+1 kestas

At fiedler: "appalling idiot". That's funny coming from you. I don't think much of you either, but maybe I should tone it down a notch.

At PEden: :D

At G: forgive my overbearing tone, I'll put a leash on my rhetoric.

"Unless you are going to be a nihilist, individual property rights are necessary if we are to have any rights at all." _______ A desire to avoid nihilism does not magically bring anything into existence. A desire to have "any rights at all" also does not magically bring rights into existence. Draug is quite right in realizing that any natural rights argument must rest on some idea of a creator, that is some entity whose authority to confer a right is posited to be above that of a government. But the argument has the same logical weight as a proof of the existence of little green men with pots of gold.
"I cannot have a right to something without a right to myself."______ and you can't have a right to yourself in the absence of a government that confers the right to you.
"Further, having a right to myself means I may not be enslaved which implies that no-one else can take the product of my labour without my volition, for that is the essence of slavery." _______ If the government recognizes your right to yourself, then the government will protect you from enslavement. It does not therefore follow that no-one can take the product of your labour, rather the government must go the extra step of protecting that too. Of course, I can't think of any government that actually does that. Particularly in a capitalist system, unless you are self-employed, you are not the owner of the product of your labour, you are merely the owner of the labour. The person or entity who purchases from you your labour is the owner of your labour's product, which should be greater than the value of your labour if they are to have any profit. I agree with you that some form of property rights are usually the first order of business for any government, but it is the government which creates and defends (or not) any rights. Without the intervention of a government, you can be enslaved. The world, in fact, is full of slaves who continue to be slaves for much. And those slaves have quite literally nothing beyond that which they are permitted to have, just like you at the end of the day have nothing beyond that which the government permits you to have. You may posit a "right" not recognized by the government, and you can work or fight to see that right recognized by the government, but until it is recognized, it has precisely the value of nothing.
If you have a dime in your pocket, you've got ten cents. If you are unable to protect it and I take it away from you, you've got nothing. You can say (posit) all you want "But I have a right to property!" But actually you have nothing, as proven by the emptiness of your pockets. Until government is created, you have exactly what you are physically capable of defending.

As Adam Smith said: Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is, in reality, instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have property against those who have none at all.

At Draug, I know you know better because your favourite argument on Freedom of Speech is that it is limited by the government. Or did the creator say thou shalt have a right to say what you want but not in theatres, or any of another dozen grey areas? "The Creator" was just a convenient artifice for the drafters of the Declaration of Independence for positing a claim that could be held above the claims of the state (England). Rhetorically it works fine, it gets people fired up, but it has no value until the Revolution is won.

@McBry - you confuse freedoms (priviledges) with rights. You weren't around when we had the discussion of the differences between freedoms and rights and what surplants or supercedes what. Rights are the basics. The amendments to the US constitutions are freedoms (aka priviledges granted to the populace of the country) and can be curtailed or revoked with cause.

Jack, you’re totally missing the point I’m making. I’m saying that the rights exist in the sense that people ought not to infringe them. It is perfectly possible for me to assert that a society is functioning in an immoral way. If I don’t have the concept of murder being wrong, does that mean that I’m at liberty to kill people?

Also, it is perfectly consistent with individual liberty to have a voluntary agreement to make property communal.

Mcbry, your argument is totally circular and based on ignoring the terms as defined. You assume that the government is the only entity able to create rights, and then conclude that, who would have thought it, you can only have property rights if the government supports them.

My argument, in summary, is as follows:
Humans have or give purpose to their lives.
Humans have the ability to make decisions towards the purpose they are aiming.
Therefore, morality- the study of decision making- is relevant and genuine.
Therefore, rights must exist.
In order for rights to exist, property rights must exist.

@Civil government 'for the defense of the the rich against the poor' - please see my reply to Obi's Carlin-philosophy thread.

Very interesting point, as contrasted in terms of fairness to a simple 'kingship' model of security.

"Also, it is perfectly consistent with individual liberty to have a voluntary agreement to make property communal." - or that a communal fund be raised to pay for education based on a 'fair' system of determining what each person should pay... like taxation.

Though i guess you're arguening that only in a direct democracy will the people actually be consulted, and perhaps even then that direct democracy will violate the individual liberty or those who vote against such an arrangment?

Well, you can say that X is wrong in another society, but they can say Y is wrong in yours.

Its the same problem from either end. There is no standard by which to measure either objectively other than "does the society work?"

You're asserting an objective standard when you are only able to prove a subjective one (which isn't hard, you're saying there are "rights" to the things you like to have from a society... which is unsurprising).

This is why many people at this point, like Draugnar, fall back on a divine standard to which we have to be held to. Problem with that is there are a lot of divine standards, and they seem to disagree a lot.

All I'm saying is that the rights you're talking about are in no way inherent to the human condition, and we have had to define them in the course of our civilization. They exist because there are good reasons to do so, but not because they were some kind of Platonic idea floating out there for us to eventually stumble on.

@ Draug: You're still left with a creator who cannot be produced for examination and who categorically refuses to hear our pleas when we believe our "rights" have been trampled upon and the government offers us no recourse. G's argument is the same except he's trying to get by without a creator. But there's nothing inalienable about Life, Liberty or the Pursuit of whatever it is you like to pursue. There's no there there. The proof is in the fact that government only recognizes the rights of their own citizens, as if citizens of other states weren't equally created and by the same creator. And even the rights of their own citizens can be subject to states of exception. Like I said before, it works fine rhetorically, it gets people fired up, but it has no value until the Revolution is won or the "right" in question is codified into law in a rather specific way.

At G: if my "argument" appears circular it's only because I'm following your argument in a circle, and I disagree with your definitions of the terms, which amounts to " Rights are defined to exist". I haven't made any argument of my own, I have merely asked you to produce these "rights" of yours that you claim exist outside of a governmental context and I have given examples for why I think the concept of rights outside of government is without any value.
Now that you've brought the underpinnings of your argument into the open,
Please say more about having or giving purpose to a life. I suspect there's a creator somewhere in there and in general terms, there is no distinction between giving a purpose and making a decision. eg. I decide to have a child, I decide to take care of the child as best I can, I decide to work hard to be able to provide well, etc. It's decisions all the way down, but no purpose in sight. That said, the study of decision making is of interest to decision-makers, but the logical conclusion is just as likely to be: he who makes decisions best should make all decisions for everyone. Rights, even in the twisted negative light sense you recently produced of "you ought not infringe on those of others", does not follow from your principle statements.

While I agree that rights without the power to enforce it are meaningless in a *practical* sense, I do disagree that you need a government to have rights. Governments merely represent a regional monopoly on force. Property rights have significance in societies of any level of governance so long as there is common social consensus. I'm not saying that they need some sort of Constitution delineating their rights, but just a simple understanding that the fruits of ones labour is ones own and the willingness to punish those who would violate that understanding. I don't believe that society can sustainably function without some form of property right.

I don't believe that the property right arises logically out of human rationality... rather I believe that the concept of property rights is fairly well ingrained in our human nature. Even nonhuman primates have some concept of property, in the sense that it is unfair for one ape to take the fruits or nuts or whatever that another ape picked. This is less enforced when it runs down the male hierarchy, viciously enforced when it runs up the male hierarchy, and commonly amongst females who will sometimes band together to fight off even alpha males from violating their property rights. Of course, this is not exactly the universal property right outlined by libertarians, but I think it demonstrates that at some core level, humans have an understanding of property.

The examples given of societies without property rights do not hold up in my mind, though slavery does show that property right enforcement can be a function of social hierarchy. A culture of communal sharing is by no means evidence of a lack of property rights, merely a culture of generosity and very implicit reciprocity. If push came to shove and two people argued over some scarce resource, I'm sure that priority would be given based on some concept of property right. I'm also sure that in communal sharing cultures, there is a tendency to reward more generous and harder workers with more generosity and less so to stingy or lazy members. Not to mention intertribal dealings, where tribes generally acknowledge each others property. Rights are constantly violated, and their violation does not make them less of a right as long as there is a social consensus that the act was unethical.

"that a communal fund be raised to pay for education based on a 'fair' system of determining what each person should pay... like taxation."

There's a difference between communal sharing and taxation, which is that communal sharing is based on voluntary generosity with implicit expectations of reciprocity, whereas taxation is enforced by a monopoly on violence. Communal sharing is based on the positive benefits of co-operation, while taxation is based on the negative consequences of refusing. You can opt out of communal sharing, but you have to expect that you will no longer be the recipient of community generosity, and you can make that choice. You can't opt out of taxation without facing severe consequences. I'm not personally morally opposed to taxation, but I can certainly see the ethical distinction that can be made.

@McBry - just because the Creator doesn't answer the way we like or expect doesn't mean he doesn't answer. And just becuase we don't see an immediate regress of our request doesn't mean it won't come later.

But off the religious side of the topic. You state the government only belives inthose rights for it's people. I disagree and the world knows well that the US government believes in those rights for all people. They may bitch about our interfering, but we interfere because we believe in human rights for all peoples.

"we interfere because we believe in human rights for all peoples."

=P

Yeah. While one could make the argument that in the early part of US foreign policy, the US was conducing policy based on immutable principles, the last 150 years or so of US foreign policy has been dominated by Realpolitik.

@Draug: ok, but once religion enters the conversation explicitly, I usually exit. IMHO, faith is a personal question, and means different things for different people. There are no facts in questions of religion, only assertions, like your concept of rights. There is no argument in favour or against, no possibility of consensus, either you believe in it or you don't.
And not surprisingly, I completely disagree with you on the second point as well. I think the US uses a rhetoric of human-rights while acting completely in their own interest and without any respect for human rights. When we interfere, it's because someone sees geo-political-economic benefits in the region in question. And you're quite wrong about what you think the world knows. The US has just about exhausted any cachet it ever had in the world, and now is generally seen as monumentally hypocritical. When the US talks about human rights, the world laughs and rolls their eyes.

+1 Jack_Klein

“Though i guess you're arguening that only in a direct democracy will the people actually be consulted, and perhaps even then that direct democracy will violate the individual liberty or those who vote against such an arrangment?”

Those who vote against are having their rights infringed upon, yes.



Jack's last post didn't even attempt to address mine, so I'm not sure what I'm supposed to add.

+1 Ghost.

The 'creation' of Rights have nothing todo with government at all. Government is merely the enforcer of rights that exist because people want them. Jack an Mcbry seem to be confused by the definition of these words, I suggest a dictionary might help.

@Jack: you seem to have failed in your argument against the rights of someones own body, and instead of doing the classy thing and admitting it, you have changed your argument to 'property rights'. You say there are cultures that have no property rights? I disagree, you will find that whilst ownership is communal within a certain tribe, if another foreign tribe turns up someday at the beginning of winter and starts eating all their food, do you think they will just let them? No, those same cultures you say have no property rights will murder every last member of another tribe in order to protect food or gain lands/women.

Defintion of rights: I don't want to be assaulted/killed or my stuff stolen. I consider that my right. I will also sacrifice and risk in order to protect those same rights for other people that I like. And they might do the same for me. It doesn't matter if other people don't recognise those rights, they exist for me innately. Pretty simple duh?

I already proved that it is not an absolute truth that you have a right to your own body.

Slavery. QED. Its happened, only in the last 2-300 years has it ceased to exist (for the most part)

Much like an anarchist who claims that the law doesn't apply to them, you claim to have rights. Right now, you exist in a society (and as I've said, the government/society/civilization are interchangeable in this situation) that agrees that you have those rights. But if you did not live in such a society, you would have a great deal of trouble enforcing those rights.

Basically, your rights-because-you-say-so have as much absolute existence as any other thought-experiment, up to and including the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Other than you saying "I have them!" you haven't proved anything, other than you can talk.

We're talking about natural rights, that exist no matter what, independent of you or my opinion.

(I might add that people that are much better educated than any of us have been debating natural law vs positivism for many, many years and there has been no definitive "win") So I'm not offended that Fiedler is trying to be a dick, because there is no absolute answer here. Thats my whole point. :)

Your "proof" didn't even get near the heart of the matter. You were stuck somewhere in the lymphatic system.

I make a claim about rights, as I defined them. You claim the negation of this statement, and proceed to argue from a totally different definition of rights. Thus you create a huge strawman.

Specifically, you express rights in terms of an "is" where as I express them in terms of an "ought".

i said: "even then ... direct democracy will violate the individual liberty of those who vote against such an [taxation] arrangment"

Ghost saidL "Those who vote against are having their rights infringed upon, yes."

But what if they 'believe' in democracy as in - it being better to allow a decision to be made without unanimous approval than no decision being made at all. And that the choose to operate in such a system?

@Jack:
"Basically, your rights-because-you-say-so have as much absolute existence as any other thought-experiment, up to and including the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Other than you saying "I have them!" you haven't proved anything, other than you can talk."

So civilisation exists without anyone thinking? I'm pretty sure thinking happens first, then civilisation. I think thinking is quite important! LOL

"We're talking about natural rights" - could you then please define these natural rights? give an example? because by your definition there are none. Guess we should let the dictionary people know.

I think I was the one who brought the oughts into the discussion.

If rights are just what you think people "ought" to do, then that is your opinion. If your "ought" is an absolute, you must demonstrate why your "ought" is an absolute right that exists regardless of your or my opinion.

After re-reading this, I actually think we're agreeing from different perspectives. Unless you're actually making the claim that rights exist independent of people's willingness to enforce them.

Then we're not.

TGM: your definition is 'ALL humans (universally) ought to have these rights...'

By thus saying you ascert it to be true. (just like the universal declaration of human rights was a declaration of how things should be...)

But you're also claiming that these rights are inherent in being human. Correct?

and i think there is no reason why a society couldn't exist on a similar level to an ant colony or human cells organised to operate together, but without the right to invidual property... why is the human body so special that it universally deserves these rights?

"Unless you're actually making the claim that rights exist independent of people's willingness to enforce them." - why would you think anyone was claiming that? where in reality does such a situation ever exist?

*Maybe* we are agreeing from different perspectives, but i'm not reading all this shit again! :)

"If rights are just what you think people "ought" to do, then that is your opinion. If your "ought" is an absolute, you must demonstrate why your "ought" is an absolute right that exists regardless of your or my opinion."

I claim it is not merely an opinion, see above.

"TGM: your definition is 'ALL humans (universally) ought to have these rights...'

By thus saying you ascert it to be true. (just like the universal declaration of human rights was a declaration of how things should be...)

But you're also claiming that these rights are inherent in being human. Correct?"

Correct

See, this is what happens when a thread gets derailed. I think it was Draugnar that was stating that rights come from a Creator, (thus exist outside people enforcing them... i.e. we make our own rights as we as a people see fit)...

Legal Positivism (which is my position):

* There is no inherent or necessary connection between the conditions of law and ethics or morality.
* Laws are rules made, whether deliberately or unintentionally, by human beings.


Point two is more or less applied, with rights substituting for laws.

This is opposed (in some cases) by the proponents of Natural Law:

Laws(rights) that are set by nature(God) and thus are valid everywhere. This school of thought says that rights/laws are inherent in the world we live in.

This position I disagree with unless we're talking about scientific laws. :)

I hope this clarifies what I was trying to discuss when this whole thing went off the tracks.

So contrasting with the human body (where individual cells don't have the 'right to life' but can be signalled to commit suicide) why can (not should) humans not live in a self-sustaining organisation where the neccesity of some individuals is determined by chemical accumulations, replacement rates and whatever else the human body does to determine when a cell is useful (abnormalities in the cell's shape usually indicate genetic mutation and mistakes in the protien expression)

Why could this not be a moral organisation of humans?

Well, at that point, we're going to get into free will vs determinism, which I think is the subject for an even more pointless philosophy thread. :)

If you say our behavior, because its driven by events similar to cell interactions, then you're basically shooting free will in the head. It would allow for natural law, but our society is built on the idea (even if it is a false one) that we possess free will and can do as we wish.