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Author | Topic: radical liberals (aka liberal commies) vs ultra conservatives (aka nutjobs) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Taq Member Posts: 10085 Joined: Member Rating: 5.6 |
You may think they "ought not" or "ought", but what does that have to do with reality? It has to do with how we shape human society, how we make the oughts become a reality. The "oughts" are the goal of the social contract.
Rights only exist within the consensus of a state, culture, community. Legal rights, yes. Natural rights, no. You are born with natural rights, and no government can grant or revoke those rights.
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. You don't impose human rights. You already have them. What we can do is construct a government that punishes those that violates those rights. The imposition is the justice system.
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
You keep claiming that "You are born with natural rights, and no government can grant or revoke those rights" yet governments, societies, cultures, communities, religions, clubs, individuals do grant and revoke rights.
You may think they are goals or ideals that "ought to be recognized" but you have not shown any evidence that "human rights" or "natural rights" even exist outside of the consensus of a government, society or culture.Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Taq writes: The "oughts" are the goal of the social contract. But this will vary from society to society.
Taq writes: You are born with natural rights, and no government can grant or revoke those rights. If we don't know what these "natural rights" are I am not sure how we can possibly know whether we have them or not.
Taq writes: You don't impose human rights. You already have them. In what sense can I possess such rights if nobody knows what they are? And what makes "human rights" so inalienable? Do gorillas have inalienable rights too? Do intelligent aliens? I'm still sympathetic to the idea of constructing a set of rights that can be reasoned and implemented on a large scale based on broad consensus with that reasoning. I'd even be happy to call these "universal" rights. But the idea that humans specifically have some sort of special claim to rights that are independent of human society seems like a rather arbitrary assertion on your part.
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Taq Member Posts: 10085 Joined: Member Rating: 5.6 |
You keep claiming that "You are born with natural rights, and no government can grant or revoke those rights" yet governments, societies, cultures, communities, religions, clubs, individuals do grant and revoke rights. They grant and revoke legal rights, not natural rights. Legal rights are the "is", and natural rights are the "ought". Oughts are not derived from the Is.
You may think they are goals or ideals that "ought to be recognized" but you have not shown any evidence that "human rights" or "natural rights" even exist outside of the consensus of a government, society or culture. Natural rights exist as much as reason and empathy exist. Both reason and empathy are abstract concepts as are natural rights. I can no more show evidence of natural rights than I can show evidence of reason or logic. What I can show is the reasoning behind natural rights which deals with fairness and empathy. The Golden Rule was mentioned before, and that is a good approximation.
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Taq Member Posts: 10085 Joined: Member Rating: 5.6 |
But this will vary from society to society. Of course. So will morality.
If we don't know what these "natural rights" are I am not sure how we can possibly know whether we have them or not. We all have a sense of fairness and empathy (at least normal people do). Using a childhood example, you will often hear kids yell "But that's not FAIR!!!". What is the response? "Life isn't fair, kid". We all have a sense of fairness, and we realize that the reality of life often falls short of that ideal. Like morality, natural rights are somewhat vague and difficult to nail down in specific cases, but the fundamental reasoning is still there. We don't want our lives taken from us. We don't want our stuff stolen from us. We want to live our lives how we see fit as long as it doesn't break the first two rules. It is simple to say, but it is very difficult to put into practice.
But the idea that humans specifically have some sort of special claim to rights that are independent of human society seems like a rather arbitrary assertion on your part. Are fairness and empathy arbitrary? I don't think so, but perhaps you do.
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Yet the governmental entity that was the Nuremberg Tribunal revoked the rights of life and liberty from those tried and found guilty.
I can see evidence that the capability to reason exists and the capability to feel empathy exists, but no evidence that either reason or empathy exist. You now change the topic to fairness, again, something that does not exist except within the context of a particular government, society and culture. Oughts, by definition, do not exist. They are an abstract development of a State, culture or 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: 5.6 |
Yet the governmental entity that was the Nuremberg Tribunal revoked the rights of life and liberty from those tried and found guilty. Justice is built into human rights. If you violate the human rights of others then you can be punished.
I can see evidence that the capability to reason exists and the capability to feel empathy exists, but no evidence that either reason or empathy exist. I fail to see how this distinction is relevant in any way. Yes, there are such things as abstract concepts. I am not arguing otherwise. I am also arguing that these abstract concepts are important for how we construct political systems and how we interact with each other.
You now change the topic to fairness, again, something that does not exist except within the context of a particular government, society and culture. I see fairness as the same topic. Someone who is enslaved is being treated unfairly. Someone who is discriminated against because of their skin color is being treated unfairly. Someone who has their stuff stolen is being treated unfairly. Also, any discussion of natural or legal rights necessarily involves human societies. A single person living on an isolated island who never comes into contact with another soul doesn't have to worry about rights. I thought it was a given that we were talking about human societies.
Oughts, by definition, do not exist. They are an abstract development of a State, culture or society. I 100% agree that Oughts are abstract concepts. What I am trying to convey is that Oughts are IMPORTANT.
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Oughts though depend on the belief system of a State, community, culture, group. There is nothing innate or universal or inalienable about "oughts".
"Oughts" do not exist.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: 5.6 |
Oughts though depend on the belief system of a State, community, culture, group. They depend on the beliefs that I don't want my life taken from me, I don't want my stuff stolen, and I don't want to spend the rest of my years in jail for no good reason. Those seem to be universal beliefs, and they are rights that we are born with.
"Oughts" do not exist. That doesn't stop them from being important for how we form human societies.
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
No one said that "oughts" are not important, only that "oughts" exist only within the framework of a State, society or culture.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member
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I think I got it right last time:
quote: And it doesn't make sense to call natural rights "unalienable" if they're just ought's... how can you loose something you never really had in the first place? Or wait... is that what it means? You can't lose natural rights because they don't really exist to loose in the first place? And how can you determine that there's an ought. If I think that the Mona Lisa ought to be smiling a little more, does that exist as something?
As much as we pretend that reason and morality exist. I think its even more pretend than those.
Natural rights are not derived from infallible proclamations of a supernatural deity. They are derived from reason and empathy. Okay, but every person has a different set of natural rights from every other person based on what they think you ought to have. I don't see how you can say those things exist independently.
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Probare Junior Member (Idle past 4397 days) Posts: 5 From: Farmington, Maine, United States Joined:
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That's religious people. They've hijacked conservatism. Fair enough. I've never seen well exemplified conservatism without a strong religious backing though, so I'd only find it fair to draw those conclusions.Flying is learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss. - Douglas Adams By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out. - Richard Dawkins
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
I tend to think that conservatives are too touchy about a lot of things which frankly aren't their business.
That's religious people. They've hijacked conservatism.
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Panda Member (Idle past 3743 days) Posts: 2688 From: UK Joined: |
Taq writes:
Well, if I bought some heroin for my kids from an undercover policeman, first they would take my cocaine from me (loss of property) and then they would imprison me (loss of liberty). Certain countries would then sentence me to death (loss of life). Locke proposed three basic rights: life, liberty, and estate (property) Would that government be prosecuted for breaching my inalienable human rights?Would the European Court of Human Rights demand I be released? Would Amnesty International even raise an eyebrow? Would even you object? Tradition and heritage are all dead people's baggage. Stop carrying it!
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Taq Member Posts: 10085 Joined: Member Rating: 5.6 |
Well, if I bought some heroin for my kids from an undercover policeman, first they would take my cocaine from me (loss of property) and then they would imprison me (loss of liberty). Certain countries would then sentence me to death (loss of life). Would that government be prosecuted for breaching my inalienable human rights? Would the European Court of Human Rights demand I be released? Would Amnesty International even raise an eyebrow? Would even you object? It has been determined that drug trafficking threatens the human rights of others, namely the increase in crime rates. This is why drug commerce is punished. As to the death penalty, many organizations do consider that to be a violation of human rights.
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