I think the justice system tackles this concept by way of “intent to commit” crimes. If one intends to commit murder, one can be charged with that crime. It is a crime to merely contemplate serious crimes in a serious manner. One is going to break the law, in other words, therefore one is punished.
But merely intending to commit murder is not a crime. You can be charged with attempted murder if you actually take concrete steps to attempt a murder, conspiracy to murder if you conspire with others, incitement to murder, etc. But “intending to murder” is not, in itself, a crime.
This is a good example of what septimus was getting at: the tendency toward a meaningless (though common) use of the term right.
It is not illegal for a person to exist, but that does not mean that a person has a right to exist, simply because, in and of itself, a person doesn’t need a right to exist. Rather, a person has a right not to be deprived of life, (at least not without due process).
And the objective of people breaking laws they think are unjust are to get the laws changed. Like in the South. That is why they often advertise that they are about to break the law.
Not true.
Here is a chart with the numbers. More are in state prison for burglary and robbery combined than for drugs. Not many are in federal prisons for these, but it is not often a federal crime.
I can believe they rarely go to trial due to plea bargains, but that’s different.
I suspect the penalty for breaking the law is baked into the penalty for breaking a specific law, with the understanding that breaking some laws is worse than breaking some others.
I’d say that a codified right is one that allows you to do something without penalty. Which things is open to debate but that isn’t the issue here. By your definition all people have the right to use whatever drugs they wish, all men have the right to rape, all women have the right to abortion whenever they choose, etc., etc. Is that where you want to go?
And an ever better example I just though of. You have the right to bear arms. You’d still have that, by your definition, if the police tossed you in jail whenever you carried.
No matter what. Does that work for you?
More:
You have a right to be secure in your person and possessions, including a lot of your information, according to current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. The right to keep secrets is, effectively, a right to commit crimes.
You have the right to due process, which is a whole shelf of books at this point.
You have the right to jeopardy attaching assuming you don’t outright fix the trial in your favor, meaning if you can swing one trial in your favor, you’re generally free.
And, finally, you have a right to a trial by a jury which has the effective, de facto right to nullify the law and set you free, regardless of what evidence, logic, or tricks the prosecution brings to bear.
So… you don’t have the right to commit crimes, but you do have the right to a system which, if it’s working correctly, makes the state work like the very Devil to convict you of a crime.
But that’s entirely American law, because that was the topic of the post I responded to. In a more general sense, it’s easy to imagine scenarios where committing a crime is a right, where committing a crime is a duty, and even where committing a crime is simply the best option out of many, with no moral importance whatsoever. Sorting all of that out is what the idea of the social contract is for: We, as a bunch of people who have to live together, form a society with laws to prevent the fraction of humans whose morality is entirely externalized from doing anything we collectively deem too awful to allow. If those laws are generally seen as reasonable, we can feel good about punishing people who break them. If they’re seen as unreasonable, we can feel good about changing them. If they’re seen as unreasonable and the majority is not allowed to change them, the majority can feel good about launching a revolution. As a practical existentialist, I refuse to feel bad about my blatant majoritarianism and I will not try to couch it in high-flown language about natural law, except to say that, as social mammals, most humans do have innate morality, so there is ultimately a biological basis for all this. Tabula rasa might not be philosophically false, but in terms of factual evidence, it’s a dead letter.
It’s not really that weird- it’s very common for prison and parole/probation systems to have a list of rules that apply specifically to inmates/parolees/probationers and not the general public- such as certain colors of clothing being prohibited or not being permitted to be in bars. In addition to those specific rules, there is often one that states something to the effect of “I will obey any laws I am subject to” and it’s basically there as an alternative to reproducing the entire criminal law as part of the inmate handbook or release conditions.
But I do want to point out that by “spending more time in prison”, Little Nemo doesn’t mean that extra time gets added onto the inmate’s sentence for breaking the departmental rule. Extra time gets added when there is a new conviction ( for example, someone is serving a 1-3 year sentence and is sentenced to 1 year for a new crime that occurred in prison- now he’s serving 2-4)- breaking rules results in “spending more time in prison” because you lost good time or your application for parole was denied (someone is serving 1-3 and doesn’t get convicted of a new crime but is found guilty of breaking a rule. His parole is denied after 1 year, and he loses 6 months of good time which means he has to do 2 1/2 years in prison rather than paroled after 1 year or conditionally released after 2)
No. We don’t even have the ability to do whatever we want, because our imagination can produce desires that are physically impossible.
That depends. And for any discussion of “rights” one should start by finding a definition and agreeing upon it.
You could probably define “right” in that way, but unless your only goal is to make this silly statement true, I doubt that definition has much utility.
Rights are a concept invented by humans. Humans have rights to do what the other humans say they have a right to do, which is not “whatever we want.”
Rights vary by jurisdiction and it is never “whatever we want.”
With increased globalization of civilization, we have developed a concept of universal human rights, which transcend jurisdiction. Communities of nations will decry behavior in some other nation as violating basic human rights. There is no global law (well, there a concept of “international law” but it doesn’t work the same as, say, U.S. federal law), but those communities can punish the offending nation. But it is still one group of humans determining what are the rights of the other humans.
No. Committing a crime, by its very definition, means you have done something you have no right to do. So society punishes you.
With rights come responsibilities. If in exercising our freedom of choice we do something that negatively impacts others, then we lose our rights. People lose their drivers’ licenses when they are found guilty of DUI for the good of society. I could go on and on, but is it really necessary to prove my obvious point?
I have no idea what your point is. The very existence of a drivers license shows that driving isn’t a right, by most definition of rights. And generally we only lose any rights when our actions impact others in a very negative way.
It could be argued that rights should be limited when they negatively impact others, but claiming this is obvious and universal wouldn’t get you far, which is why free speech debates always get so confused and heated.
To answer the OP, I think you have a moral right (although not legal right) to commit a crime if the crime is necessary for survival or someone else’s survival. That can get blurry very quickly though - the “should you steal food or meds if you need it” question.
If your child is in a hospital with a life-threatening condition and the doctors refuse to treat him/her but also forbid you to take the child elsewhere for treatment, then I think you have a full moral right to grab your kid and brandish a gun at the staff and say “Nope, I’m going to find a hospital who WILL treat the meningitis/anaphylactic shock/hemorrhage/sepsis ASAP” and march out the door. It’ll get you in legal trouble but the doctors are in the moral wrong.
If you steal my life savings and get caught and found guilty, you should not only have to spend time in jail, but you should be made to make restitution…you have to pay back what you stole. This rarely happens.
There are many definitions for the word “right”. Some believe in natural rights. Some think forcing someone to bake you a cake is a right. It’s a highly ideological word. Most people have a concept of rights that is ad hoc.
If someone has a right to something, it should not be in conflict with another’s right, or else that right is meaningless.
Actually you don’t have to commit a crime to get those rights. Just get arrested. Committing a crime does not mean one would get arrested, not doing so does not mean one won’t. Though we believe there may be some statistical correlation that the odds are better, one of several factors.
Knowledge of good and evil, from a biblical point of view we are free to chose, but also warned of the consequences of those choices. Those consequences are not human enforced, but humans can be used in that capacity.
We can also get into the moral question if stealing is wrong, and is individual ownership a valid and moral concept.
I think that it’s only morally correct and considered to be a “right” when it does not strip other people of their rights. Like nobody has the right to kill because it directly contradicts a person’s right to live. Likewise, you can’t take shelter from a person because it goes against their right to access basic needs. Abusing someone physically or emotionally cannot be justified as it goes against their right to safety and security.
Some think that if you have a business where you bake cakes, you should bake a cake for anyone who wants a cake.