All right , Russell, I'll bite. No individual rights?

[Eli]

... are you ready for this? .... I don't even think people have rights

I really would like to understand your take on this.  What does it mean to have rights or not have rights.  Where are you coming from on this one?

[Kat Kanning]

I'm not sure either, but I'll guess he was thinking no government to enforce rights.

[srqrebel]

Thank you Eli!  You beat me to this... on the other thread.

Hey Russell - I, too, would appreciate a little enlightenment regarding this assertion

[Lex]

... are you ready for this? .... I don't even think people have rights

I really would like to understand your take on this.  What does it mean to have rights or not have rights.  Where are you coming from on this one?

I doesn't mean anything and I think that's the point. Rights are just a moral convention exaggerated to make people think it's some kind of absolute thing where if someone violates your rights immediately lightning will strike them down.

Rights are suggestions and you can't 'have' a suggestion, you can merely choose to follow it or not.

[srqrebel]

...Rights are just a moral convention exaggerated to make people think it's some kind of absolute thing where if someone violates your rights immediately lightning will strike them down.

Rights are suggestions and you can't 'have' a suggestion, you can merely choose to follow it or not.

Whoa dude... wait till Maineshark gets hold of this one!

Not that I can exactly rebuff what you are saying, though.  There seems to be a longstanding belief out there, that individual rights are "inalienable" -- hence an intrinsic part of the human organism.  I would like to believe this, and have long based my personal philosophy and actions on this premise -- yet I cannot articulate exactly how this premise is supported in reality.

[Eli]

I think this is going to be an interesting conversation.  A real 40 pager.  I'm awaiting Russell's commentary, because I'm really not sure the direction he intended with the comment.

[Kat Kanning]

I know on a more personal level, he said he was happier without the idea of rights...like I have a right to be treated with respect by my wife, or I have a right to not be tailgated on the highway, or I have a right to my yard without my neighbor's kids running through it.  Maybe it would be better if things were that way, but he's a lot happier ditching the 'justifiable' anger that comes when his 'rights' are violated.

Just another guess at what he was thinking.

[Kat Kanning]

Inalienable rights...I've thought of it in Ayn Rand fashion...that man has a certain nature, and based on that nature, there's a best way for men to interact with one another: don't kill one another, don't steal from each other, etc.

[srqrebel]

Inalienable rights...I've thought of it in Ayn Rand fashion...that man has a certain nature, and based on that nature, there's a best way for men to interact with one another: don't kill one another, don't steal from each other, etc.

As in, the greatest good for the greatest number of people?

[srqrebel]

I think this is going to be an interesting conversation.  A real 40 pager...

So true... I just hope Kat won't tire of the "debate" just as it's getting interesting

Both Kat and Russell don't seem to have much tolerance for long debates

[Kat Kanning]

This doesn't seem like a debate so far.  But you're right, I don't like debating.

[MaineShark]

...Rights are just a moral convention exaggerated to make people think it's some kind of absolute thing where if someone violates your rights immediately lightning will strike them down.

Rights are suggestions and you can't 'have' a suggestion, you can merely choose to follow it or not.

Whoa dude... wait till Maineshark gets hold of this one!

I'm waiting for Russell's response, first...

Joe

[Lex]

Inalienable rights...I've thought of it in Ayn Rand fashion...that man has a certain nature, and based on that nature, there's a best way for men to interact with one another: don't kill one another, don't steal from each other, etc.

As in, the greatest good for the greatest number of people?

I think the virtue of 'rights' is that they don't require that the greatest number of people benefit.

It makes sense that you shouldn't go around killing people for no reason. An individual who could be a victim of such things has as much to benefit by staying live as the 'greatest number' of people by not living in fear of someone running around killing people.

So, I think one of the virtues of some of the basic rights is that they trenscend the 'individual vs. collective' categorization.

[Jacobus]

I used to think rights were as natural and provable as the laws of economics that arise from the axioms of human action.

After many hours of thought, discussion, and a couple of half-baked "derivations" of natural rights (see, e.g., http://www.strike-the-root.com/3/halbrooks/halbrooks2.html), I concluded I was wrong.  Rights cannot be proven.

But even if we concede that rights are not absolute, provable laws of ethics, that does not mean we need discard them altogether.  For example, I can look at a work of art and believe it is "great" and yet recognize that there is no way to prove this greatness to others.  I can look upon the world and see "beauty" without any way to prove its absolute existence.

And so with rights.  Discussing rights is one way to communicate about what we believe is ethical human action.  I can believe that certain acts and interventions are wrong and always will be wrong, yet also believe that this belief cannot be proven as law. 

[Lex]

I don't think there is anything particularly wrong with using the word 'rights' in our dialogue but it's important to understand that 'rights' mean different things to different people and are not inherent in our existance. Heck, some people believe that socialized medicine is a right and I think most of us here would disagree with that. And there are some people that may even say that self-defense isn't a right, etc.

I think rights are a more specific set of morals.

They are organic and depend on the society in which they are developed and utilized.

Rights are not absolute in any way.