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Author | Topic: radical liberals (aka liberal commies) vs ultra conservatives (aka nutjobs) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Taq Member Posts: 10085 Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
The evidence is that even in the US the State has the right to take away someone's life or liberty. They have the ability to, yes. A government could even have laws that state they have the right to. However, they would still be violating human rights. You are once again confusing an is with an ought. It is an important distinction.
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
I never doubted you were drawing from others. In fact these very same questions were heated discussion on the porch on warm evening back when I was in about the 9th grade.
But reality seldom pays much attention to philosophy except through building a consensus in a particular society.Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Taq Member Posts: 10085 Joined: Member Rating: 5.1
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That african slave from 1000 years ago? yeah, he had all the rights a modern day american has, he was just chained up starving in the desert... but he still had his rights! He did. Others violated those rights. Along with jar, you are confusing an is with an ought. Again, human rights are not a list of things that humans are physically incapabe of doing. Natural rights can be violated. No one is disagreeing with this.
And by "being there", you mean that you pretend that they are there. As much as we pretend that reason and morality exist.
That's oddly religious... No, it is reason and morality, two things often missing from religion.
These rights seem to stem from rationalism or, fuck it, pull out the big card: they were just endowed by our Creator! In the deist or pantheist sense, yes. In this school of thought, the Creator can be nature and the argument is unaffected. Natural rights are not derived from infallible proclamations of a supernatural deity. They are derived from reason and empathy.
Euthyphro's Dilemma is a good example of what I am talking about. Socrates once asked, "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?". IOW, is morality separate from the supernatural? Is morality something we have access to independently of the supernatural? I would argue that we judge for ourselves whether the commandments of a god are moral or not. Morality is not obedience.
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Taq Member Posts: 10085 Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
But reality seldom pays much attention to philosophy except through building a consensus in a particular society. Hence the Is/Ought problem. Playing the Godwin card . . . many Nazi officers used what is now famously called the Nuremburg defense ("I was just following orders"). This was not accepted as an excuse for violating human rights. Just because you are allowed to do something, or in fact ORDERED to do something, does not acquit you of acting morally.
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined:
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Again, they were found guilty based on what the victors believed and under the rights endowed by the victors system.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Straggler Member (Idle past 95 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined:
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I like the idea that there could be a "universal" set of human rights that we might all be able to agree to but I'm not sure how "universal" they really are.
Aren't such things highly subject to cultural world views and thus not really "universal" at all? How do we decide what these rights are? How do we decide who or what these rights apply to? It seems that these things change according to time and place. Can we really identify a set of rights that transcend such temporal considerations? If so - What are these timeless rights which are independent of culture?
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Taq Member Posts: 10085 Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Again, they were found guilty based on what the victors believed and under the rights endowed by the victors system.
They were guilty of violating human rights regardless of any court.
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Taq Member Posts: 10085 Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Aren't such things highly subject to cultural world views and thus not really "universal" at all? How do we decide what these rights are? How do we decide who or what these rights apply to? That has been the topic of philosophy for quite some time now. Locke proposed three basic rights: life, liberty, and estate (property). Natural rights have been debated for centuries, and no complete and final list has been produced. Codifying morality has always been problematic.
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Really. Had Germany won would they even have been charged?
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Straggler Member (Idle past 95 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
So you think that there are a set of inalienable, incontrovertible, timeless and culture-independent rights out there waiting to be discovered - But that no-one yet knows what these are.......?
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Taq Member Posts: 10085 Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Really. Had Germany won would they even have been charged? That has nothing to do with whether or not they were guilty of violating human rights. A government ought not violate human rights. The Nazis did. They are guilty of violating human rights. Whether or not someone is punished has nothing to do with whether or not they violated those rights. Again, the Is/Ought problem.
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined:
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You may think they "ought not" or "ought", but what does that have to do with reality? Other groups may and do hold other beliefs.
Rights only exist within the consensus of a state, culture, community. You are free to argue for what you believe should be "human rights" but it is only through building consensus or through force that you can impose those rights.Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Straggler Member (Idle past 95 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
I think The Golden Rule is about as close as there is to an objective reasoned moral position.
But to codify even this (if it is even accepted) into a set of rights would seem to be largely a cultural endeavour.
jar writes: Rights only exist within the consensus of a state, culture, community. I think I agree. I'm not sure how it could be otherwise in any practical sense.
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Huntard Member (Idle past 2325 days) Posts: 2870 From: Limburg, The Netherlands Joined: |
Straggler writes:
I think this can largely be mirrored by the "are we living in the matrix" thing. I think I agree. I'm not sure how it could be otherwise in any practical sense. Factually, it might be correct to say that we live in the matrix, yet, practically, this is completely irrelevant. As long as no one is aware of this, the matrix is our reality So, factually, it might be correct to say that some rights are unalienable. but practically that is completely irrelevant. As long as people violate those rights, it doesn't matter whether you have them or not.
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Straggler Member (Idle past 95 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Huntard writes: I think this can largely be mirrored by the "are we living in the matrix" thing. Neo: "I know my rights. I want my phone call." Agent Smith: "Tell me, Mr. Anderson, what good is a phone call if you are unable to speak?"
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