provided by God (and thereby they couldn’t be over-ridden by man), because the culture held it so.
It then also follows that;
Such rights (eventually) disappear, when, those holdings regarding who provided those rights; those cultural assumptions, disappear.
Now, in this effort to seperate God from our culture, we now try to attribute rights to nature, and thus try to apply such ’natural rights’ to all mankind... to make such rights universal. Trouble is, it doesn’t work... and the reason it does is once again, the cultures in the places where we’re trying to force these ideas in.
As I think I said before in this thread; Rights are not universal... and a look around the globe bears this out.
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
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To repeat what I’ve said elsewhere:
Once you embrace the collectivist fallacy of an organic "culture" separated from and superior to the actual free interactions of individuals, the Nazis become a reductio of that position.
If "culture" is due to the free interactions of individuals, then those individuals hold both metaphysical and political primacy over any aggregation you care to name, and rights come from the nature of said individuals, not from anything produced by their derivative actions.
Under Bithead’s et. al. view, rights degenerate to an appeal to force between "cultures," and thus whatever the winning culture says is right.
I.E., the Nazis were justified in killing Jews if they would have been rational enough to fight WWII to victory.
As for "deniability," there’s plenty of that in science, even in what we would call "natural law." We could calculate our way to the Moon using Ptolemaic astronomy if we wanted to, that does not invalidate current physics. |
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Written By:
Ernest Brown
URL:
http://saturninretrograde.blogspot.com
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The flaw in Dale’s argument, as more than one person observed, is to try to separate natural rights from God. This you cannot do.
Excellent point, and this is exactly what drives my conclusion that rights are a cultural contruct and nigh on meaningless outside of it.
Yeah, see, I don’t think God has to be brought into this at all. Its not at all hard to separate God from the discussion of this concept although I have no problem with anyone who wishes to include Him.
This can be, and has been, discussed purely on a natural level. Existence exists and we’re a natural part of this one. We as human beings have certain unique characteristics and needs which require rights. That’s all that’s needed to advance the argument for natural rights.
As I think I said before in this thread; Rights are not universal... and a look around the globe bears this out.
You keep saying this which only points out to me that you have a completely different concept as to what constitutes a universal right.
That comes back to defining terms. And to date we’re still talking about two different ideas of rights, yours where a universal right must of necessity be granted by society (because you’re conviced for whatever reason that society comes before the individual) and ours which says a universal right is ours by nature (and we formed societies to protect our rights).
I’d argue that what you see in the world has absolutely nothing to do with whether a right is universal or not, since the concept of natural rights doesn’t provide nor require any guarantee (which apparently is a requirement in your definition).
It simply provides a just claim and a sanction to action without anyone or anything’s permission (as well as a obligation and responsibility to respect the same rights for others) and is tied to your life and existence. A right tied to one’s existance is universal (since we all exist) whether it is sanctioned and protected by a society or not.
As Billy has pointed out repeatedly, if you don’t believe that such rights are universal, that its all a construct of society, that human beings have no real right to their lives outside of what their particular society arbitrarily decides, then please spare us any future hypocritical pontifications about "atrocities" and "human rights violations" or hyperbole about being "shocked" or "outraged" when a Rwanda or a Tiananmen Square happens, and any moral pretense to demanding an end to the practice of abortion (if you’re so inclined), since our society has spoken on that and per your premise, that’s just fine with you.
Jon: I’ll get to your questions later in the day or perhaps tonight. Lot of real world stuff today and I need to get to it.
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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"The flaw in Dale’s argument, as more than one person observed, is to try to separate natural rights from God. This you cannot do."
Uhh, wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong...
Extremely wrong.
There is no prima facie obligation to accept the existence of God if you contend for natural rights. Remember, the big advocate for natural rights in the Christian tradition, Thomas Aquinas, also doesn’t believe in a priori arguments for God’s existence. Rather, he bases his arguments for the existence of God on experience, i.e. they are a posteriorit
Like Aquinas, I contend that the inference to the best explanation for natural rights is that there exists an intelligence that created us on a rational pattern. THAT, however, is a metaphysical argument, not an ethical one.
There is no obvious self-contradiction in being
an atheist or agnostic and believing that there is such a thing as human nature and that that nature is the source of our moral rights. |
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Written By:
Ernest Brown
URL:
http://saturninretrograde.blogspot.com
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Gee, McQ, great minds think alike. You’re just quicker on the draw. (g) |
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Written By:
Ernest Brown
URL:
http://saturninretrograde.blogspot.com
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Bithead’s comment is not inconsistent with Strauss.
He argues that the theory of natural rights presupposes some immutable concept of justice.
History, on the otter heiny, shows us that men have thrown up (and knocked down) innumerable ideas of what "justice" is. Foes of natural rights theory use this argument to (falsely, IMO, because they falsely conflate "natural" with nature and temporal notions of justice with the eternal) somehow disprove natural rights.
But Strauss avers that the uncivilized won’t "get" natural rights anyway: he agrees with Bithead. To discover the existence of natural rights requires both reason and civilization. Doesn’t necessarily mean they weren’t there all along :) |
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Written By:
Cassandra
URL:
http://
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"a posteriori" |
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Written By:
Ernest Brown
URL:
http://saturninretrograde.blogspot.com
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Cassandra,
Bithead’s saying that because we only came up with the concept recently, there are NO SUCH THINGS AS NATURAL RIGHTS. |
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Written By:
Ernest Brown
URL:
http://saturninretrograde.blogspot.com
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Hm. More and more it’s looking as if two things are knowable:
1) Not enough things have been defined in detail (and then the details defined, etc) and agreed upon for the purpose of discussion,
and
2) even though that means a resolution may never be reached, this is a fascinating and probably very useful discussion for all involved. |
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Written By:
Dave
URL:
http://www.thepatriette.com/dangerous
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Ernest Brown Under Bithead’s et. al. view, rights degenerate to an appeal to force between "cultures," and thus whatever the winning culture says is right.
I.E., the Nazis were justified in killing Jews if they would have been rational enough to fight WWII to victory. That can only be true, if you consider that hatred of jews and nazism were part of the basic culture of the German people prior to Hitler’s arrival. I’ll grant that (particularly of late) the Germans are a genuine pain in the ass, but I don’t think quite THAT little of them.
—-Bithead’s saying that because we only came up with the concept recently, there are NO SUCH THINGS AS NATURAL RIGHTS. You could defeat that argument rather simply, by answering a question; Where, outside of western influenced cultures, can you find evidence of what you’re calling "natural rights"?
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
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Ernest Brown: Once you embrace the collectivist fallacy of an organic "culture" separated from and superior to the actual free interactions of individuals, the Nazis become a reductio of that position.
Say what … ?
Once you embrace the collectivist fallacy of an organic “homo sapien” separated from and superior to the actual “free” (unbound by rules or laws) interactions of individual atoms …
Ernest Brown: If "culture" is due to the free interactions of individuals, then those individuals hold both metaphysical and political primacy over any aggregation you care to name, and rights come from the nature of said individuals, not from anything produced by their derivative actions.
If "homo sapien" is due to the “free” interactions of individual atoms, then those individual atoms hold both metaphysical and political primacy over any aggregation you care to name, and rights come from the nature of said individual atoms, not from anything produced by their derivative actions.
Do atoms have “free will”?
You are made of atoms and nothing else … right?
Ernest Brown: Under Bithead’s et. al. view, rights degenerate to an appeal to force between "cultures," and thus whatever the winning culture says is right.
I don’t see where you are getting that from?
All action, and thus all “rights”, are merely the result of the orderly functioning of the laws of physics (or will of “God” as some prefer).
Ernest Brown: the Nazis were justified in killing Jews if they would have been rational enough to fight WWII to victory.
The Truth is more beneficial and useful then what is False; that’s why it is the Truth.
Ernest Brown: There is no prima facie obligation to accept the existence of God if you contend for natural rights.
Define the term “God”.
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Written By:
The Serpent
URL:
http://
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McQ:That comes back to defining terms. And to date we’re still talking about two different ideas of rights, yours where a universal right must of necessity be granted by society (because you’re conviced for whatever reason that society comes before the individual) and ours which says a universal right is ours by nature (and we formed societies to protect our rights). As a practical matter; If society doesn’t recognize something as a right, of what value is it?
That question, then drives the rest of this, since the culture we find ourselves in today has proven itself to be the best thusfar for the freedom of the individual.
Let’s be clear about this, because both you and Billy seem to be miscasting this;
I have not said that society, or the culture is of greater import than the individual, at least in all cases.
But what I DO say, and have said repeatedly, this;
If we draw the (proper) conclusion that we have the most individual freedoms of any people anywhere in the world, and, if we conclude (as many immigahts from all over the world have) that our cultural values are the reason why we have such freedoms, and is where we draw such freedoms, then we must also recognize that to destroy or disregard that culture, even in the name of freedom, is to destroy at a very practical level, the freedom we say we are for. |
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
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Under Bithead’s et. al. view, rights degenerate to an appeal to force between "cultures," and thus whatever the winning culture says is right. I.E., the Nazis were justified in killing Jews if they would have been rational enough to fight WWII to victory. My view is slightly different: Reality "is", and applies no normative judgement to the interaction of matter and energy, except insofar as it enforces it. Therefore—in a universal sense, though not in my value system—the Nazis were neither "justified" nor "unjustified" in killing the jews. They simply did. Whether they "should have" or not is entirely outside of the realm of natural law. It is an outcome-oriented preference. The vast majority of people subscribe to a moral system in which that sort of thing is wrong. But nature—reality—makes absolutely no moral judgements on the matter.I don’t think God has to be brought into this at all. I agree. As soon as God is brought into it, we leave the realm of rational discussion. Since one cannot prove God, all assertions made from that premise are irrational. (faith)if you don’t believe that such rights are universal, that its all a construct of society, that human beings have no real right to their lives outside of what their particular society arbitrarily decides, then please spare us any future hypocritical pontifications about "atrocities" and "human rights violations" or hyperbole about being "shocked" or "outraged" when a Rwanda or a Tiananmen Square happens I disagree with that. I can simultaneously believe that Nature doesn’t particularly care whether Bob Smith kills Jane Doe, and believe that I do care. I have an Individualistic Utilitarian view of morality, and my Utility incorporates a recognition and protection of individual rights. (arising out of common agreement...not nature) |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
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Uh, Matt...that is, in part, because there have been far, far more despots in human history than republican governments. Which, itself, tends to provide dispositive data about the whole "tend to liberty" hypothesis. It does, you’re right. If you’re tending toward something, you started somewhere else. Right?
Consider why despots are overthrown. Far more often than not, I’m sure you’ll agree, it’s because another despot rouses sufficient resources and support, and tyrannizes the polity himself when he’s done. But the very act of overthrowing a tyrant is saying, "you shouldn’t rule, I should." That’s halfway to an impulse to liberty.
Again, there haven’t been very many democracies overthrown in human history, and it may be because of the balance of powers (as you suggest), but it may also be because men who would otherwise be inclined to take up arms are satisfied enough to keep to themselves. And go about the business of prospering. Which is more than halfway toward an impulse to liberty.
Jefferson famously suggested that a constitutional convention be convened every (what was it?) 20 years, and anticipated that "the tree of liberty" would be fed on a regular basis by "the blood of patriots." He was wrong (as he was about so many non-abstract things). Republics are stable because they generally accomodate liberty. The fact that some of our founders didn’t think that would happen without regular drastic intervention proves that this idea of liberty is very young, and nowhere near the point where there is a consensus that it’s necessary to life. I say, given time there will be. In the meantime I’ll bet that I’m right, and consider liberty a natural right because it’s necessary to the survival of the species.
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Written By:
Matt Barr
URL:
http://newworldman.us
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I absolutely agree that (representative) democracies are less likely to result in internal warfare and/or coup. I think this is merely a reflection of the way a democracy is able to ameliorate and/or redirect interests and powers.
Humans have interests. Among those interests are security, liberty, accumulation of wealth, power, etc. Democracies are more conducive to those interests, but—for a variety of reasons—people also have other interests that are sometimes sufficiently sated in non-democratic countries. At any rate, the form of government is, at a fundamental level, a reflection of the balance of powers and interests of a society. |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
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As a practical matter; If society doesn’t recognize something as a right, of what value is it?
See just claim and sanction to act without permission.
Tell me Bit do you seek the permission of others to continue to exist?
I have not said that society, or the culture is of greater import than the individual, at least in all cases.
But you do Bit, every time you claim that human rights are dependent upon the human construct of society. This isn’t a chicken and egg thing. Human beings and their requirement for rights predate societies and there’s much evidence that speaks to societies being formed for the protection of the liberty and security of individuals and their rights.
On a logical level, your premise makes no sense, at least to me ... you continue to claim that a construct of human initiative (society) is responsible for another construct (rights) and completely ignore the individuals who constructed society did so for a reason ... the protection of their lives and freedom.
If we draw the (proper) conclusion that we have the most individual freedoms of any people anywhere in the world, and, if we conclude (as many immigahts from all over the world have) that our cultural values are the reason why we have such freedoms, and is where we draw such freedoms, then we must also recognize that to destroy or disregard that culture, even in the name of freedom, is to destroy at a very practical level, the freedom we say we are for.
Which is all fine and good but has nothing to do with rights.
Perhaps a preface of "Since our culture has grown, through its acknowledgment and protection of our natural right to life ("we hold these truths to be self-evident", etc), people of other cultures are discovering that ours places a higher value on freedom than most, yadda, yudda, yadda.
Note that our culture was formed around and has flourished under the concept "we hold these truths to be self-evident" but our culture didn’t produce ’we hold these truths to be self-evident’. That was first, the government and the society which reflect it came second. |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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But you do Bit, every time you claim that human rights are dependent upon the human construct of society. But on a pratical level, they are in fact dependant on such. Once again, I point out that this view of ’natural rights’ is arbitrary and theoretical only, unless and until the society recgonizes them.On a logical level, your premise makes no sense, at least to me ... you continue to claim that a construct of human initiative (society) is responsible for another construct (rights) and completely ignore the individuals who constructed society did so for a reason ... the protection of their lives and freedom.
You’re having problems making the connection between these two points, because you seem to be under the mistaken belief that simple desire, constitutes a right.
At it’s most basic; If you’re alone on the planet, a desire constitutes a right, since it affects nobody else.
Here in the real world, where there are people, plural, a desire for something doesn’t become a right until someone else agrees that you both should HAVE said right. Multiply, then, Cultures got together because they were groups of people who agreed on what should and should not be rights.Which is all fine and good but has nothing to do with rights To the contrary; the argumnet is foundational to the very concept of rights, since the culture is, in the end the real-world arbitor of rights.
Note that our culture was formed around and has flourished under the concept "we hold these truths to be self-evident" but our culture didn’t produce ’we hold these truths to be self-evident’. That was first, the government and the society which reflect it came second.
So, our freedoms come from government? This would seem a somewhat shakey concept coming from a self-described libertarian.
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
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But on a pratical level, they are in fact dependant on such. Once again, I point out that this view of ’natural rights’ is arbitrary and theoretical only, unless and until the society recgonizes them.
Its no more arbitrary or dependent upon the recognition of society than were the movement of planets prior to Galileo.
You’re having problems making the connection between these two points, because you seem to be under the mistaken belief that simple desire, constitutes a right.
That’s a complete misstatement of my point. It has nothing to do with my desire. It has to do with the history of humans and societies. You choose to ignore that humans construct society and you continually reify society. Societies don’t construct anything. Societies are collections of individuals and it is the individuals who act, not society.
So we’re back to why individuals form societies.
Here in the real world, where there are people, plural, a desire for something doesn’t become a right until someone else agrees that you both should HAVE said right. Multiply, then, Cultures got together because they were groups of people who agreed on what should and should not be rights.
Here in the real world collections of individuals have formed societies and not the other way around. You consistently and constantly ignore that real world point in order to push your version. Admittedly, its necessary to do so in order to get where you go, but its not very useful in this discussion.
Obviously with you being intent on painting a right as nothing more than a desire, its going to be difficult to continue this discussion, especially since the premise for your assertions rests on the shaky ground of a reification of society deciding if and when it will accept rights for the humans within it.
I’m not sure what real world you’re in, but mine has never worked in that manner.
To the contrary; the argumnet is foundational to the very concept of rights, since the culture is, in the end the real-world arbitor of rights.
Its absolutely foundational to your concept of rights, which isn’t at all mine. In my concept it is as I stated, irrelevant.
So, our freedoms come from government? This would seem a somewhat shakey concept coming from a self-described libertarian.
Yikes ... "Houston, we have a problem...". If that’s how you interpreted what I wrote, Bit, I have no idea what to say except it is again a complete misrepresentation of my point. |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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You’re having problems making the connection between these two points, because you seem to be under the mistaken belief that simple desire, constitutes a right.
That’s a complete misstatement of my point. It has nothing to do with my desire. It has to do with the history of humans and societies. You choose to ignore that humans construct society and you continually reify society. Societies don’t construct anything. Societies are collections of individuals and it is the individuals who act, not society. But they can only act toward the desired goal... collectively... as a society. Individual actions on such matters are impossible.
Oh, and McQ; look again at what you wrote;but our culture didn’t produce ’we hold these truths to be self-evident’. That was first, the government and the society which reflect it came second. Whereas you suggest the society is a reflection of the government.... (As I have said..a strange position for a libertarian to take) I submit instead, that the government, at least at it’s inception, was a reflection of the culture that gave it life.
Societies that reflect the government do not last long. That’s because they’ve gotten the process backward. A government run by the people is, rather a reflection of the values of those people.
Witness the Soviets, as a prime example of a government trying to create a culture. Since it was already brought up, Nazi Germany would be one more eample of such. Such attempts always fail.
No, McQ. The culture came first.
And consider still further; would the new government as proposed by our founders, have had such popular support, if the underlying ideas had not already taken root in the culture?
I don’t think so.
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
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McQ: Societies don’t construct anything. Societies are collections of individuals and it is the individuals who act, not society.
So we’re back to why individuals form societies.
“Homo sapiens” don’t construct anything. Homo sapiens are collections of atoms and it is the atoms who act, not homo sapiens.
So we’re back to why atoms form homo sapiens.
McQ: Here in the real world collections of individuals have formed societies and not the other way around. You consistently and constantly ignore that real world point in order to push your version. Admittedly, its necessary to do so in order to get where you go, but its not very useful in this discussion.
Here in the real world collections of atoms have formed homo sapiens and not the other way around. You consistently and constantly ignore that real world point in order to push your version. Admittedly, its necessary to do so in order to get where you go, but its not very useful in this discussion.
All of your actions are the algorithmic result of the orderly functioning of the Laws of Physics. Your “rights” (natural or otherwise) are derived from the laws of physics. Now depending upon whether you are an Idealist (Consciousness makes matter) or a Materialist (Matter makes consciousness) I guess you could argue over whether “God” is the source of the Laws of Physics, but that would seem a moot point relative to “natural rights”.
But how someone can claim that Morality is non-objective … ?
To me that is like asserting that 2 + 2 doesn’t necessarily equal 4.
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Written By:
The Serpent
URL:
http://
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Having only had time to skim, I have a final little summary.
Those who refuse to lose the mysticism will never understand natural rights. You cannot reconcile God or the supernatural with natural rights, and all those who argued against natural rights on that basis are completely correct.
Natural rights and natural objective morality is no anything about mysticism, lightning bolts from the sky, burning bushes, judgment day, or anything like that.
Morality is objective and natural, and is simply a recognition of the nature of human beings, i.e., we are compelled to choose whether to pursue values, disvalues, or not choose. That’s all morality is. The moral actions are those rational actions that attempt to gain values in rational furtherance of an individual’s life, and the immoral are those actions that are opposite (disvalues), or default.
All of this reduces to concretes. There’s no mysticism. Moral judgments are value judgments, and those values are tied to the natures of things. It all comes back to human nature. To draw an analogy, it’s a horror when I come home and see my wife trying to put picture hangers into the wall with my framing hammer, or, cutting through a loaf of bread with my German-made meat carving knife. The essential difference between my "outrage" when I see that abomination to the nature of some inanimate objects, and when I see the rights of human beings being violated is that I value human life far more than I do hammers and knives. But, the way the abstractions reduce to concretes is exactly the same, and there’s no hocus-pocus involved.
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Written By:
Richard Nikoley
URL:
http://uncommonsense.typepad.com
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.. and Romeo and Juliet, when boiled down, is naught but an assay on parental neglect and teen suicide.
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
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Richard Nikoley: Those who refuse to lose the mysticism will never understand natural rights. You cannot reconcile God or the supernatural with natural rights, and all those who argued against natural rights on that basis are completely correct.
I agree that Mysticism is incompatible with natural rights (i.e. morality is objective), but what makes you assume that the concept of “God” is mystical or inherently supernatural?
I’d argue that accepting the notion of “God” is equivalent to accepting the notion of Logic (i.e. reality is objective); whereas the rejection of “God” is equivalent to embracing an utterly mystical (subjective) worldview.
Richard Nikoley: Morality is objective and natural, and is simply a recognition of the nature of human beings, i.e., we are compelled to choose whether to pursue values, disvalues, or not choose. That’s all morality is. The moral actions are those rational actions that attempt to gain values in rational furtherance of an individual’s life, and the immoral are those actions that are opposite (disvalues), or default.
I’d say that all conscious entities follow a path of least resistance. They move in the direction of what they find beneficial and true, and away from what they find harmful and false. Each consciousness is unique by virtue of the fact that each consciousness carries unique information (consciousness is made of information).
A consciousness reaches a decision junction on their worldline, their algorithm draws from its database of information and creates a list of possible options (possible actions). But the same process that generates these options also ranks them from most beneficial to least beneficial (or from least harmful to most harmful if you prefer). But all consciousnesses always, always chooses the top option on the list – the option of maximum perceived benefit (or minimum perceived harm).
Richard Nikoley: All of this reduces to concretes. There’s no mysticism. Moral judgments are value judgments, and those values are tied to the natures of things. It all comes back to human nature.
I couldn’t agree more Mr. Nikoley.
The fact that “Science” (or “technology”) evolves over time doesn’t mean that science is subjective. It simply means that we do not possess complete scientific information.
Similarly incomplete moral knowledge does not imply that morality is subjective, it merely implies that we possess incomplete information.
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Written By:
The Serpent
URL:
http://
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Bithead:.. and Romeo and Juliet, when boiled down, is naught but an assay on parental neglect and teen suicide. Uh, no. When did we begin talking about esthetics and romanticism? |
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Written By:
Richard Nikoley
URL:
http://uncommonsense.typepad.com
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(under my breath.... well THAT was easier than I expected...)
Rich:
Isn’t that what what someone here was suggesting religion was?
It strikes me as interesting that so many people who go to such great pains to argue logically how the creator mentioned by Jefferson in the DOI need not enter into the mix to explain natural rights, can’t say with any surety just what natural rights are... despite the fact that there’s a lot of smart people here involved in that effort.
It strikes me also that Jefferson, himself, must have faced the same dilemma, and apparently came no closer than anyone here to that solution.... all of which leads me to reconsider the idea that there may not be one at all to be found.
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
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Beck tried . . .
I may fail as did he to persuade, but . . .
Society is composed of . . . individuals.
Those individuals have inherent rights . . . life prior to government intervention being pre-eminent, or how coul society conceive of rights, and who would know to advance such a concept. (Pardon my tongue in cheek)
The Constitution only purports to protect those rights over against . . . well . . . other governments and any tyranny of the majority that wish to remove said rights.
Even the Constitution does not list all rights, since it is incapable of doing so, save to inform governments they cannot prevent the free exercise of rights—including all those not listed by the Constitution.
Society is comprised of . . . individuals.
Then the concept of rights, and application of the same to individuals, predates social gatherings for whatever purpose. To gather together to protect something which does not exist prior to said gathering, is more than a little like expecting the pig in the BBQ not to exist until the crowd gathers at the park.
I confess I enjoy immensely watching others apply to my being those things which in no way apply to me, and then insisting I accept them.
If one cannot reason for oneself, letting someone else do it can only be worse. And if I can reason for myself, I do not need society to tell me I have the right to reason for my self, or any other right, for that matter.
What is ludicrous about all of this, is that I have the right to call it all horse manure, and no one can stop me, not even the combined weight of all of society and the present audience.
My individual right to smell the horse turd and identify it as such remains intact without societal permission.
All I truly see in this thread of argumentation is the attempt to link the present heresy of the Bush administration, to something/anything/whatever might see to be . . . originally constitutional.
If in anyone’s mind, you think so, or disagree, well, that is your right, provided everyone else approves, if I catch your drift correctly.
Sheesh! Give me scorecard! |
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Written By:
jb
URL:
http://
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Provided I catch your drift properly You don’t.
The DOI spells this out rather well.. we are given rights by our creator... rights of which it lists a subset. therefore the American concept of rights makes several assumptions, not least of which is the existance of a power higher up than we... and that there is an authority higher than government.
The concept of rights cannot, by the very nature of rights, have pre-deated any culture or society as you claim, since rights to a single being are needless, and any diesire in such an environment is automatically a right; Not so in a world with other people in it. The definition of rights in such a world needs be agreed upon by a group of people, else such rights are practically meaningless.
To illustrate.... Tell me; what is a ’right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, in, say, Saddam’s Iraq?
I’ll tell you true; Ours is, so far, the system which has produced the largest amount of individual freedom in the history of mankind. Without this grouping, that level of liberty goes away, as well. That level of libverty is dependant, like it or not, on the group.
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
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I’ll tell you true; Ours is, so far, the system which has produced the largest amount of individual freedom in the history of mankind. Without this grouping, that level of liberty goes away, as well. That level of libverty is dependant, like it or not, on the group.
No one ever said it wasn’t, but that has nothing to do with whether natural rights exist or not, and its that singular point you’ve yet to understand. |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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"jb"—I don’t believe that I will ever understand what it is that makes some dim-witted people cling to manifestly defective institutions and non-ideas. You say I "tried". Man; you ain’t seen nothin’. I have been up and down every bloody road you could possibly imagine, chased every half-assed weezil all around the mulberry bush, only to have ’em stand up wobbling on their feet, adjust their cracked specs, and spit out, "But, you see, man is a social animal." I have done this for decades until my fingers are about to bleed all over my desk, already, when I should just jump out the goddamned window.
"Tried"? Let me tell you something: every now and then, I see people snarking over "schadenfreude". I swear to you—swear it: I would give up ten years off the back end of my life to be in the same cell with these fools when the whip dropped on them, thereby confirming every single thing that they believe about this stuff. In the immortal words of Tony Montana: "You stoopid fuck! Look at you now!" ("Scarface"—1983) If that was the last song I ever sang, I could die with something of some kind of hope in any kind of foreseeable future after me, that someone might learn the whole lesson of what these people are denying.
They seriously believe that they know something of "man", having peered at this entity from the ant-farm perspective of "society".
Nothing in the whole world could possibly be further from the truth, but you go try to tell ’em that. Go right ahead.
Every now and then, I simply cannot resist the temptation that someone is going to see something of the (really) awesome folly of this rot if I take a jab at it, of some sort. I really know better, and I never last very long around catatonic skeptics who will not grasp what this is about. What Richard Nikoley said is crucial: in the end, we are all our own teachers. Nobody on earth can reach into another person’s head and bolt together a concept for him.
And I have seen this loop-de-loop so many times that I really am sick at heart —
It was only just this afternoon that I quoted Don Imus to me ol’ mate, Bruce McQuain: "I hate everybody. I hate everything. I hate everything about everybody."
Now, it’s not strictly true, but it’s close enough.
I see bullshit like this, and I simply don’t care what happens to these people.
They’re not worth saving anymore.
Further, affiant sayeth not.
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
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I trust McQ is getting to it when he has time. For the rest, I note that you have continued to avoid my questions. That tells me what I need to know about the evidence you have for your position. You can lay out elaborate justifications for this normative standard you claim, but you can’t actually defend it against demands for evidence. It’s all mysticism and faith, as far as I can tell.
The world is matter and energy. All else is simply opinion, for all the good that does you. And you cannot prove otherwise.Those individuals have inherent rights See, you can’t start by asserting the thing that is to be proved. It’s like claiming "there is a god, because there is a god". Individuals have powers—abilities. The excercise of those powers is limited by physical reality. There is no "right" in any normative sense of the word, except insofar as it can be excercised. You don’t have a "right" to walk from A to B. You have the ability to walk from A to B. If a greater power has the ability to stop you, your ability can be ended.
But you have no more "right" to walk from A to B than any other physical matter.What is ludicrous about all of this, is that I have the right to call it all horse manure, and no one can stop me, not even the combined weight of all of society and the present audience. Are you kidding? You can be stopped, as Billy likes to say, instanter. You can be prevented from speaking by a gag, drugs, a sharp rap on the head, etc. You can be permanently prevented from calling it anything with a sharper rap on the head. That doesn’t even require the "combined weight" of all society. One guy with a knife. That’s all it takes.
So—even assuming it exists—this "right" of yours is subservient to properly wielded sharp stick.only to have ’em stand up wobbling on their feet, adjust their cracked specs, and spit out, "But, you see, man is a social animal." You haven’t heard Dale and I say that. Speaking for myself, I’ll point out that "Man is matter and energy". We are subject to the same natural laws as any other matter and energy. |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.qando.net/Default.aspx?tabid=38
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I trust McQ is getting to it when he has time.
I have an entire post (somewhere in the 1,000 word area now) coming to address the questions. |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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Oh, and McQ; look again at what you wrote;
but our culture didn’t produce ’we hold these truths to be self-evident’. That was first, the government and the society which reflect it came second.
Whereas you suggest the society is a reflection of the government.... (As I have said..a strange position for a libertarian to take) I submit instead, that the government, at least at it’s inception, was a reflection of the culture that gave it life.
Bit, you’re wrong. I suggested that the concept, "we the people" came first (written by an identifiable INDIVIDUAL if you’ll just bother to look it up) and that the government and society which reflected that concept came AFTER it was written, discussed and fought for.
Nowhere do I suggest, infer or hint that society is a reflection of its government. That is a total mischaracterization based on a complete misreading.
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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I have an entire post (somewhere in the 1,000 word area now) coming to address the questions. Glad to hear that. Or worried. Either way, I suspect I need to clear my schedule. :) |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.qando.net/Default.aspx?tabid=38
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McQ:"government and the society which reflect it" That statement seems pretty clear to me to say that society is a reflection of it’s government.
And I say again, that’s backward.
Apparently, the rub is the context of the word ’it’. (shrug)No one ever said it wasn’t, but that has nothing to do with whether natural rights exist or not, and its that singular point you’ve yet to understand. To the contrary, I understand it all too well, and it has EVERYTHING to do with it; I’m more concerned about the results.
(sigh)Understand me clearly;
The hypothetical ’natural rights’ do not exist in reality if the cultures and/or governments in question do not recognize them. At the individual level, it is as if they don’t exist, regardless of their existing in reality or not.
And as to their existing, the jury, to my mind, is still out on that point; Thus far is it is as unprovable a concept as the existance of God.
And, it is in reality, little more than cultural concept. Again, I ask; can anyone point to any evidence of such rights existing outside the western world? I submit the concept is wholey unique to western cultures, and has it’s strongest following here in the United States.
That said however, (and to tie to the statement you say isn’t relevant, to the issue at hand) if protection of those rights is at all on the agenda, as we agree it should be, then I submit that since the evdience seems to point to the concept of natural rights being a cultural one, the first step on the road to the protection of those rights, is the protection of the culture under which it has the greatest sway.
Is there a way I can make that connection cleaerer to you?
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
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I should add something to this thought:Thus far is it (the concept of natural rights) is as unprovable a concept as the existance of God. Funny thing, that. The concept of those rights existing, being as arguable as the concept of the being which granted them.
There’s something to that, I think.
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
|
Why is the existence of "God" any lesser provable than the existence of Tlop?
(Tlop = The Laws of Physics)
Because if either "God" or "Tlop" exists (and who’s to say those two quantities are not the same quantity?), then "natural rights" must also exist. |
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Written By:
The Serpent
URL:
http://
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McQ: I suggested that the concept, "we the people" came first (written by an identifiable INDIVIDUAL if you’ll just bother to look it up) and that the government and society which reflected that concept came AFTER it was written, discussed and fought for.
It sounds like you are claiming that Thomas Jefferson miraculously emerged fully formed from the void and then completely isolated from the wills and desires of other individuals (i.e. family, society) he spontaneously generated the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. government, and American Society.
Did Newton invent gravity, or did he merely discover some of it’s laws?
Did early Man invent Fire, or did early Man merely discover (how to harness and use) Fire?
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Written By:
The Serpent
URL:
http://
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It sounds like you are claiming that Thomas Jefferson miraculously emerged fully formed from the void and then completely isolated from the wills and desires of other individuals (i.e. family, society) he spontaneously generated the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. government, and American Society.
If that’s what it "sounds like" to you, then you haven’t been paying attention.
Did Newton invent gravity, or did he merely discover some of it’s laws?
Did early Man invent Fire, or did early Man merely discover (how to harness and use) Fire?
Yeah, I know, I’ve already made the point about the discovery of rights ... numerous times. Keep up.
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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If that’s what it "sounds like" to you, then you haven’t been paying attention.
Ahhh, so there is such a thing as a "stupid question" after all?
I guess I figured someone as intelligent as you would be able to articulate their point more clearly???
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Written By:
The Serpent
URL:
http://
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I guess I figured someone as intelligent as you would be able to articulate their point more clearly???
Or you could ask yourself, why were you the only one who didn’t get it?
Works both ways as I see it. |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
|
McQ; Over my afternoon coffee break, I think I may have thought of a better description for you, that may make my thought process easier for you to grasp.
Postulate a pipe running between a thirsty Johnny, and a water tank. Postulate further, a number of valves in the pipe. If any one of those valves is closed, Johnny remains thirsty.
It doesn’t matter in the slightest if the tank is full of water or not. In fact, unless those valves are opened, we have no way of knowing if there is water in the tank at all.
Are there ’natural rights’? I don’t know.
We’ve not opened all the valves yet. Yet, we have in this culture, gotten more valves open than any other toward the desired goal... and the point I’m making is I’m unwilling to backtrack.
Does that do it better? |
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
|
So you read minds too?
How else do you know that I am the only one who thinks that post didn’t make any sense?
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Written By:
The Serpent
URL:
http://
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So you read minds too?
How else do you know that I am the only one who thinks that post didn’t make any sense?
[sigh]
I don’t have the time nor inclination to engage in this sort of nonsense.
If you have something worthwhile to contribute, do everyone a favor and do so. If you just want to engage in puerile gotchya stuff, look up onanism and indulge yourself. |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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Does that do it better?
Not really, but thanks for the effort. |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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I guess i am just not "intelligent" enough to share your views ... ? :-( |
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Written By:
The Serpent
URL:
http://
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Amazing. Absolutley Amazing. I see that Beck’s given up on taking one
more lap around the mullberry bush. So I guess I should take a stab at
it. Let’s go right back to basics - shall we?
Query:
Tell me Dale and Jon —"do you exist?"
I’m deadly serious when I ask that simple question.
To be followed up with.
Do you *know* that you exist?
Are you alive?
Do you know what the difference is between alive, and not-alive?
Do you wish to remain alive?
Why?
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Written By:
Anon-mouse
URL:
http://www.qando.net
|
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I’ve reached the point where I am tired with this patently ridiculous religion you guys are espousing, and I’m even more tired with the inability to provide proof. I’ll answer your questions, but I expect you to answer mine:
"do you exist?"
Do you *know* that you exist?
Are you alive?
Do you know what the difference is between alive, and not-alive?
Do you wish to remain alive?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Now, answer this: how do any of those facts impose an obligation upon anybody else? If you say they do, prove it. |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.qando.net
|
Back to Basics:
1. "do you exist?" - Jon says Yes
2. Do you *know* that you exist? Jon - Says Yes
3. Are you alive? - Jon Says Yes
4. Do you know what the difference is between alive, and not-alive? Jon says Yes
5. Do you wish to remain alive? Yes
Good. So while you’ve agreed on those terms let me add the following.:
6. What is the difference between alive and "not alive?"
7. How do you know it?
8. Since you’ve agreed that you wish to remain alive... Why do you wish to remain alive?
I’m sorry if these very basic questions bother you. From where I’m
sitting you are attempting to smuggle in the premise that "rights are
self-enforcing", without dealing with what rights actually are. That
postulate is hanging in mid-air. It is attached to nothing. It means
nothing since it’s an asserted conclusion without any kind of
referrence to what human beings are, (ie what their nature is... what
their relationship is to reality, and to other human beings) Human
beings are not a law of physics. They are not merely a composition of
chemicals/minerals walking about in skin bags of mostly water. Human
beings are a very specific thing. (CONCEPT) Aside from Beck, I’ve yet
to see a single person on this thread point out that very important
FACT of reality to this discussion. I’m taking this discussion back to
the roots of your epistemology because I really have no idea where you
went off the rails. McQ seems to think you are a decent sort of person
and so I’m willing to go around on this issue.
Before you start asking me questions or demanding a conclusion—I
have to make sure that we agree on the terms in this discussion.
Otherwise it’s a totally pointless excercise.
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Written By:
Anonymous
URL:
http://www.qando.net
|
McQ seems to think you are a decent sort of person and so I’m willing to go around on this issue
You know what, don’t do either of us a favor, ok?
I have no idea who you are and you have no idea what I do or don’t think about Jon.
And I resent you implying that you do.
Have the balls to identify yourself or go somewhere else and play these stupid games. This hiding behind anonymity is cowardly at best ... if you know me say so and identify yourself.
Otherwise, fuck off. |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/blog
|
Hey, then feel free to wipe me and my comments out. No problem. It’s your playground.
"I see bullshit like this, and I simply don’t care what happens to these people."
I think Billy was right the first time. It was stupid of me to bother.
Here’s where I am coming from:
http://tinyurl.com/6lzag
The post in question is what I affectionaly call the
"Lick me for I am a sucker" notice—(No, I’m not Mike)
And then there is THIS post to also consider
http://tinyurl.com/68qyu
Note the part "Consider this post a gift Gottleib"
See... about a decade ago I was exactly like Jon or Dale here,
yammering away complete and total nonsense about rights and ethics and
politics and morality.
A few people came along and by being kind and patient enough to ask me
some questions, make me check my premises, and encouraged me to use my
brain to think my way thru things, I managed to reach some important
conclusions and learned how to think.
It was hard work. I’m not denying that. I’m amazed that some of them lasted long enough for me to eventually flip the switch.
See —I often find myself going back to that time, trying to figure out
what it was that was said, and asked that really jolted me from the
"disintellectual hell" that most of the human race resigns itself to.
Every once in awhile I stumble across Billy, or some of the other
people who helped me along the ways, trying very very hard to ONE MORE
TIME go thru the process of helping another person use the brains, and
capacity of reason that they are endowed with, to put it together. To
integrate the ideas.
And when Billy, or one of the others gives up in frustration—because
these people have been so blinkered by the "culture of the Eloi"
society, that his words are almost a different language to such people,
I occasionally feel inclined to pick it up where he left off. I’m sort
of sifting thru his waste pile (so to speak) to see if there’s anything
left to salvage. 9 times out of 10, there isn’t.
This gets me back to the "lick me" post. I can count on one hand
the number of actually "thinking" people that I have managed to stumble
across in the past 4 years.
Such people, when I find them —they are an invaluable treasure to
me. I keep an eye on Beck’s blog, and these various discussions
because if Billy takes the time to actually discuss some of these
matters with somebody, it’s because (I assume) he has seen some glimmer
in them that there is a possibility that given the right information,
and the right tools, they might actually think their way thru these
things.
Much like the way Glen Reynolds pours thru the headlines and links to
relevant news, so that other people don’t have to waste their time
reading reams upon reams of bullshit to find out what’s actually going
on in the world. Billy, and some like him, are sort of like "quality
control" in that sense.
When I said what I did about being willing to give a discussion a shot,
on the basis that YOU think these people are worthwhile... it was a
compliment.
We did meet a long time ago. You can probably tell from what I’ve posted now, that I am a veteran of the usenet wars.
Irony here. The last communication we had was in the middle of a huge
fight between myself and JQP and various others about the use of WMD in
warfare. Billy was absolutley horrified at my conclusions. I had
postulated that if China were to be on the brink of attacking the
United States, and such an attack would result in the deaths of
millions of Americans, that the use of nukes would be acceptable on
China.
Where’s the irony? After several years of thinking about it, and
watching the atrocities going down in Iraq - and on Sept 11th, I know
today that I was wrong in that conclusion.
It took Stephen Spiecher rolling into HPO on the afternoon of Sept 11th
screaming "YOU ARE ALL RESPONSIBLE" because years ago, the libertarians
had pooh-poohed his Peikovian suggestion that the US should give Iran
48 hours to hand over the terrorists in the country and if they don’t
comply that Tehran should be nuked. Anyways—watching the
hysterical Stephen Speicher imploding in a rage of blanket moral
condemnation towards these "no-nuking Tehran" libertarians that
morning, I saw the flaw in Rand’s position.
I had made the mistake that Rand made in confusing complicity with
culpability of citizens of an evil regime. See Chris Sciabbara’s
essay on "The costs of War" at NOTABLOG. I think Arthur Silber’s recent
entries point to it.
Pay special note to the similarities between Rand’s position, and that
of Osama Bin Laden, as well as Ward Chuchill. The fulcrum of that essay
is his use of the "Comet Tunnel" accident.
I’ve got my reasons for not wanting to attach my name to what I’m
writing these days. Its simple recognition that there is no "free
speech" in America these days. There used to be. But it’s gone now.
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Written By:
Anonymous
URL:
http://www.qando.net
|
6. What is the difference between alive and "not alive?"
7. How do you know it?
8. Since you’ve agreed that you wish to remain alive... Why do you wish to remain alive?
6: Alive: "although there is no universal agreement as to a definition of life, its biological manifestations are generally considered to be organization, metabolism, growth, irritability, adaptation, and reproduction." Not alive: the lack thereof.
7: Science
8: Survival instinct, preference, goals, values. (although, it’s possible that the latter 3 are merely manifestations of the survival instinct)
I’m not trying to "smuggle" something in. You guys are using a completely unique definition of "right/rights", which seems to be a tautalogy. Whenever I point to any commonly accepted usage of the word, you (the generic you) reject it.
You’re creating a moral imperative—a normative judgement of "right and wrong" — where none can be proven. It may be a good value system, but that doesn’t make it "natural". |
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.qando.net
|
When I said what I did about being willing to give a discussion a shot, on the
basis that YOU think these people are worthwhile... it was a compliment.
Then identify yourself or quit using me as an excuse.
I’ve got my reasons for not wanting to attach my name to what I’m
writing these days. Its simple recognition that there is no "free
speech" in America these days. There used to be. But it’s gone now.
In a word: "horseshit".
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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Bruce? I know who that is.
Believe it or not: that person has fairly good reason to not risk being discovered here.
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
|
Billy: I don’t know who it is and I have an email account.
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
|
I understand that, and it’s a point that should be taken.
I would tell you, but I’m not authorized.
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
|
Whatever, Billy, but until they identify themselves, that person can quit using me as an excuse or a reason.
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
|
I haven’t disputed that point, Bruce, and you know that I wouldn’t, and
that means there is no "whatever" about this. The point that I
took up was the one that you addressed "in a word".
It’s not horseshit.
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
|
Well I think that’s nonsense, Billy and so I call it as I see it ... "horseshit."
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
|
(shrug) Like I said: believe it or not.
I know things about this that you don’t.
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Written By:
Billy Beck
URL:
http://www.two—four.net/weblog.php
|
Well until I know those things it remains "horseshit".
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
|
6. What is the difference between alive and "not alive?"
7. How do you know it?
8. Since you’ve agreed that you wish to remain alive... Why do you wish to remain alive?
6: Alive: "although there is no universal agreement as to a
definition of life, its biological manifestations are generally
considered to be organization, metabolism, growth, irritability,
adaptation, and reproduction." Not alive: the lack thereof.
Be nice if you would cite your source. Also—is that what you hold
to be true? Do you really hold or stake the position that there
is no universal agreement as to the definition of live from "not
alive"?
How about, since were are dealing with "human beings" - Can you agree
that a living human being is (among other things) that which is not a
dead human being? We aren’t dealing with virsues, and
retroviruses here. So there’s no need to mucky things up with that. We
are talking about human beings. Live ones. Got it?
"7: Science"
And science is what exactly? What are you doing, what are you using
when are "using science" to determine that there is, for example a
difference between you, an alive human being, *and* a rotting corpse?
"8: Survival instinct, preference, goals, values. (although, it’s
possible that the latter 3 are merely manifestations of the survival
instinct)"
How do you know that you have a "survival instinct"? (I think that’s
actually kind of debateable)... humans are born with reflexes, see the
following
http://www.fpnotebook.com/NIC27.htm
but I don’t think you can claim that "survival" is instinctual. If
it were then there would be no "suicides" and people would not engage
in actions and activities which acted against this "instinct". They do
it all the time.
But getting back to your other answers:
How did you decide to make one preference vs another?
How did you determine what your goals were?
How did you choose your values?
What were you using to do these things?
You’ve somewhat answered the questions, but you seem to be blanking
out probably the most important issue at stake here. I’m not sure
whether it’s intentional or not..
Let’s try again.
How do *you* know that *you* are alive?
When you are making choices, prefferences, weighing values—what are
you doing, when you are making these choices, prefferences and weighing
these values?
Do you really believe/hold-to-be-true, that your choices, prefferences and values are "instinctual"?
Or is there something else that is going on, that is helping you with that?
If so - what is it?
If you are trying to make the case that your choices, prefferences
and valuation of your life is mere "instinct" - then there isn’t much
else for us to discuss.
If you believe that’s the case, then I’m sorry - you’ve basically just admitted that you are a chimp.
That’s fine. You can be a chimp. Doesn’t really bother me. But to be
honest, I’d rather talk to a human being, who has a mind, who is
capable of using it, and does so. Your choice.
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Written By:
Anonymous
URL:
http://www.qando.net
|
Be nice if you would cite your source.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition If you have a different definition, please mention it.
Do you really hold or stake the position that there
is no universal agreement as to the definition of live from "not
alive"? How about, since were are dealing with "human beings" - Can you agree
that a living human being is (among other things) that which is not a
dead human being?
Look, if you want to change the terms being defined in the middle of
the game, don’t fuss at me about it. No, there is no universal
agreement at to the definition of "life". There are,
however, recognizable indicators. By the way, a rock is
"that which is not a dead human being" so, I find that definition
imprecise.
Still, I know what you’re trying to get at, so let’s move on.
And science is what exactly?
A method for examining the evidence, and classifying the findings.
but I don’t think you can claim that "survival" is instinctual. If
it were then there would be no "suicides" and people would not engage
in actions and activities which acted against this "instinct". They do
it all the time.
There’s quite a large body of research on various instinctive reactions
in humans. From sexual to survival, we are a product of
millions of years of evolution. If you think there is a
point at which humans dropped the survival instinct, I’d appreciate it
if you identified it. Suicide doesn’t preclude a survival
instinct, since humans are also capable of other emotions, drives, etc.
<>Do you really believe/hold-to-be-true, that your
choices, prefferences and values are "instinctual"? Or is there
something else that is going on, that is helping you with that? If so - what is it?
I believe there is an instinctive component to man’s choices, but I also believe man has evolved sufficiently to be capable of weighing more complex data than simple instinct. So too can some animals, for that matter.
At any rate, if you’re trying to get me to admit that I make choices
freely, based on the available evidence, I’d partially concede the
point. Choices are not entirely rational and there are
components of chemical and evolutionary instinctive forces at work
guiding us toward certain choices. However, yes, I believe
that humans are capable of making free choices.
That does not suggest or imply any sort of "right". The
fact that I can make a choice does not create a moral obligation on the
universe, or on any entity within the universe.
|
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Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
|
We are doing a "We the people" contest at school...10th grade...
The question asked is:
Is the right to vote a natural right?Why or why not?
and I need a 1 minute to 2 minute answer...
I have no idea where to start...I have the other questions answered well but I am struggling with this one...
there is also a follow up question to that...
What limits, if any, should be placed on the citizens’ right to vote?why?
1 minute needed on this too...
can u please help me answer this or atleast give your opinion on the questions...
...thanx in advance |
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Written By:
Mo
URL:
http://
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We are doing a "We the people" contest at school...10th grade...
The question asked is:
Is the right to vote a natural right?Why or why not?
and I need a 1 minute to 2 minute answer...
I have no idea where to start...I have the other questions answered well but I am struggling with this one...
there is also a follow up question to that...
What limits, if any, should be placed on the citizens’ right to vote?why?
1 minute needed on this too...
can u please help me answer this or atleast give your opinion on the questions...
...thanx in advance |
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Written By:
Mo
URL:
http://
|
We are doing a "We the people" contest at school...10th grade...
The question asked is:
Is the right to vote a natural right?Why or why not?
and I need a 1 minute to 2 minute answer...
I have no idea where to start...I have the other questions answered well but I am struggling with this one...
there is also a follow up question to that...
What limits, if any, should be placed on the citizens’ right to vote?why?
1 minute needed on this too...
can u please help me answer this or atleast give your opinion on the questions...
...thanx in advance |
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Written By:
Mo
URL:
http://
|
Let us take a look at the ten commandents and the u.s. bill of rights. The current definitions of what natural rights are or (are not) are to broad.
There are only(2) words (natural rights).
The first step is to determine what citerion and subject matter is to be used to determine the meaning of the word "NATURAL" as it relates to "RIGHTS".
The second step is to determine what criterion and subject matter is to be used to determine the meaning of the word "RIGHTS" as it relates to "NATURAL".
The third step is fully argue criterion and subject matter as required.
The fourth and final step is to come up with the list of "NATURAL RIGHTS" that would be applicable to all humans.
Example: The right to breathe.
The right to walk.
The right to decide and choose
what to do with one’s physical and
mental self.
Let us take our argument about "NATURAL RIGHTS" from arguing about what they are to actually defining what they are and come up with a list of them that we can come to a concensus on. |
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Written By:
morpheeus
URL:
http://
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