Comments | neuralbuddha: Discussion topic: Do rights exist?

neuralbuddha

Discussion topic: Do rights exist?

Oct 21, 2005 12:01

It seems to me that, in reality, we are only able to prevent or punish forms of behavior, not to enable them. Civil and human rights legislation could be seen as methods of defining anti- and pro-social behaviour and methods of restricting and punishing the former but are there really any methods of promoting the latter? Education theoretically ( Read more... )

Comments 27

germanbishounen October 21 2005, 13:03:09 UTC

Rights are not arbitrary. Properly, a right is a fundamental requirement for human life. This is why there can be no such thing as "a right" to initiate the use of force against another. Man's tool of survival is the mind, is his reason. Using force against another, forces them to act against their own reason. It's like forcing another . If you initiate the use of force against another, you place into a deadly double-blind: they can obey you and act against reason, taking realities punishment, or obey reason and reality, taking yours. Every initiation of force acts on the premise of destroying another ( ... )

spudtater October 22 2005, 05:45:41 UTC

Other sets of rights are entirely possible and defensible.

neuralbuddha October 24 2005, 02:08:48 UTC

I don't fully understand the above point but there's clearly been some thought put into it. As such, if you're going to utterly contradict it I'd like to hear some reasoning or examples to back that position up.

spudtater October 24 2005, 15:46:37 UTC

Ack. I was going to go off on a diatribe about property, but wanted to know what his exact position on it was first, so I wasn't wasting my breath. I've eventually got round to it below.

spudtater October 22 2005, 05:55:55 UTC

Rights make up an abstraction level that we use to justify laws. Laws by themselves are just a series of "do this, do that"s that people don't neccessarily obey (cf. speeding). Rights give a moral framework that says why a law is there. We don't murder people because other people have a right to life.

However, rights-based morality is only one of several models of morality. Life is, inevitably, more complicated than that. Everybody has the right to life... but if you could go back in time and kill Hitler, would you?

neuralbuddha October 22 2005, 07:58:08 UTC

Ah, the Hitler principle in philosophical and political debates comes into play. You were the first person to mention Hitler, you lose!

spudtater October 22 2005, 09:06:50 UTC

I often use Hitler in arguments, simply because he's the only person that everybody1 will agree was utterly evil. As such, he makes a good "extreme example".

1 Or at least everybody who doesn't deserve a thourough beating

germanbishounen October 22 2005, 15:01:29 UTC

The right to life includes the right to the defence thereof. I'm not going to get into any time-travel arguments; for all intents and purposes, they are not real.

In the case of a dictator such as Hitler - or Saddan Hussein, or Castro, or Stalin, or Mao, or Franco - they have placed themselves outside any form of moral defence. A man who denies rights to others cannot claim their protection.

The only time when it is moral to use force is in retaliation against the initiation of force.

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