To answer the second question first, no. To answer the first question, whatever rights we decide we have before we make a government. If we all say vacation pay is a right, then make a government around it, as far as the government’s documents and laws are concerned, this right is innate. Inalienable. And so on; and that’s what we’re talking about here, to me. Because I feel it is more or less fair if you and I battle out our rights (should it come to blows). It is not even close to fair to defend my rights against a government with (as far as I’m concerned) unlimited resources. There is no battle. This is why I don’t trust them with my rights: they can violate them. All of them. And there is piss-all I can do about it.
“Rights” are a theory about human behavior. It is a man-created explanation for observable interaction. So now where do we stand?
Preexisting to the government we form.
As far as the government of the people is concerned, it might as well be.
This truly, truly scares me. Rights are violated by force. I am not creating anything when I point a gun to your head and demand 27% of your paycheck for protection money. Even the turd in your underwear as a response was created by you.
erislover, your point is empirically wrong. Fundamental rights need not predate government; indeed the history of the past few centuries, particularly in the Western democracies, has been one of expanding individual liberties. During that time, most people have lived under the aegis of some kind of government. Ergo, fundamental rights need not predate government.
Of course, they can predate government – there was a basic level of consensus on certain rights for the new US government before the Constitution was written – but such predating is not strictly necessary.
Furthermore, in the US we can change the Constitution via the amendment process. If we decide vacation pay should be a fundamental right enshrined in the Constitution, it becomes so – even though the new right postdates the government under which it was created.**
No, it isn’t. Rights do not “explain” things. They are not “theories of human behavior.” They are guaranteed freedoms. Your claim is nonsensical.**
See above. Creation of new rights need not predate the existence of government.**
A simple reading of history demonstrates that rights can also be seized by force. The American Revolution stands as Exhibit A. When enough people point guns at the heads of their tyrants and demand free speech, freedom of worship, etc, etc, then new rights are created.
If these rights and liberties didn’t predate government, then there is no room to expand.
If you say so. The only thing I find pretty much necessary is living, and the only way I can do so is by giving up the rights I feel I have because of the series of guns pointed at me “for my own good”, which I suppose also cannot be determined before hand, and so our tautological and self-sustaining engine of right “creation” (elimination) can simply tell me I’m better off. After all, as you said, I already trust them.
They are not “created”. Really, we could assert things at each other all weekend. (Which, actually, doesn’t bother me)
Guaranteed freedoms?! The laws of physics, the biological nature of my being is what guarantees the actions I can perform. Everyone else limits them.
So rights are all siezed, created, and guaranteed by force. And all this time I thought it was force that messed with the possession, exercise, and agreement on rights.
When enough people point guns at me I lose my rights fairly quickly.
If only we had some sort of theory that could tell us how force used in one circumstance created rights and the same force in another circumstance violated rights, we might be able to get somewhere in this crazy world after all. Because, and maybe it really sounds crazy, I feel we all have unlimited freedoms as individuals, and as we start to interact, we limit or fail to recognize some freedoms. What we only limit, or do not limit at all, we name “rights”. That doesn’t mean the freedom is gone. And once we start to limit or fail to recognize them the only question that remains is: will we do so peacefully or not?
There is no reason that rights must preexist government. At least, you’ve proffered no such reason and the burden of proof rests on your shoulders. Further, emipirically rights have arisen over time even though there was a preexisting government in place. The weight of the evidence is against you.
“Rights” are indeed guaranteed freedoms, by definition. Whether they are guaranteed by some mystical preexisting natural order or whether they are guaranteed by man’s efforts is the crux of the discussion here.
You see the laws of physics as a guarantee of action? I’d think them more of a constraint – for instance, you can make yourself go really, really fast, but the laws of physics prevents you from exceeding the speed of light. Ditto biology – the amount of time I can spend underwater is limited by my lung capacity.
You seem mighty paranoid about G-men pointing guns at you. While I’m a strong proponent of minimal government, I think at some basic level government is necessary, and part of its mission must be the enforcement of law (albeit within constitutional constraints). The alternative would be a return to lives that are nasty, brutish and short.
[list=1][li]There is no reason that rights must preexist government. At least, you’ve proffered no such reason and the burden of proof rests on your shoulders. Further, emipirically rights have arisen over time even though there was a preexisting government in place. The weight of the evidence is against you.[/li]
My reason was given: barring human relations, the only thing that limits me are the laws of physics and my own biology. This is true independent of and predates all governments. If I want to know what my freedoms are innately, I look to what is innate. This isn’t particularly specious reasoning.
[li]“Rights” are indeed guaranteed freedoms, by definition.[/li]
I trust the same people that made this definition are the ones who get to make the rights? Or do you suppose that the centuries of disagreement over the ethics of human interaction, and the appropriate form a government should take, are just navel-gazing? “We” don’t get to decide what any individual can do, nor what he does. That is always and forever up to him. We can push him, try and teach him to be like us, we can leave him choices between loss of additional freedom versus loss of just the one, we can threaten his physical body, and so on. In short, we can thwart or remove his ability to choose. That is what the exercise of power over others consists in. This is not creating rights.
[li]You see the laws of physics as a guarantee of action? I’d think them more of a constraint – for instance, you can make yourself go really, really fast, but the laws of physics prevents you from exceeding the speed of light.[/li]
Then we find ourselves in another definitional clash. The laws of physics, such as they are, are the broadest scope of “can” possible. Any use beyond them is nonsense.
Ditto biology – the amount of time I can spend underwater is limited by my lung capacity.
Limited?—with respect to what?
[li]You seem mighty paranoid about G-men pointing guns at you. While I’m a strong proponent of minimal government, I think at some basic level government is necessary, and part of its mission must be the enforcement of law (albeit within constitutional constraints). The alternative would be a return to lives that are nasty, brutish and short.[/li]
I don’t need to be paranoid at all; I simply need to understand that the government itself has admitted to phone taps, that it has secret beauracracies dedicated to surveillance of citizens, that surreptitious and serendipitous discovery of evidence against a citizen can also be used against them, that our political system consists of voting for the ideals I’m offered rather than seeking my opinion on what my ideals are, that should I fail to comply with the restrictions placed on me by people who are afraid I might live peacefully in my own house and smoke a bowl (note: I do not use marijuana, this is a comment on others’ fear, not my actions) I will be forcibly removed from my home and forced to give up freedom and property and salary… There’s no need to be paranoid to see that my freedom is restricted by people intent on doing good for me without asking me what the fuck my good is in the first place.[/list=1]
My understanding of your argument could be stated as thus: “Rights are what I would have barring any government and, indeed, any human relations whatsoever. Essentially, rights are the state I would be in if I were stranded alone on an uncharted desert island.”
Which, of course, is as silly as discussing rights in a world where all men are angels. Constructs such as rights (and, indeed, constructs such as government) arise in response to human interaction. It is the fact that we must share this little planet with other people which makes such things neccessary.
Certainly you can recognize that you could engage in behavior on your desert island which would be unacceptable in modern society, and that such behavior nonetheless is not an absolute innate right? To return to an earlier example: walking about naked in public. Perfectly fine on your desert island. Not fine on Main Street. Surely you don’t consider totting about starkers to be a right of the fundamental sort?
My argument is that we place the name “rights” to freedoms we don’t limit, or to freedoms that we explicitly recognize (a loophole in a law is not a right, for example, while the right to free speech is, even if it is not granted unlimited application) as such. Those freedoms were already there, innately. We didn’t create anything other than a word.
Yes, I have senses which enable me to observe the world around me.
As I have resolved the word “innate” and “right”, of course it isn’t since this behavior is not a recognized freedom.
But I can still do it, whatever it is. Perhaps trying to force me to not do something I can do isn’t the best way, when we might after all come to some kind of agreement.
You may have missed the point, but I doubt anyone else did.
**
Whatever you may think, a lot of people have had a pretty good go at it. Mathematics is, actually, a fairly good analogy. Mathematics and philosophy are quite closely related. In fact, mathematics is, properly speaking, simply a branch of philosophy – they didn’t really develop separately until the 17th century or thereabouts. Descartes, for example, was a great mathematician as well as a great philosopher.
Like mathematics, moral reasoning attempts to reason from a few basic propositions to non-obvious conclusions. Several bases for moral reasoning have been postulated. One of the most common is that every person has equal moral worth.
BTW – This is, oddly enough, actually a rejection of the idea of “god given” rights. If god were handing out rights, there would be no obvious reason why god couldn’t make some people more “valuable” than others. “God made me king. Therefore, I have more rights than you.” “We have the correct religion, therefore it’s OK to persecute the rest of you.” etc.
In any case, while you may disagree with the reasoning or even the some of the initial propositions – you may not believe that children are born with equal moral worth, for example – it is foolish to assert that “you are left with an assertion that must be based wholly on faith.” You could make the same argument about tensor math.
It is also true that many of these propositions ought to be assumed true as a working hypothesis even if the cannot be “proven.” People either have equal moral worth or they don’t; one of these propositions is indisputably true. If you want to argue that people do not have equal moral worth, I’d say the burden of proof is on you.
**
Your first claim was that people in Eastern Europe took to the barricades deeply committed to utilitarian efficiency. “They didn’t need mystical claims of inherency to find their freedom.” “They would have been just as important without any “innateness” rhetoric.” Now you seem to be admitting that the idea of innate human rights was important to ending the cold war but that Soviets and Eastern Europeans were naive children to actually be inspired by them.
**
How’s this for a rationale? We like free speech. Free speech makes our countries stronger. We should discourage free speech in China because if they have free speech in China, China will be stronger and better able to compete with us.
How about this. We like strawberry ice cream. We think everybody should eat strawberry ice cream once a day. We will invade the country next door and force them, on pain death, to eat strawberry ice cream once a day . . . because we can.
The problem is that there is no way to distinguish liking strawberry ice cream from liking freedom of speech. If there is no such thing as a natural right, everything is a matter of subjective opinion. I think killing people over strawberry ice cream is silly. But, hey, if you really like strawberry ice cream and you swing a big enough stick . . .
**
As discussed about, mathematics and moral reasoning are closely akin. FWIW, you could also say that “natural rights are a language that describe certain relationships.” You’re also missing the point. Mathematics demonstrates certain things exist even if they are “merely” intellectual constructs that can’t be observed. I’ve never seen an imaginary number yet I have no doubt that they exist. More to the point, they exist independently of human reason. To put it another way, an alien species would almost certainly discover the same mathematics that humans have. There would, of course, be a completely different notation, etc., yet the fundamental relationships would be the same.
I do not, of course, make the same broad claim for moral reasoning. Nonetheless, it certainly possible to conceive of a set of moral principles that are discovered based on a rigourous derivation from first principles rather then being simply invented as you suggest.
BTW, you still refuse to squarely answer the question: Was the cold-blooded killing millions of Jews, Gypsies and other “undesirables” by Hitler for an utterly nonsensical reason inherently wrong or was it just a matter of different strokes for different folks? It’s one or the other – it’s either objectively wrong or merely subjectively wrong. Which is it?
You, of course, see the difficulty here which is why you’ve avoided a direct response. The “correct” answer from your philosophical position is that there are no moral absolutes so it was merely subjectively wrong. But I doubt if you really believe that. However, if you admit that there are some objectively correct moral principles, you must also admit there there are at least some natural rights.
**
Wrong. Rawls specifically develops his thesis based a variant of the equality principle. In other words, the Rawlsian idea of justice directly depends on there being a basic set of innate rights.
**
Wrong again. Nozick expressely bases his theory of justice on the the concept of natural rights. Indeed, Nozick is all about not interfering with the innate rights of the individual. The idea that Nozick supports the idea of legislating morality is utterly ridiculous.
**
You assume wrong. That would be H.L.A. Hart. Though a positivist, he wrote a still-respected article in 1955 called, Are There Any Natural Rights? He grudgingly concluded that, if there are any moral rights at all, there is at least one natural right: the equal right of all men to be free.
Looks like you’ll have to hit those Cliff Notes a bit harder, Waverly.
What do all these people have in common? They all take the idea of natural rights seriously. Of course, none of them had the advantage of Waverly’s brilliant insight that the very idea of natural rights was “silly” and “laughable.” Had they realized how “myopic” they were, they would never have wasted their time.
Unfortunately, it is unlikely that I’ll have any SDMB time available until probably the middle of January. If anybody really wants to argue the strict utilitarian position that there are no natural rights, perhaps they ought to open up a GD thread then.
There is no inconsistency in my point. The fall of the Soviet Union was the result of a gut-level desire for freedom. However, the rhetoric of inherent rights is indeed inspirational. One can recognize that rhetoric is just that – rhetoric – and yet also recognize beauty within that rhetoric. My heart swells when I hear Jefferson’s words even as I recognize it for what it is.**
And there’s the crux of it. The real world is a messy place. It would indeed be easier if we could rely on something other than our own powers of reason to determine fundamental rights. But just because that would be easier doesn’t make it so. We should not blind ourselves to reality in the name of convenience.**
The first principles of mathematics are readily, objectively ascertainable. 2+2=4 (or whatever notation might be used) is true whether we agree on it or not. Higher mathematic concepts like imaginary numbers are kludges designed to solve specific problems derived from those first principles. They exist because they work.
This is not the case for first principles of morality. There is no objective test for a moral first principle. It exists solely as a matter of consensus based on reason.**
I actually did answer this several posts above. Nazi atrocities are wrong because they violate rights based on first principles held by a broad consensus of the world’s people. There is, I believe, near-universal revulsion at those kinds of things on the gut level. That is why I say recognition that rights are not innate does not preclude moral judgment: that gut-level reaction is inseparable from the human mind, a combination of reason and emotion.
Nazi atrocities thus could, I suppose, be described as a subjective wrong. But that view of wrongness is subjectively held at a basic level by most of the world. It isn’t quite the whim you seem to think it is. I feel perfectly comfortable describing those acts as wrong, without a modifier, based on that consensus.
I suppose I just have greater faith in mankind’s ability to chart his own moral destiny than you do.
**
You bet it precludes moral judgment – it precludes the very concept of morals as it is commonly understood. It is now you who are relying on “because I said so” to justify “moral” principles.
This is nothing more than a re-wording of your “might makes right” argument. “I’m in the majority on this issue, therefore, my stand is morally correct.” Not all that long ago, a “broad consensus of the world’s people” saw nothing all that wrong with slavery. I submit that this did not make slavery “moral.”
Suppose, for the sake of argument, we took a vote as to whether it was OK to persecute Jews. Further suppose – and this is not all that farfetched – that a majority of the people in the world who voted thought that active anti-semitism was OK. Would that satisfy your criteria? Would anti-semitism now be acceptable? Indeed, would it now be “immoral” to not be anti-semitic?
All quotes from the quivering gelatinous mass of lukewarm ignorance calling itself truth seeker:
Cite? Shouldn’t be hard to backup your assertion with a quote. Maybe explain how we get innate rights from constructivism.
Cite? Again, a quote backing up your interpretation would be nice, particularly since Nozick was a subjectivist not an objectivist.
Very well, I went with the Hart I was most familiar with. Unfortunately, you are missing the point. Like Kant, Hart is recognizing man’s free will. You would have seen this had you read my previous post. I could call it an innate property or characteristic, but we are not talking about Freedom™ here. It’s a characteristic shared by all living things, and it simply states that their actions are under their own control.
Cite? I’m not aware of any of my words, other than phrases I have quoted, as coming from another source. Please prove this, or at a minimum show there are cliff notes on the subject matter.
I’ll consider my comments on Kant and Dworkin to be points conceded.
I think a better way to handle your hypothetical would be to ask of the world is religious persecution moral? and reason from that principle that anti-Semitism is morally impermissible. I think most people sympathize with that principle at a gut level, even if they can talk themselves into violating that principle in specific cases.
The cites that our dearly missed Truth Seeker forgot to provide:
Could it be any more clear? Justice is derived from a moral force, which in turn is just a set of common or traditional values. Draw new boundaries around your set (ie examine another culture) and you get a new values, new justice. Not the best argument for rights being some uniform, inborn property.
I’m not sure how you get from non-interference, which of course Nozick does believe in, to innate rights. I guess it takes a bit of a leap. One even Nozick was loath to make:
Oh no! You got you scientific method in my objectivism! To be clear, Nozick did have doubts about relativism, but the thought experiment he describes proved its relevance. And what is relativism again?
This is just using Truth Seekers own references. Kant, Cicero and others might have been my choices, but Nozick, Rawls, et. al. were vomited out as some form of proof in and of themselves. Yes, things would be clearer and easier if we could find and document the seat of inborn rights, but recognizing this doesn’t make it true. It serves to illustrate how tenuous our position is, and how important it is that provide and protect rights for all people.
I’ll challenge anyone once again to define exacly which rights are innate, and where we hold them as we are born naked into this world.
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t observe that listing a few notable names without 1) Providing some original source material as support, and 2) Being able to interpret this material and explain how its relative to your argument is lazy, deceptive, and dishonest.
I’ll now return to my Star Wars action figures where Darth Vader has Leia in a precarious (not to mention immodest) position…
In light of the observation that the US Constitution and its first Ten Amendments, aka “Bill of Rights”, don’t CONFER any rights, but rather, as the initial draft of the Constitution,accepted by the Convention in 1787 and approved in turn by the several states, outlined and delineated what were the powers granted TO the Federal Government by the States and the PEOPLE, so the “rights” listed in the first eight of the ten amendment are those which the Federal Gov’t is restrained from interfering with, or as the SECOND Amendment states, “infringing”. Interesting why the Founders would use THAT word as they were prescient as to how the Right to Keep and Bear Arms would, in fact, be gradually “infringed” by the Feds and some, if not all of the several states in varying degrees.
The Ninth and Tenth Amendments are of particular interest in light of (1) the wholly unjustified and despicable war on the erstwhile Confederate states that in 1861 wanted no more than to go their own way peaceably (but when confronted with Federal violence and invasion, were willing themselves to fight!) and (2) the ever-increasing encroachment of Federal powers and authority, especially on the states, to the point where it has become the MASTER and they the subservient entities. The Ninth, in stating that the list of the previous amendments is not all-inclusive; that the listing of them doesn’t exclude or “disparage” any other rights that exist. The Founders likely didn’t feel a need to mention a right to “privacy” since the idea that the Government would intrude on the private affairs of its several citizens was likely to them preposterous, and the public wouldn’t stand for it! That “privacy” isn’t listed doesn’t mean that the right doesn’t exist; indeed, the very nature that Government has specific and limited powers, else, the citizens are imbued with the God-given right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which can only occur in an environment where a strong, compelling reason must be made to override one’s privacy. The Tenth makes it clear as to those that believe that the “necessary and proper” clause means that the Government can simply IGNORE Constitutional limits and do whatever the Congress will pass a bill and vote appropriations for: NO! It states that all powers “not delegated by the Constitution, nor PROHIBITED to the states, are RESERVED for the states, or the PEOPLE”. Over the years, especially after the misnamed “Civil War” (A term, though much less concise, might be, “War of Federal Aggression to Subjugate the Confederacy”), the SCOTUS has rarely used the Tenth Amendment as a basis for overruling either lower courts or Federal or State laws. In particular, the Congress and the SCOTUS have usually upheld the ever-increasing Federal laws and programs under the Commerce clause; i.e., in effect horn-swoggled the authority to regulate interstate Commerce (so that each state wouldn’t in effect have its own customs, which was proving a serious detriment to trade between the states in the day) to in effect render the Ninth and Tenth Amendments null and void.
Things may get to the point where the citizens may soon have to, as Jefferson once wrote, “Refresh the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots and TYRANTS.” I’d prefer that there be a more peaceful resolution, but our fore fathers were willing, so to speak, to “take it to the mat”. If there will be blood spilled no matter what, then at least some of the ‘tyrants’ may be taken down…
I blame the Founding Fathers, they should have know future generations would never read past the title line. Had they, it would have been called The Shackles on Government to Prevent Tyranny, instead of The Bill of Rights.
(Which, actually, doesn’t bother me)