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

[John Edward Mercier]

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.

Self-defense (preservation) is inherent. So would exist without the State (government).

[Lex]

Self-defense (preservation) is inherent. So would exist without the State (government).

But is it a right?

[Eli]

Do you mean "Is there a moral rule that one has the right to defend oneself?"  Good question.  what is a right?


I take issue with the idea that a right is socially dependent.  That kind of postmodern social relativism leads to collectivism every time IMO.  Culture is no more real than government or the state (though I'll admit that 'right' may be the same kind of abstraction.)

[John Edward Mercier]

Actually a 'right' is a mental construct, that becomes a social construct in the presence of State (authoritative unit).

[JJ]

After some thought my opinion is as such...

Is it a right if you must rely on some one else to give it to you or ensure that you do not have it taken away? 

Existence is simple in nature as a design of such scope must be.  You have only what you bring with you; your mind and your spirit or what ever monikers/variation thereof you wish to use.  You can make your own decisions and reap the consequences.  Even freewill can be subverted through sinister and clandestine means. 

Your life, liberty and prosperity are all fragile and can be broken by anyone with the will and strength to do so.

A group of individuals recognized this and in an effort to uphold and preserve - life, liberty and prosperity - created a document that would become law.  This Constitution (the system of fundamental principles according to which a nation, state, corporation, or the like, is governed) set forth a rule made by man and enforced by man that declared life, liberty and prosperity to be sacred facets of a civilized and free existence to be shared equally with all who would fall under the governance of this document.  In tandem an idea was created that duplicated the above declaration and this idea was propagated to be understood by all who could understand it.

Rights are relevant only to those who made the decision to accept them and those who made the decision to enforce them. 

[Russell Kanning]

I just can't see how I have "rights" .... the way most people think of "rights".
Do I really have the right to life, liberty and property?
Who will guarantee them? How can I be sure of them?
I can see how it is wrong for someone else to take them from me ... but it happens anyways.
God hasn't promise them to me. Governments talk about them.
When I stay focused on the idea that nothing is owed me ... or that I have certain rights ... then I can be satisfied with reality.

[Nikiya]

I just can't see how I have "rights" .... the way most people think of "rights".
Do I really have the right to life, liberty and property?
Who will guarantee them? How can I be sure of them?
I can see how it is wrong for someone else to take them from me ... but it happens anyways.
God hasn't promise them to me. Governments talk about them.
When I stay focused on the idea that nothing is owed me ... or that I have certain rights ... then I can be satisfied with reality.

With all that reality is, I am not so sure satisfied would be the correct term.  Reality is poverty around the world, murder, rape, theft.  Reality is also sex on a Monday morning, raises, children.  Reality has many positives and negatives, but I don't think I could ever be satisfied with reality.  Not to mention that reality just is whether I am satisfied with it or not.

[Lex]

With all that reality is, I am not so sure satisfied would be the correct term.  Reality is poverty around the world, murder, rape, theft.  Reality is also sex on a Monday morning, raises, children.  Reality has many positives and negatives, but I don't think I could ever be satisfied with reality.  Not to mention that reality just is whether I am satisfied with it or not.

So... what are you saying?

[MaineShark]

Okay, I said I'd respond once Russell did.

There are rights, but not the usual nonsense.

You have the right to be free of initiated force.  That's it.  All other rights are derivatives of that one.  There are myriad rights, because of the sheer number of things you can do, which do not initiate force against anyone.  For every thing meeting that rule, you have a right to do that thing.  You have an inalienable right to stab yourself in the foot with an icepick while singing "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and smoking a pipe filled with shavings from old tires.  Why?  Because you aren't hurting anyone else by doing it.  You do not have the right to do that in my kitchen, because your bloody foot and that burning-rubber-smoke will damage my property.  Do it in your own kitchen.

Absolutely anything you can think of, which does not involve initiating force against others, you have the right to do.

Joe

[Lex]

What is a right, but more specifically what makes a right inalienable? What if you wanted to stab yourself in the foot with an ice pick but someone had tied you to a tree with your hands behind your back where you could no longer do this, wouldn't this mean that your right has been alienated?

[MaineShark]

What is a right, but more specifically what makes a right inalienable? What if you wanted to stab yourself in the foot with an ice pick but someone had tied you to a tree with your hands behind your back where you could no longer do this, wouldn't this mean that your right has been alienated?

If would mean that your rights had been violated.  You still have them, but are forcibly prevented from exercising them.  If your rights no longer existed, by the simple method of interfering with them, there would be nothing wrong with that interference, because none of your rights would be violated.

Joe

[Lex]

Just wondering what you're thoughts would be on this one: If you have a 2 month old baby and it depends on you for survival, would it still be your right to embed ice picks into your flesh?

[Faber]

Another way of asking, "What are my rights?" is to ask, "What are other people morally obligated to do?"  All that "rights" talk is is just an expression of what people should and should not do.  If someone claims to have a right to medical care, they're saying that other people are morally obligated to provide them medical care.  If someone claims a right to not be aggressed against, then other people are morally obligated to not aggress against you.  The corollary to that is that force may morally be used to assert your rights.  For someone claiming a right to healthcare, that might involve taxation or enslavement of doctors.  For someone claiming a right to not be aggressed against, that includes self-defense or hiring a body guard to defend you.

Rights language is the language of morality.

[Lex]

That's a great explanation Faber. I agree.

[Eli]

Faber beat me to it.  I think rights are a moral framework.  They exist only as ideas but they are derived teleologically.  I am a person who is an end in himself (so is everyone) and because of that we have rights.  I haven't read "Universally Preferred Behaviour"  but this is what it makes me think of.  If each person is an end in themselves, then that reality means that a certain set of moral principles (rights) governs right behaviour.  Those principles are expressed most succinctly by ZAP, but before it was clearly formulated were generally laid out as rights.  I think the Bill of rights is a pretty good early formulation, the 10 commandments a less good earlier formulation with sexism and some other things thrown in.  Between the two were alot of attempts to peg what the rights of people are.  Eventually I hope ZAP helps build a body of moral philosophy that sets people up as ends in themselves.  My question, for libertarians, anarchists, and Kant, is does the fact that people are ends in themselves create positive obligations, like with your infant.  Or mine.  I feel obligated to my children, but I feel like I chose that obligation.  Worked hard to get it   So it is a chosen positive obligation.  So with the ice pick example,  I would be obligated morally not to do away with myself, but I chose to accept that obligation.  In my case way back before conception of Molly and  Micah.   

I think generally my rights aren't what people are obligated to do but what they are obligated not to do, morally.  Negative obligations.