Do you have any rights?

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by Maximatic, Nov 19, 2016.

  1. Maximatic

    Maximatic Well-Known Member

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    A Method by which to Discern Natural Rights

    I, for one, have first order experience of things that should not be done to other people. Torturing babies, for example, or pushing an old woman out of line so I can take her place. To one degree or another I revolt at the thought of such things. When I ask other people about it, practically all of them describe the same experience. The only ones who don't seem to be the psychopaths, but they have known, identifiable, physical defects. What are we supposed to make of this?

    There's no need, or way, to argue to first order experience. The knowledge that practically everyone else shares the experience can only be used inductively, but its ubiquity among humans seems to make for a pretty strong premise. It seems perfectly appropriate to
    call this condition natural, and its object, from the perspective of the observer, entails that all others are entitled to not have some things done to them and that anyone who does has committed some kind of trespass.

    Those, taken together, seem to put the burden of proof on the detractor to dissuade us of the validity of this experience.


    The exercise starts from a first-person perspective. The first question to be answered is about the observer's perception of acts taken against other people. If the act is perceived as wrong, what is being perceived is a moral prohibition. The right can be discerned when the observer asks "Why do I see that act as wrong? Would I see the same act that way if it were taken against a rock or piece of paper?". When the observer sees that the answer is "no", he or she must conclude that there is something about the person that modifies the act so as to evoke aversion to it. That aversion is the only first order experience the observer has, and it is to an act. At this point, the observer has perceived what can be qualified as a law, that which stands against an act. From that, the observer can deduce something that can be qualified as a right on the part of the other person, as the explanation for the law.

    So, logically, it's: act T law ⊨ right (that the act is wrong and that the law exists are tautological, and they necessarily entail the right (the right is logically prior to the law)) ⊨ (which entails that) ¬right → ¬law (if not right then not law)

    The way we come to know that is by perceiving the act as wrong, which is the law from our perspective, and then deducing the right as its explanation.

    At this point, we still don't have anything we can call natural law or natural rights in the sense that they are natural to mankind. To get that, we have to go through the exercise of comparing our experience to that of others. Notice that I posited two ways we can do
    that. One is to survey other people to see where their experience conforms to ours, in search of common threads. The other is to look for common threads in written law across cultures and throughout history, assuming that written law reflects the moral sensibilities of
    peoples to some extent. Once we do that, the common threads we find can shed some light on natural law which, as we now know, betrays the presumption of natural rights.

    Since presumption of a "top-down" cause for the ubiquity of a phenomenon among cultures across such distances in time and space as all of history would be completely unwarranted, we're only left with an emergent(natural) cause as the explanation.

    If there is any moral supposition whatsoever that can be identified across cultures and throughout history, however minute, we can call that "natural law". There must be something to which we can attribute the consistency of human laws, insofar as they are consistent,
    and the consistency of our respective moral experiences, insofar as they are consistent. Whatever these consistencies, however minute, we can call them "natural law". Recognition of natural law presupposes existence of natural rights.

    Recognition of law against murder as just entails the presumption of a right to life. If we find law against murder in every legal code we examine, we can safely conclude that recognition of a right to life is somehow part of human nature. Recognition of law against
    theft as just entails the presumption of property rights in external objects. If we find law against theft in every legal code we examine, we can safely conclude that recognition of property rights is somehow part of human nature.


    I see this method as the strongest proof of natural rights for two reasons. One; it does not rely one the untenable(or, at least, very difficult to defend) appeal to objective morality or moral law. Two; since it establishes “oughts”, as it were, as a first principles, or axioms, it is unaffected by David Hume's “is-ought gap”, as it is referred to, which shows(successfully, I think) that we cannot logically derive an ought, as a moral obligation or prohibition, from any brute fact.


    One might object that morality varies among people and cultures, which is obviously true to an extent. It's also true, though, that there are common threads which can be found in all the testimony we gather and in our own respective experiences. Looking for similarities, we obviously don't start with the more obscure areas such as what punishment is appropriate to a particular crime. We start with more general and fundamental questions like whether a right to life is recognized or whether property rights of any kind are recognized. If any laws or legal principles can be found recognized in all written accounts of legal structures, we have the necessary core of what any natural law theorist means by "natural law".

    Other objections from positivists who would rather not entertain the idea of natural law are, one; that we would have to account for the origin of empathy and moral sensibilities before we can call it "natural", and the other, though I never seem to get much of a tenable defense of this one, even from Hobbes himself, is the assertion that all law is established by force and force alone.

    We don't need to account for the origin of a thing before we can rationally maintain that it exists. I don't know where the Sun came from, yet there it is. Yeah, we know something about its ontology and nature now, but did it not exist before coherent theories of gravity and nuclear fusion? The Sun, though, is a physical object and people arguing against a thing don't like to accept imperfect analogies, so what about language? Can anyone give a more complete account of language than of our moral sensibilities? What about its location, where is language? Does it not exist? When we use abstractions such as words and letters to move abstractions such as thoughts from one mind to another in an effort to communicate, expecting to be understood, are we all appealing to and employing that which does not exist? Is that what we're doing when we make law?

    What gives a constitution its legal weight? How is it justified in the minds of the governed? If brute force were enough, if people did not share a common morality and sense of justice, they would not include language like this:

    "We the People... in Order to... establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty..."

    They would just say "This is the way it's gonna be whether you like it or not. Anyone caught violating these edicts will be severely punished."

    No majority has ever submitted to being governed by a tiny minority(the governing body) merely because they are afraid of it. They submit because they believe it to be the right thing to do. Those attempting to establish a government avoid the latter kind of language because they know it would not work. They appeal to the principles they do(justice, peace, safety, liberty...) because they correctly assume that people share a common sense of morality and justice. That common sense of morality and justice is natural law and entails the existence and validity of natural rights.

    We're in the same situation with respect to natural rights as we are with respect to language. Both are abstract. Both are part of our personal experience. We employ both of them in our daily lives. Without either one, it would be very difficult for us to coexist.


    Another objection goes something like this:

    “ Most people have moral capacity. However a capacity for something doesn't necessarily denote an interest or even an opportunity to develop that capacity. Most people also have a capacity to learn how to read, but not all people can read. Morality is the result of combining reason with empathy in a behavioral/sociological context. It can also be rather subjective and situation specific. It's popularly accepted that theft is immoral, however, there is a hierarchy in moral precepts. If A has so much food that some of it is spoiling, but refuses to give any away and B has a child that is slowly starving to death, is it immoral for B to steal some food from A to save the life of the starving child?

    Another example - if a woman is literally a prisoner in her own home under the domination of a sadistic spouse who regularly beats her and threatens to kill her and she cannot get away, nor has she the ability to defend herself, because she is far smaller and weaker than the spouse. Let's also suppose that she has sustained so many injuries in the course of this relationship that she knows that the next violent episode will likely kill her. If she takes a blunt object and caves in his head while he is sleeping, is she a murderer? “

    References to morality as subjective fall away as an objection when we simply point out the method offered by which natural law can be discerned does not propose or require any kind of objectivity as a property of moral experience. On the contrary; we appeal to it as a subjective experience per se.

    The concept of justification turns out to be evidence for natural law when we point out that it doesn't even make sense outside of the context of an act that we find inherently immoral. Imagine using it for a woman's giving half her income to feed hungry children: "Yeah, she gives half of her paycheck every week to feed starving children in Africa, but we shouldn't fault her for that because..." The last clause is nonsense. But, what about the woman who kills her spouse to prevent him from killing her? Would you hold her accountable for murder? I wouldn't. I think it's fairly obvious that her act was justified, which only makes sense if killing is inherently immoral. A legal positivist judge parsing legislation probably wouldn't rule that way, but that just impugns the efficacy of positive law. "Don't take the law into your own hands" is the old refrain of the state, but there's nothing necessarily immoral about it.

    The case of A and B is not so clear cut because it doesn't say that A is responsible for the condition of B's child or that B has no other way to get food. I'm not sure how I'd rule. Assuming no on the first and yes on the second, if ruling in favor of B would set a precedent I don't like, I might find for A and pull the amount of the judgment out of my wallet, hand it to A and say "Here, (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*), Write the receipt to B.". This is in the context of an emergent legal system, of course. Positivist legal systems, where the state is the plaintiff, don't tend to afford such flexibility.

    Pointing to cases where justice can be difficult to determine does nothing to impugn justice itself. Given that justification only makes sense with respect to immoral acts, pointing to cases where it is difficult to determine whether there has been an unjustifiable killing or taking does more to confirm the immoral nature of murder and theft than to call it into question.

    So this helps the case for natural law by showing us a way(when they talk in terms of justification) in which people betray their moral presuppositions.


    This next one is probably the worst objection I've ever encountered to any argument for natural law or natural rights. I only address it because it is raised so frequently. It goes something like this:

    “The only thing that makes rights "real" is when a group of people agree to abide by the moral principles they represent, and protect each other from those who do not.”

    This one amounts to nothing more than the conflation of two concepts that the objector would not fail to recognize as obviously distinct in any other context, namely, law and law-enforcement. The same objector would never even dream of trying to maintain that, since some people commit murder, there is no positive law against murder. Since “right” would have to be synonymous with “protection” and “law” would have to be synonymous with “enforcement” for this objection to fly, nothing else needs to be said about it.
     
  2. Thehumankind

    Thehumankind Well-Known Member

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    I have a right and others do as well,
    I have a need and they also do have a need,
    so my right ends when the rights of others begins and that's how the law should work.
     
  3. Crcata

    Crcata Banned

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    well said.
     
  4. ChristopherABrown

    ChristopherABrown Well-Known Member

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    Recognized common interest in the potential and consistency of civil society, peace and prosperity dictate standards that reduce or remove offense, conflict disruption etc. They are instincts, phylogentic DNA.

    "Your rights are who you are, your rights are what you are, your rights are in your DNA - and the government can, quite frankly, get over it." - Sen. Rand Paul, MD
     
  5. Maximatic

    Maximatic Well-Known Member

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    If only it really worked that way. In reality, government tramples our rights as a matter of course leaving us to get over it.
     
  6. Deckel

    Deckel Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    and wrong, but as long as it sounds good, it must be true.
     
  7. Maximatic

    Maximatic Well-Known Member

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    So show that it's wrong.
     
  8. Deckel

    Deckel Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You already did. the government couldn't "trample" your rights if your rights existed. It is all and only about power and Uncle Sam outguns you. When Uncle Sam decides you are going to squeal like a pig, then oinking you will be doing.
     
  9. juanvaldez

    juanvaldez Banned

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    Somebody post up the Cliff Notes version.
     
  10. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Ironically some corporations are trying to copyright some of your dna, making it a crime for you to look at it without paying them
     
  11. Maximatic

    Maximatic Well-Known Member

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    I'll just paste from the OP, which you obviously didn't read.

    "
    This next one is probably the worst objection I've ever encountered to any argument for natural law or natural rights. I only address it because it is raised so frequently. It goes something like this:

    “The only thing that makes rights "real" is when a group of people agree to abide by the moral principles they represent, and protect each other from those who do not.”

    This one amounts to nothing more than the conflation of two concepts that the objector would not fail to recognize as obviously distinct in any other context, namely, law and law-enforcement. The same objector would never even dream of trying to maintain that, since some people commit murder, there is no positive law against murder. Since “right” would have to be synonymous with “protection” and “law” would have to be synonymous with “enforcement” for this objection to fly, nothing else needs to be said about it.
    "
     
  12. Crcata

    Crcata Banned

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    Negative. You are wrong. But as long as you feel good then why not?
     
  13. Maximatic

    Maximatic Well-Known Member

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    Reading half of it should be enough to get the idea. It's not really that long.
     
  14. ChristopherABrown

    ChristopherABrown Well-Known Member

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    As long as we do not fundamentally organize for use of our rights, that is how it will be.

    "The people have to DO something." In order to control government with the right to alter or abolish. We use the 9th amendment to agree upon definition of rights not enumerated and demand state legislators use Article V under law while we prepare to be "the rightful masters of the congress and the courts."

    Ending the abridging of the the PURPOSE of free speech is the most fundamental and functional thing we can do. Here is what state citizens NEED to use for unity in order to control their state legislators with law.

    As a Citizen of a state of the united states for America, do you
    understand, agree and accept then DECLARE it is constitutional intent
    that the framers of the founding documents intended for us to alter or
    abolish government destructive to the ideal of our unalienable rights?

    As a Citizen of a state of the united states for America, do you
    understand, agree, accept then DECLARE it is constitutional intent
    that the ultimate purpose of free speech be to enable the unity
    adequate to effectively alter or abolish government destructive to the ideal of our
    unalienable rights?


    But Americans are kinda' sheepish.
     
  15. Deckel

    Deckel Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Not at all am I wrong, but hey, if I were, those Innocence Project folks would have to go back to working full time for their Wall Street clients instead of having feel good sabbaticals.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Nice of you to paste something that doesn't address what I said. Power has nothing to do with agreements. It is the antithesis of agreement.
     
  16. Thehumankind

    Thehumankind Well-Known Member

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    Thanks,
    I wish I am eloquent enough to widen it further.
     
  17. Maximatic

    Maximatic Well-Known Member

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    You're on the sidelines, heckling. You're free to do that, but you're not in the debate until you make an argument.
     
  18. Maximatic

    Maximatic Well-Known Member

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    It addresses exactly what you said. Your claim in post #8 entails the assumption that "right" is synonymous with "protection", which is an equivocation and obviously false.
     
  19. Maximatic

    Maximatic Well-Known Member

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    I admire your zeal. I'm just no longer interested in trying to save the elusive baby in the bathwater of the state. To show that a people are capable of uniting to control their government would be to show that they don't need it.
     
  20. Thehumankind

    Thehumankind Well-Known Member

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    All of us do have the right to exist and in one way or another similar, so understanding individual rights is somehow universal for each and everyone. The only thing impeding sometimes is when greed and the sense of being supreme comes into the picture accosting self importance above others. It's still rampant nowadays like the upper and lower caste in India, gender inequality of some countries, etc. Tradition sometimes dictates what should be the norm to follow or else what was intrinsic, But with exposures internationally nowadays a change of the status quo was on the onset for a comparison is there to be discerned and based upon with personal situation. It's all about information that as a human being in terms if right we are all equal and each and everyone do have a due right to avail. Laws were made to regulate and bring forth order but in order for the law to be fair is that within the confines of it's peripherals no one should be above the other. We need to keep the law evolving and improving to protect what should we have and to practice as a free human beings.
     
  21. Crcata

    Crcata Banned

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    You are objectively wrong. But whatver makes you feel good.
     
  22. Belch

    Belch Well-Known Member

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    Natural rights are quite easy to figure out. They are things a person can do alone. Whatever a person can do where nobody else is being affected is a natural right. It's when we introduce another person that the idea of social rules come into play.

    * don't pee in my soup
    * don't steal my stuff
    * don't assault me against my will

    These are things that we as social animals have universalized. No matter where you go, these ideas of property rights and the right to life are found in some manner or another. The only problem is that they don't apply to people not of our tribe

    If you're not in my tribe, there are no laws and you have no rights.
     
  23. Hotdogr

    Hotdogr Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The only peaceful means The People have to regain control over a government abusive to their rights is at the ballot box. Trump is the result of exactly that process, for better or for worse.
     
  24. Maximatic

    Maximatic Well-Known Member

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    People do tend to fear the unknown, but not everyone is a tribalist or sees the world from that perspective. Empathy, experienced by 99% of people, extends to any person, not just those within one's tribe. Stimuli for studies like this one are not limited to members of the subjects' tribe(however that would be defined).

    While tribalism, much like statism, can be a way to drum people up for war, most people just don't like to be at war, especially with an entire outside world, and especially when they, themselves, must participate. Since inter-tribal war is more personal than inter-state/inter-nation war, inter-tribal war is much less common.

    Also, inter-group communication and trade drastically reduce the likelihood of war between groups. But then, tribalism and statism do not exhaust the possibilities of societal arrangements.
     
  25. Maximatic

    Maximatic Well-Known Member

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    Punching a ballot for one from a handful of candidates to hold executive office is hardly "control". Propagandists have more control over the outcome of elections than voters or candidates.
     

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