So if "modern society" agrees that Jews and other undesirables should be enslaved and maybe gassed, then it's not wrong for those people to be enslaved and gassed?
That isn't an accurate statement. In the 1600s, science as we know it didn't exist yet. Newton invented Newtonian physics in the 1700s. Darwin didn't come along until the 1800s. The word Biology was coined in the 19th century. And alchemists were still trying to make gold out of lead through random trial and errors, back then; including Newton! Philosophical arguments are not science.
Murder is essentially defined as killing that is wrong. It’s more suitable in this context to ask when it would be just to kill another person. That raises all sorts of questions around self-defence, warfare, abortion, assisted suicide, end-of-life medicine, survival situations and the like. Are there definitive answers to all those questions above and beyond any kind of social structures?
I wasn't talking about self-defense or any of those other situations. I was talking about murder. When would it be just to murder another person?
Never, but that’s because murder is essentially defined as a killing which is unjust. The complication is that it’s defined that way within the context of society which is why which specific killings actually constitute murder vary significantly throughout history and around the world. This still doesn’t establish that the “right” not to be murdered is something fundamental that exists beyond our social structures.
Again, murder is unjust by definition. This isn’t about what I accept as murder. Like everyone else, my views are a product of my upbringing, with the society I grew up in playing a major role. What you’re asking for are examples of social structures different to the our own where a killing that would be considered murder by us would not be by people living in those other environments; For long periods in the past, monarchs, emperors and the like could order the execution of pretty much anyone they wanted and nobody could countermand them even if they wanted to. If any of our leaders ordered someone killed on a whim, it would be unquestionably murder. I was also reading today about Hindu mobs in India attacking and sometimes killing people believed to have slaughtered cows (which are considered sacred to them). Though that’s technically illegal under Indian law, they’re nominally supported by the ruling party and there is extensive social support for the idea that the victims “got what they deserved”. Even without our own societies we can get situations where, say, a child molester or gangster is murdered by one of their victims or family members. Much like the Indian example, that’s still illegal but it’s not unknown for such killing to be celebrated by large proportions of the population and for authority figures to look the other way. I’m personally conflicted on the question of whether this kind of killing should be considered “just” or not, a question with a whole range of moral, practical and legal aspects. My question remains how can there be some fundamental and definitive moral principle given some extensive variations in practice? More to the point, if there was this external moral concept, how could we know?
We know it through the use of reason and human nature. Everyone knows that it would be unjust for someone to kill you. And since it would unjust for someone to do it to you, it's also unjust for you to do it someone else.
I'm not joking. We don't tend to go backwards regarding rights. We always trend toward expansion of rights.
I've just given some clear examples where people didn't "know" and didn't believe, that killing certain people in certain situations was wrong or unjust, even though you and I would unconditionally condemn them. If there is some definitive overarching morality here, how do we know which of us (if any) are following it correctly?
So justice, rights, and morality? All of these things are, in fact, defined by the society you live in. It's justice, it's a right, and a moral obligation to persecute and murder gays in the middle east. It's not justice, nor a right, nor a moral obligation to persecute and murder gays in the west. If these were ordained rights, then all people everywhere would simply have them. To suppose otherwise is to call into question the power of the creators of any religion, nearly all of whom claim omnipotence, which would render the religious claim to morality useless anyway. Someone asked early in the thread if two people were on an island, would it be just for one to kill the other. The answer to that question is yes. There is no society to hold the one remaining man accountable for his actions, leaving him the sole inheritor of the island and the islands society. With that, he can change any rule he wants. Anyone quoting the constitution, the declaration, or any other text in this thread seems to be missing the point. Justice, Morality and Rights are all relative to wherever you are in the world. The only "law" that supercedes any of it are the "Jungle Laws" ie) "Survival of the Fittest"
Thus, you disagree with the concept of "human rights" and wince when people discuss violations of same Correct?
You are confused. Primates and cows are not different species they are in different orders. And yes, Primates > Artiodactyla. I'll think I'll have a double cheeseburger for lunch in fact.
Not necessarily. I believe everything is relative, and rights issues are relative from the standpoint where they're being discussed. In the example I used, do I believe that persecuting gays is Right, Moral, or Just? No, but I also argue that from a standpoint of a western nation. Do I believe that the Middle East believes it to be a Right? Yes. Edit: Clarifying - Middle Eastern society deems it as acceptable, and therefor, it is, from their perspective, and they can justly do so. Until the perception of the society changes, either by evolution or by force, then it will remain acceptable to throw gays off of the roof of a building. "Human Rights" is a difficult subject to discuss because that opinion changes so dramatically from person to person. Take something else that's in the news recently, "Trumpcare" v "Obamacare" v Single Payer v For Profit Insurance. You see a huge disparity in what human rights are when it comes to medical care, almost everyone has a different opinion on this subject, especially when it comes to what should and should not be covered by taxpayer funds.
A "right" is an inherent concept, the ability to pursue something, not something that is afforded with the sweat of someone else's labor or money. It's really not complicated as the left would have it.
The left deliberately complicates the concept in that it wants things it likes to hold the status if a "right", while denying that status to things it does not. The only way it can do this is make up any number of artificial terms, conditions and concepts that muddle the simplicity of the idea.
